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" I have ideas. I hear voices. Words accumulate. It's still an overriding impulse. And I'm self-employed, which means I have to be sensible and motivated about paying the bills. "

Sarah Hall

Bills

Ideas

Words

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" 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. "

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" When I moved back to Cumbria, one of the first things I did was locate a decent bookshop. "

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" You think back and you ask yourself why you became so interested in wolves. I think it was because when I was very small, growing up in a little hamlet near Shap, we would go to Lowther Wildlife Park for birthday parties. Now closed, it was only three miles from my parents' house. "

" It's taken me 15 years to feel I might be able to write and publish short stories, and for the assiduous checks of the industry to allow some through. "

Sarah Hall

Short

Years

" Swimming in the cold and the dark of British autumn is not for the faint-hearted. "

" I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power. "

" It's very interesting to me that the nationalist movement in Scotland has become so positive and self-reflective rather than anti-English. The referendum in 2014 was peaceful, for all its deeply and passionately divided people. "

Sarah Hall

Peaceful

Divided

" I was the feral, mud-bathing, tree-climbing variety of child. Why would I want to read about pirates when I could build a raft and terrorise sheep along the riverbanks? "

" I was brought up in Cumbria where I saw all these fierce agricultural women. "

Sarah Hall

Women

Saw

" Apex predators are good for an environment in terms of biodiversity and trophic cascade - we have very few. But realistically, only a few areas could sustain free-roaming wolves in Britain, mostly in Scotland. "

" One of the things I try to do with my writing is try to evoke the spirit of the place. I think these things imprint on the landscape and the culture. "