Once they have dedicated themselves to a cause, women will fight to the end for it.

I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own.

While I’m frustrated at the amount I’m expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded – not being allowed to take things on at all.

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

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

I fancy you, Kitty Dawson,” a lone boy shouted.

The atmosphere felt unexpectedly intense and the music was frantic. The beat made it both difficult to think straight and pleasant to move – like swimming almost.

It was so difficult to dress appropriately when the seasons changed – the British weather was the nothing if not erratic. Spring was the worst – freezing in Brighton this morning and then practically tropical in Knightsbridge in the afternoon.

We are living in glorious days where each readers’ voice can be heard.

As it stands there is a very strong argument that as the book trade becomes increasingly corporate it’s our literary heritage that is at risk – a vital part of our culture.

Writers need each other.

Crime writers, I’ve noticed, can be jumpy. They live in a world where there are murderers on the loose and they haven’t been caught yet!

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.

Researching books gets you into nothing but trouble.

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

I believe that being able to communicate directly with readers is a boon. I certainly enjoy it as much as they do.

I’ve found myself moved by letters and diaries in archives as well as trashy, summer blockbusters. It’s possible to make a connection with any kind of writing – as long as the writing is good.

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.

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.

At length, when I considered it, I realized that the best of my actions were small things. Picking flowers and cooking food for my mother when she had been unwell, spending an afternoon with the children, sending money to my sister or kissing Henry’s tiny head as he slept in the nursery before I left....

The bonds between a family are strange indeed.

I didn’t want to give up my job and join the ranks of the Doing Fuck All brigade no matter how much money I had in the bank.

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.

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.

People make interesting assumptions about the profession. The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.

We are home to each other now.

It may take a village to raise a baby, but hell! it takes an army to produce a book.

On Twitter, people who had read my book followed me and I could see what else they were reading, why they’d liked what I’d written and by the by, more about them than I’d ever elicit from two minutes in a tent at a book festival, stuck behind a signing desk.

When you’re depressed you retreat and you go into a smaller world. This is why Brighton worked well for the story, because it’s a smaller world than London.

In a heartbeat, he understands why religions are born on the sands – there is nothing here for a man but his own mind.

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.

A word out of place or an interesting choice of vocabulary can spawn a whole character.

There are as many different kinds of books as there are writers – as many different responses as there are readers.

Mirabelle was always an enigma, and he had the sense that if he pushed her, she’d bolt.

The lively oral storytelling scene in Scots and Gaelic spills over into the majority English-speaking culture, imbuing it with a strong sense of narrative drive that is essential to the modern novel, screenplay and even non-fiction.

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.

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

Today women have the rights and equality our Victorian sisters could only dream of, and with those privileges comes the responsibility of standing up and being counted.

New technologies and resources offer exciting opportunities. They democratise access to information.

Google maps are one thing but there’s no substitute for pounding the beat and I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to break into the back of the houses on Belgrave Place. Once I even for followed by a suspicious householder – I’d been hanging around staring at the exterior of his...

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

Being a writer is a more difficult job than people imagine.

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?

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.

I’ve been obsessed with stories since I was a kid so it’s no surprise that I ended up writing for a living.

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

We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.

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.

We have more choice than ever before about where and how we buy and read books.

She curled sideways into the milky light of the bedside lamp and began to read.