Celine Kiernan

It is as though the human race is always only waiting for permission to hate.

(on teaching writing) So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well - but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest.

Write what is important to you, regardless of fashion or marketability or anything like that _ all those things are so far out of your control that you may as well not think about them. Of course, this may mean you__l never be published but that__ a risk we all take every single time we set hands to keyboard or pen to paper. For me, if I can sit back at the end of a project and say, __es, I stayed honest, I said what I wanted to say, and I made it sing to the best of my ability_, then I__ happy enough. Of course, if anyone wants to buy the damned thing off me when I__ done, that__ jam I won__ refuse.

When we__e decided to tell the truth in a story, we should tell good, strong versions of it, proper versions that kids can do something with.