Mariia Manko asked Helen Callaghan:

Helen, when did you realize yourself as a writer? After writing first book, publishing , success or …? You know this feeling inside «I am truly a writer»

Helen Callaghan Hi Mariia, that's a hard question in some ways. There are a couple of different pieces to it - firstly, when did I know I was a writer? And the answer, I suppose, is ever since I was very young. As a child I loved to write stories (it went hand in hand with an obsessive love of reading), and I distinctly remember as a pre-teen airily telling my parents that when I left school my plan was to stay home and write until I had my big break. This plan was greeted with all the enthusiasm that you might expect under the circumstances.

But there is another piece to the question, which is, when did I first feel justified in putting my writing and the time I spend doing it first? By which I mean, in taking it seriously, if you like - and that was much later - probably not until ten or so years ago.

And there is a final piece - when did I first feel like a "real" writer? And that would have been in the Tesco in Bar Hill, near Cambridge. I had wandered in, yawning and scruffy, looking for a pack of blueberries to make breakfast with. I remember walking past this row of copies of Dear Amy and just thinking, oh, wow. Look at that. This thing has independent life now, and will go on and be read by people that know nothing of me and my yawning and blueberries and my flapping sandals that rub my heel. Previous to this, of course, the only people that read my books were friends and people that actually knew me. So that was a very strange moment.

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