When I was young, it never occurred to me that I might be a writer. I think I must have thought that books were born on the library shelves. But I was good at writing stories, and I had a good deal of practice.
My primary school teacher came in every Monday morning in the worst of moods. 'Fetch my bag'. He'd lay his leather strap across the front of his desk as a threat or warning. Then he'd turn and chalk up three titles on the board: A Day in the Life of a Lost Umbrella, My Best Friend, The Worst Advice I ever Took; anything like that. Then: 'I want absolute silence till break-time' he'd say, nursing his hungover head. 'The first person to whisper gets the strap'.
I loved those double lessons more than anything in the world (except for reading). No endless discussions. No sharing of ideas. No realising that someone else had also had your brilliant idea. I covered reams of paper. I wrote fast. And I learned to judge the form and the length of a story. It was the best training I could ever have had, though I didn't know I'd be a writer.
At school, I enjoyed languages most, and took French and Spanish, along with History, for A levels. That meant there was no room for English, and so for my whole life I have been able simply to read what I want when I want, and only for pleasure or interest. I suspect that this has been really important for the way I write, making it so much easier to think always of the reader.
I studied Politics and History at University, and the interest in political issues shows up in many of the books. After university I taught in a girls' secondary school for a year — exhausting! — and then moved with my husband to Oxford, where I worked as an Information Officer for Oxfam. Though I was only in this job for two years, it changed my attitudes to money, to 'things', and to what is truly important in life, for ever.
In 1971 my first daughter was born. Unable to get to the library in a snowstorm to change my library books, in desperation I sat down and started to write a novel. Clearly this was the right job for me, for I have never stopped writing for more than a few weeks since.
My husband's job took us to California, Arizona, Michigan and Canada, where our second daughter was born. In 1981 I returned to Edinburgh, and a few years later moved to County Durham, where I now live quietly in a stone house beside a river with Richard, my partner of fifteen years. The list of books has grown longer and longer, and whether writing for children or adults, I still work with a pencil and rubber in absolute silence. Like a child, I still hide my work with my arms if anyone walks past, and I wouldn't dream of talking about what I'm writing or let a soul look at it until it's completely finished. Oh – and even after all these years I still prefer reading other people's books to writing my own!
A lot of my work, even for fairly young readers, raises quite serious social issues. I believe that many personal decisions have a social or political resonance, and the way people try to pick their way through tricky family situations interests me. But people won't (and shouldn't) read books that don't hold their interest, and I still adore funny books. So since I write for the reader inside myself, I always end up with the kind of book I would have loved to read (if only someone else had bothered to write for me).
If you need to know more about Anne and her writing — for example, for a project — the best place to find information is in an Interview With ... Anne Fine.
Published by Egmont, £2.99:
ISBN 1-4052-0053-7
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