As Writers Go, I Have A Skin

A Feminist Man Is A Bit Like A Vegetarian: It's The Humanitarian Principle He's Defending, I Suppose.

A Creative Writing Workshop Will Contain Students Whose Ambitions And Abilities, Whose Conceptions Of Literature Itself, Are So Diverse That What They Have In Common - The Desire To Write - Could Almost Be Considered Meaningless.

The Creativity Of Childhood Was Often Surrendered Amid Feelings Of Unworthiness. So The Idea That ­others Are Demanding To Be Given It Back - To Be "taught" - Is Disturbing.

I Was Aware, In Those Early Days Of Motherhood, That My Behaviour Was Strange To The People Who Knew Me Well. It Was As Though I Had Been Brainwashed, Taken Over By A Cult Religion. And Yet This Cult, Motherhood, Was Not A Place Where I Could Actually Live. Like Any Cult, It Demanded A Complete Surrender Of Identity To Belong To It.

The Anorexic Body Is Held In The Grip Of Will Alone; Its Meaning Is Far From Stable. What It Says - 'notice Me, Feed Me, Mother Me' - Is Not What It Means, For Such Attentions Constitute An Agonising Test Of That Will, And Also Threaten To Return The Body To The Dreaded 'normality' It Has Been Such Ecstasy To Escape.