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After a long period writing academic books (under my full name, Veronica McGivney), I have found it liberating to concentrate on writing fiction. My novels are very different from each other – as indeed are my short stories. I enjoy writing in different genres, and would find being restricted to one, constraining.

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Things that happen every day - a chance encounter, an overheard conversation, a news item - provide a constant source of inspiration and material for my novels and stories. The opening scene of Inheritors of the New Kingdom was based on something that happened to a friend of mine. The main character in A Reluctant Hero was inspired by someone I spotted through a bus window. Several of the stories in Ghosts, Resolution and Revenge include incidents that happened to friends and members of my family, as well as to myself.

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Short stories aren’t as fashionable as novels, but they can be immensely satisfying both to read and to write. They are, of course, far less labour-intensive than writing a novel, although they require a different and perhaps an even greater discipline. An idea or theme can sometimes be more powerfully conveyed through the concentration and concision of a short story than through a novel of 200-300 pages.

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