I've just finished my next collection Possible Side Effects and I'm now working on a collection of holiday stories as well as a memoir about my relationship with my father.

People write memoirs because they lack the imagination to make things up.

A lot of presidential memoirs they say are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

The great thing about being a print journalist is that you are permitted to duck. Cameramen get killed while the writers are flat on the floor. A war correspondent for the BBC dedicated his memoir to 50 fallen colleagues and I guarantee you they were all taking pictures. I am only alive because I am such a chicken.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done and leave out the bad ones you did do well that's Memoirs.

I have more freedom when I write fiction but my memoirs have had a much stronger impact on my readers. Somehow the 'message ' even if I am not even aware that there is one is conveyed better in this form.

My book 'Trust Your Heart' which is the story of my life will be followed by 'Singing Lessons' a memoir of love loss hope and healing which talks about the death of my son and the hope that has been the aftermath of the healing from that tragedy.

The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful often urgent and essentially life-affirming but they are all performances of courage and honesty.

I have written a memoir here and there and that takes its own form of selfishness and courage. However generally speaking I have no interest in writing about my own life or intruding in the privacy of those around me.

Listen in England people are already writing their memoirs at the age of 23.