Sara Sheridan quotes:

I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 - a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I remember it, though - my mother excited at the dinner table because Britain had its first female prime minister.

My identity has always been confused. Born in Edinburgh of a Scottish/Russian/Jewish mother and an English/Irish/Catholic father, there is no form of guilt to which I was not subjected in my childhood. Members of my immediate family live all over the world - a diaspora of cousins, aunts, uncles and more in a dizzying mix.

We're all so digital, but the '50s was the era of watches you had to wind. When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest in 1953, Hillary was equipped with a Rolex Oyster Perpetual.

The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.

Research material can turn up anywhere - in a dusty old letter in an archive, a journal or some old photographs you find in a charity shop.

We don't live in a society that has genuine equality, and every woman we know has experienced that.

I'd never be where I am if more successful writers hadn't taken an interest in me and done me a good turn - be it chiming in with constructive criticism or giving me sound advice about my career plan.

Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrian's Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.

I hope that, whatever happens within the publishing industry, because of the increased control writers have of their own careers, better sales information and the advent of the internet, that ultimately this change in our working environment will be a change for the better.

I wanted to find something I could do at home. I sat down with a friend and made a list of all the things I could try, and one of them was writing a novel.

Writing is a profession that has no real career structure and your best advice when you hit a difficulty is probably going to come from another writer one or two rungs on the career ladder ahead of you.

Let's be clear - for people like me, who are obsessed with story and for whom words are their medium, writing is the best job possible. I work hard, but I earn more than the national average wage while I play with my imagination, and for me, that's a dream.

Personally I estimate about a third of my time is spent on author events, social media and traditional publicity.

The digital revolution has wrest a little control away from corporate publishers and white, male, middle-aged critics, but the financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.

The financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.

Many existing top 20 Scottish writers have flourished in part because of good turns done by institutions, arts community, libraries and bookshops.

I wrote 'I'm Me' because I was asked to write a children's book.

Food in wartime Britain, she had to admit, was hardly inspiring.

I once did an event with Ian Rankin where he said he didn't really need to do much background research because his books are set in the present, and I just thought: 'You lucky, lucky beast!' because as a historical novelist, I live constantly on the edge of wondering whether tissues had been invented.

Wellsted will remember this moment for the rest of his life. It is the first time he desires something for himself that is not dedicated to his own advancement. It is the moment he falls in love.

I'm grateful that I've enjoyed the support of libraries, bookshops and institutional funders.

People were consuming on average less calories after the war than during the war. Things were still very tough. If you look at the film footage of London streets, even in areas which weren't slums, there are kids in the streets who are dirty and have no shoes on. It was rough. There was a real edge.

It was nearly ten years since the peace though her memories of the war still felt fresh.

For a novelist, the gaps in a story are as intriguing as material that still exists.

Most people do a good deal of whatever they do motivated by love. For me, few stories are truly complete without it.

I am more one for the story, I think, than the action.

I realised early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job.

In the 1950s at least less was expected of women. Now we're supposed to build a career, build a home, be the supermum that every child deserves, the perfect wife, meet the demands of elderly parents, and still stay sane.

I would rather be a spinster than sold off, traded in, whatever they may call it.

Escapers were the cream of the crop.

I care about a lot of issues. I care about libraries, I care about healthcare, I care about homelessness and unemployment. I care about net neutrality and the steady erosion of our liberties both online and off. I care about the rich/poor divide and the rise of corporate business.

An aunt is a safe haven for a child. Someone who will keep your secrets and is always on your side.

Change occurs slowly. Very often a legal change might take place but the cultural shift required to really accept its spirit lingers in the wings for decades."

Molly Bloom is simply the most sensuous woman in literature."

Aunts offer kids an opportunity to try out ideas that don't chime with their parents and they also demonstrate that people can get on, love each other and live together without necessarily being carbon copies."

I didn't expect to love being online as much as I do. I've met some wonderful people and discovered that however arcane some of my interests that there are people out there who are interested too.

I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi.

The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.

History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.

Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrians Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.

The net has provided a level playing field for criticism and comment - anyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion - and that is one of its greatest strengths.

I had never really understood what an adventure life could be, if you followed your heart and did what you really wanted to do, which is what we must all do in the end.

Everyone assumes writers spend their time lounging around, writing and occasionally striking a pose whilst having a think.

To me, reading through old letters and journals is like treasure hunting. Somewhere in those faded, handwritten lines there is a story that has been packed away in a dusty old box for years.

The law don't like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.

Aunts offer kids an opportunity to try out ideas that don't chime with their parents and they also demonstrate that people can get on, love each other and live together without necessarily being carbon copies.

I'm proud of the culture I come from - we're a small country and a close-knit community.

I'm very aware we are the first generation ever to have such incredible opportunities to express ourselves publicly to a worldwide audience.

Writing historical fiction has many common traits with writing sci-fi or fantasy books. The past is another country - a very different world - and historical readers want to see, smell and touch what it was like living there.

I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more.

Kissing her is like drinking salted water, he thinks. His thirst only increases.

At the end of the day, that's what a family is - a group of different people who accept each other.

Molly Bloom is simply the most sensuous woman in literature.

History makes my mouth water - and that is as much because of the voids in what documentation remains as what is set in stone.

They march into the future to the rhythm of the past.

You have no future when the past rules you.

Our archives are treasure troves - a testament to many lives lived and the complexity of the way we move forward. They contain clues to the real concerns of day-to-day life that bring the past alive.

I was asked the other day in which era I would choose to live. As a historical novelist, it comes up sometimes. As a woman I'd have to say I'd like to live in the future - I want to see where these centuries of change are leading us.

An important part of deciding where we want to go, as a society and culture, is knowing where we have come from, and indeed, how far we have come.

