So I thought we'd start, well, at a kind of obvious point with Virginia Woolf.

She said when she was pointing out how rare it's been historically for women to write fiction

at all, that it was necessary to have, and I quote, 500 a year and a room with a lock on the door.

People often forget the lock, but that is an important part in order to write.

And I wanted to start with asking both of you where you sort of were in your life and your writing in October 1979,

which is when the LRB started,

and whether you yet had that room of your own.

Now, what was happening in 79 for you?

I decided to stop writing novels.

I had a publisher, Tom Mashel, who you'll all know,

and he was so unenthusiastic about my new book.

I decided I'd write a play instead.

So in 1979, I was writing my first play.

And you had a space to write like you always

managed to make that for yourself i tended to write in my bedroom because it was my space my

bedroom and you could close the door no lock i could close the door um small faces might

peep around it now and again but yes i close the door because you had you had a at that point in your life

you'd had your you'd had your children and yeah so you had a whole a full family life as well as

I did have a family life as well yes yeah I did and the change of genre was that you've sort of

said it's a practical reason but was that sort of a aesthetic reason as well

because you always write with voices like up the junction is full of voices and the poor cow is

written in that you know i do absolutely love dialogue and i find that if i know someone quite well

...