Don't write the book you think publishers want to commission. Plenty of other writers will be doing the same thing.
— Louise Brown
I can't pick out one single book that had such a profound personal impact.
I have a good collection of cookery books. This is not so much because I like cooking, but because I like eating.
I thought it was something peculiar to me. I thought I was abnormal.
It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print.
People still come up to me and ask whether I am Louise Brown or if they've seen me somewhere else before.
Sometimes I like to play the soundtracks to famous musicals so we can all sing along. South Pacific is one of my favorites. Our neighbors must hate us.
The richest most meaningful stories are found in small places: made, carried, crafted, told, and retold by apparently unimportant people.
When dad told me Mr Steptoe had passed away, I broke down.
Every year I teach dozens of students at the University of Birmingham. Most of the students on the gender and sexuality courses are women. I guess this is because the boys don't think that gender applies to them: that it's a subject for girls.
I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.
I like many types of music and probably too many to mention here.
I used to think about how I was conceived quite a lot when I was about 10 or 11, but I don't think about it at all now that so many other babies have been born in the same way.
Much of my reading time over the last decade and a half has been spent reading aloud to my children. Those children's bedtime rituals of supper, bath, stories, and sleep have been a staple of my life and some of the best, most special times I can remember.
Reading is my greatest luxury.
The Dancing Girls of Lahore was offered to dozens of British publishers and was turned down by everyone. It is still on offer in the U.K., but I'm not confident there will be any takers.
The young women in my classes are feisty and clever and believe, often with the passion of youthful optimism, that feminism is a battle already won. I worry for them - and for my daughters, too.
When I was a child and teenager I read whenever I had the opportunity, but since then I've found it hard to read as much as I'd like, children, work, and pets all providing powerful incentives to escape into a book and a practical reason why I rarely do so.
I bought a selection of short, romantic fiction novels, studied them, decided that I had found a formula and then wrote a book that I figured was the perfect story. Thank goodness it was rejected.
I don't envy men and I certainly wouldn't like to become one now.
I never felt any different from anyone else though.
I'm working on a nonfiction book on Nepal and a novel about diasporas.
Never give up. And most importantly, be true to yourself. Write from your heart, in your own voice, and about what you believe in.
Remember that what you have is unique because it's your own special way of looking at the world.
The importance and influence of books on me has been cumulative: the result of hearing and reading lots of stories about interesting people and places.
Then I obviously didn't understand what it all meant, but I do now.
If you can't return a favor, pass it on.