If we don't value the people who inspire us (and money is one mark of that) then what kind of culture are we building?

Mirabelle always ate her lunch on Brighton beach if the weather was in any way passable, but out of sheer principle she never paid tuppence for a chair. We did not win the war to have to pay to sit down, she frequently found herself thinking.

Scotland just isn't terribly Tory.

She was herself in their company but a very specific version of herself.

The telling of any character is what they do in a different situation.

It took a certain kind of person to come from luxury and seek out danger.

What used to be edgy (divorces) has become mainstream and what used to be mainstream (racism and sexism) has become shocking.

I am the Angel of Death to any kind of plant.

It's part of a writer's job to be nosy about everything.

For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they're best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - we're famous for travelling in search of adventure.

On of the prerequisites for my mobile phone is that I have to be able to fling it at a wall if I lose my temper.

A paucity of material can open up just as many possibilities.

Like good reading skills, good writing skills require immersion and imaginative engagement.

The best historical stories capture the modern imagination because they are, in many senses, still current - part of a continuum.

I spend a lot of time imagining things - in fact, you could say that imagining things is my job.

I have a really vivid imagination and I find it difficult to read scenes of complete graphic violence. That's not to say that graphic violence does not exist. It's just that I find it quite harrowing and I much prefer if it isn't completely outlined for me because my imagination can do that.

Grabbing readers by the imagination is a writer's job.

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

He cannot think. He can scarcely breathe. But he has no desire to either, he simply wants to keep kissing her.

I'm not sure how much easier it is for a mother to balance her life now - have we simply swapped one set of restrictions for another?

Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing - lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female characters in my historical novels, getting these details right is vital.

I'm drawn to the 1950s for lots of reasons - everything from the fashion to the increasing sense of freedom and modernity that builds throughout the decade.

The 1950s is a key decade in the 20th Century. Each year has a distinctive flavour.

In crime books it's possible to chart forensic technology by how well it has to be explained to a reader. In mid-Victorian crime novels fingerprinting has to be explained because it's new. Nowadays it's part of our world and we can simply assume that knowledge if we write about it.

I have a very strong sense that we only know where we are by looking clearly at where we've come from.

My fascination with history is as much about the present as it is about the past.

I'm accustomed to reading Georgian and Victorian letters and sometimes you simply know in your gut that a blithe sentence is covering up a deeper emotion.

Archive material is a fabulous starting point - individual documents are like signposted roads, heading to a variety of intriguing possibilities.

Looking at my life through the lens of history has made me increasingly grateful to standout women who pushed those boundaries to make the changes from which I have benefited.

Occasionally a particular word or phrase in a letter or diary has sparked an entire plot - like an echo from history, still very alive.

Without archives many stories of real people would be lost, and along with those stories, vital clues that allow us to reflect and interpret our lives today.

We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in reading and writing since the advent of the Gutenberg press.

I've always had a keen sense of history. My father was an antiques dealer and he used to bring home boxes full of treasures, and each item always had a tale attached.

Small details are a vital part of allowing a reader to make an imaginative connection with long dead historical figures.

As a novelist it is my job to tell stories that inspire and entertain but I am increasingly mindful that many of these historical tales (which of themselves are fascinating) relate directly to our issues in society today.

I am a storyteller, not a historian, and it's my ambition to create something compelling - something unputdownable and riveting - that chimes with the real history but is, in fact, fiction.

I have no problem in moving a date one way or another or coming up with a subplot that gets my characters in (or out) of a fix more rambunctiously than the extant records show.

Social and cultural history is often comprised of whatever diaries and letters remain and that is down to chance and wide open to interpretation.

While what I write is always largely consistent with the records that remain I freely admit that where historical fact proves a barrier to invention, I simply move a detail a little one way or another.

History at its best is a gritty, dirty business.

History was my favourite subject at school and in my spare time I read historical novels voraciously from Heidi to the Scarlet Pimpernel and from Georgette Heyer to Agatha Christie.

The question shouldn't be, 'Are we guilty about our Colonial past?' it should be, 'Why aren't we more guilty about our corporate present?

I think that everyone has something that they will kill for.

We might give her presents, tell some tales, but would she ever be able to really understand what the journey had been like for us?

There were so many wrongs piling up on both sides, so much of the past being dragged into the present, that living there was like carving the story of your life on to a sepulchral monument.

Very often the characters people respond best to have little parts of reality they can relate to.

Whereas Mirabelle is tall, thin and sad, Vesta is physically and emotionally her opposite.

Covert operations relied on the unguarded slip, the unconscious choosing of one word over another.

People responded to body language without even thinking. It was important to get it absolutely right.

Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.

My father could talk about the Romany way of life and its culture. He could talk about freedom and the Scottish spirit. But that was all he could talk about. I was desperate for someone to talk to but there was just nobody there.

You became the sum total of where you lived, where you shopped, which church you went to, how many kids you had and which taxi company you used, and you only associated with people who had the same responses on their list.

The hard fact is that writing is available to readers because of market factors as much as particular writing talent.

The sound of pencils taking notes provided a low scrape and hum, almost like radio interference.

I was middle class and fucked up and spoilt.

I have become very aware how under-represented are the stories of the underprivileged and undervalued. Our records are, in general, very male and if not always the material of the rich, certainly (for obvious reasons) the material of the literate.

Writing about the 1950s has given me tremendous respect for my mother's generation.

Researching books gets you into nothing but trouble.

When a chap is passionate, the readership can sense it.

The new contract between writers and readers is one I'm prepared to sign up to. I've met some fascinating people at events and online. Down with the isolation of writers I say! And long live Twitter.

Change occurs slowly. Very often a legal change might take place but the cultural shift required to really accept its spirit lingers in the wings for decades.