‘Writing fiction means imagining yourself into the shoes of your characters. In those deep places you find very personal stuff, confronting and meaningful and enlightening.’

‘Reading YA as a young person empowered me with the language to talk about things that I didn’t know how to talk about. I found a library of reference for my many emotions and experiences.’

‘Research has given me characters and their stories and if the synopsis is the bones of my novel, research helps me put flesh on those bones.’

‘Having a background in research helps me apply methods for gathering and assessing information necessary to ground my work and colour my stories with fascinating historical details.’

“It is events, people, eras and the stories hidden in them that move me to write.”

‘The short story form demands a respect for the limitations of time and space, and enables a focus on the particular, the intimate, and the fleeting.’

‘I tried to become immersed in the popular culture of the time – music, film, celebrities – to tap into what I imagined to be the psyche and to get a sense of ‘texture’ or zeitgeist.’

‘See What I Have Done is a marvellously written thriller and a chilling take on the infamous, unsolved Borden murders.’

Robert Fairhead reviews The Mechanic by Alan Gold.