One of my mentors, Tom Frank, a professor of law at NYU, he was really instrumental in making me understand that we need to look at the global picture, and we always need to not take anything for granted, but go very much through a process of critical thinking before we formulate our views. So he was, I think, instrumental in shaping my views as to how to pursue my career in the future.

Well absolutely Sondheim was an influence, because he was in many ways this door into the world of theater and he is a phenomenal composer. He’s also a phenomenal mentor.

One was seeing Warren Mitchell in Death of a Salesman when I was 18. I thought it was the most amazing piece of acting. The other was seeing my sister Sorcha (1) in Brian Friel's version of Three Sisters when I was 23. I'd trained as a musician, but I saw that and thought: "Well, now I know how to play Irina (2)." A few years later, I did.

The films that influenced me were so disparate that there’s almost no pattern. Stanley Kubrick was an influence because I loved 2001: A Space Odyssey. and the more I learned about him and his methodology the more I realized what a rigorous intellectual exercise filmmaking was for him, and I was inspired by that.

Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.

That's it. Mostly. Really, the people and the issues all come together in a sort of clump or knot, and writing the story is untying, unwinding the knot.

As I got up in my 70s, stories began coming to me more and more rarely. I finished the novel Lavinia at 78. I no longer have the stamina to undertake a new novel, even if I wanted to. So, here I am, an old writer who loves writing – what have I got left to do?

But I will be horrified by the way I say kind of and like, and I keep qualifying everything. That’s very feminine. I would like to say it plain, but it always comes out with all these silly qualifiers.

The book is done when you say it’s done. It’s entirely up to you. It’s your responsibility.

Either you’re listening out for the kids or you’re writing. So I wrote when the kids went to bed. I wrote between nine and midnight those years. And my husband would listen out if the little guy was sick or something. It worked out.