What are you most looking forward to at the 2016 Festival? I’m looking forward to meeting not just the other authors, but everyone who attends the festival. There’s always a wonderful exchange of ideas at EAFOL and I love being able to simply submerge myself in books and book-related things for the entire time, knowing I’m among kindred spirits. When did you realise you wanted to be a writer? I’ve always written. I suppose the ‘hallelujah’ moment came in my early 20s when I realised that a) I wasn’t bad at it and b) I could actually get paid for doing it. What book do you find yourself re-reading most often? I rarely re-read a novel. There are so many new ones to try! However, I do keep every book I’ve read and I do dip back into them sometimes. It’s a bit like looking at old photos. I also mark sentences, phrases and concepts I like in books – my friends always joke that books they borrow from me are ‘Annabelised’. If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? Whatever it was, it would have to be closely related. I’d be an editor (which I have been), perhaps, or a literary agent or consultant, or I’d teach writing. And finally, we have a number of aspiring writers attending the Festival. What one piece of advice would you give them? Stop planning. Stop ‘researching’. Stop worrying. Stop procrastinating. Sit down and write your book.