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I've always loved short stories. Even before I was a writer, I was reading short stories - there were certain writers where I just felt like they could do in a short story what so many writers needed a whole novel to do, and that was really inspiring to me.

It took me a long time to know enough about writing to really write short stories. You can't just immerse yourself, as you do in a novel, and see where everything goes. Novels are a very flexible, accommodating form. Short stories aren't.

Short stories are often strong meat. Reading them, even listening to them, can be challenging, by which I do not mean hard work, simply that a certain amount of nerve and maturity is required.

Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they're also a total joy.

For me, writing a short story is much, much harder than writing a novel.

I consider myself a writer. I don't favour any type of writing. I sometimes wish short stories came more easily to me.

I have some other novels I want to write. I have a lot of short stories - I love the short story.

I do think that short story writing is often a matter of luck.

Once I started writing novels, I understood how hard it was to write really good short stories.

I am also working on a couple of short stories for anthologies. This is new to me and I'm enjoying it.