Life and loves

Career high: Reading the email in which Hodder & Stoughton laid out how they it like to publish All The Hidden Truths. I was on a train at the time and cried messy, happy tears.

Career low: I had to break up with my first literary agent in early 2017, before All The Hidden Truths went on submission. It was very amicable and the right thing for me, but very scary. Favourite film: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.

Last book read: Break.up by Joanna Walsh.

Best trait: My drive to just “get it done”.

Worst trait: Unnecessary anxiety.

Best advice received: “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”. That’s my mother’s mantra.

Biggest influence: Books. Specifically, the novelist Jennifer Egan, above. I want to be her when I grow up! Favourite meal: I love a jam-and-cheese sandwich. Favourite holiday destination: British Columbia, Canada. Favourite music: As Nick Hornby says in High Fidelity, “In the club or at home? Tell you what, let me just make you a tape...”

Ideal dinner guests: Jennifer Egan and poets Allen Ginsberg and Mark Doty.

Then family: my ancestor, Anne Askew, because

I would love to tell her how much better things have got for women writers since 1546, thanks to women like her.

My maternal grandfather, who died a couple of years ago, and who lost his voice after a stroke when I was 16 – I’d love to talk with him again. And my little brother, Nick.