Ann-Marie MacDonald

You can tell a lot about a person by the people who work for them.

Some people talk about children wanting to be born as though somewhere out there in the collective unconscious there's a spirit, or a thought or an idea that wants to be born. And I sometimes feel that way about stories... that they're there and they want to be told.

'Fall on Your Knees' is really a story about secrets and family, and the idea that there are some stories or truths that need to be expressed.

In terms of the secrets that imbue and underlie 'Fall on Your Knees', they were as much of a mystery to me as I was creating the story as they are to the readers.

I grew up in a family where the love of stories is very strong. And there's also a love of performance. I think one reason stories were so important in my family was that we moved around a lot.

Reading was such a formative part of my childhood (along with 'Loony Tunes'), that it is difficult to pin point the most influential book. But, under an interrogation light I would probably have to say 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte.

I started my career as an actor, then morphed into a playwright who accidentally became a novelist with my first book 'Fall On Your Knees.'

I grew up moving around because my dad was in the Air Force - I think this has carried over into my work in that I like to hop around from one medium to another.