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I began my writing career in a very isolated place and time.

After university, I got a job sub-editing and for years I was a literary editor.

I am not a pure fiction writer, nor am I an academic writer. Somehow I ended up in this blended area of literary journalism.

I've carved out a career for myself really as a writer.

I had just begun an M.A. in Creative Writing, and I had to write a novel, so I began writing a novel that later became 'A Life Apart.'

My essential identity is that of a writer.

I've been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.

I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.

I'm a writer; it's not just what I do, but who I am.

I was writing from the time I was 12 years old, but I originally wanted to be a novelist.