Chelsey Flood

If you could have grown up at anywhere and at any time where would it have been and why?

Dinosaurs or the Twenties in America. Obviously I am rich.

What’s the first book you remember reading?

‘Look.’ It says Look! on every page, and then the teacher asks you about the pictures. I remember being terrified because I couldn’t work out what the hell the thing on one of the last pages was. It was a weight lifter.

What is the most life-changing and influential book you’ve read and why?

Too hard to say. Maybe Wuthering Heights because it’s the book I most aspire to.

What made you want to write?

Reading.

What was the storyline of the first piece of creative writing you ever wrote?

Four kids and a dog go on a picnic with ginger beer, and somehow get caught up with a smuggler’s crew.

What writers do you most admire and why?

I love Doris Lessing because she writes truthfully about what it is like to be a woman. Richard Yates is pretty good at this too, plus he gives men a bit more room. I also love Daphne du Maurier and Emily Bronte for their beautiful gothic novels.

What’s the first thing you remember seeing in the cinema?

I can’t remember anything before Mrs Doubtfire.

Fight or flight?

Flight, but I wish it was fight.