Q. Which other EAFOL 2016 participant are you most excited about? I'm excited to see everybody! One of the great things about a big festival like EAFOL is meeting old friends and discovering new writers, both in person and their work. Q. Which book(s) are you reading now? I'm delving into the past and reading a relatively obscure novel by Alexandre Dumas, The Forty-Five Guardsmen. The old hardcover I have must have been cheaply printed because the red dye in the cloth binding comes off on my hands, I found this very disturbing at first when I couldn't work out why my palms and fingers had something that looked like a faded bloodstain all over them. Q. Which literary character would you invite to dinner? And why? I'd invite Gandalf from The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. He'd bring fireworks, and do smoke ring tricks, and perhaps invite me on an adventure that would do me good. Also, he might have a hobbit or two along and they're good cooks. Q. There have been some interesting additions to the dictionary over the years. Which word would you remove? Words end up in dictionaries because lots of people use them, and you can't fight that. Fortunately, there is room for all words. I might not choose to use them myself, but I wouldn't try to stop others. Q. Who would write/ illustrate the story of your life? I would like my life to be done in an embroidered cloth like the Bayeaux Tapestry, something about 70 metres long but not ending with me getting an arrow in the eye. Though quite a lot of artistic licence would be required, to make my life more interesting. Metres and metres of various illustrations of me typing wouldn't be all that thrilling . . .