Interview conducted in July 2004.

Your book 'The Taxi Driver's Daughter' is set in Tyneside, specifically Jesmond. Was this an area of the city you were already familiar with? How did you research your settings? Are the actual locations you write about real?

Yes, I live in Heaton, next to the Vale, and the book was written with that landscape in mind. Every morning I walked my dog in the Vale and soaked up the atmosphere. It was important to me that this book was set on Tyneside, and I wanted to be as specific as I could be.

How do you get your ideas for your books? Where is that first idea sown? Do you know when you have a concrete idea? Do you ever begin with one idea and then realise it won't work, or you get bored of it?

The best ideas are mysterious to the writer I think, so that one discovers as one writes.

Yes, some ideas don't last. Usually an idea comes from colliding ideas. In this case, the tree of shoes in Armstrong Park, my interest in taxi drivers and long conversations I had with them over months, and a desire to write about teenagers, having brought up two girls myself.

The best ideas are mysterious to the writer I think, so that one discovers as one writes.

If you were stranded on a desert island with only five books to read, what five books would those be and why?

Grimms Fairy Tales, Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times, the Penguin Rhyming Dictionary, a book about plants and species of wildlife, Where I'm Calling from: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver, and many more, but these come into my head.

I would spend my time learning poems by heart and writing them. I would find the short stories endlessly mystifying, and I would slowly identify the flora and fauna of the island.

You have recently been developing scenes from 'The Taxi Driver's Daughter' for a stage adaptation. What's it like seeing your creations come to life? Are they how you imagined?

The stage adaptation of The Taxi Driver's Daughter is interesting. You have to throw the book away and let the story become visual.

I don't want loads of monologue and narrative, and that's a strong part of the book, so it's a bit like free falling. However, two days working with actors was very interesting and inspiring.

On your website, you have shared your experiences about living with breast cancer. What kind of response has this drawn from visitors to the site from around the world?

I get a lot of good vibes from well wishers, thanks to the website, and also other people with cancer.

We are all struggling to find new language to describe our feelings about illness. I hate all that bravery, noble battling stuff. People write poems and send them in, and we share ideas about running workshops and things.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to get into the profession?

Heaton lass: Julia Darling

I think new writers need to find support. Writers groups can be good for some people, and creative MAs vary enormously, but can be good.

Mainly though, you should try and write each day, and read. We all get rejected, so be prepared. Mslexia is a very helpful magazine for advice.

Send things off locally at first, rather than to agents and big publishers, and get feedback. Writers always want to help new writers, so you can get advice from published writers in your area.

Go on an Arvon Course, where you meet and live with two writers for a week. Or you could just become a hermit, and write your heart out. Be truthful, and be yourself.

Are the stories you write about based on experiences within your own life?

I use bits of reality, bits of myself. I pick up little things from everywhere and then put them together.

What music do you listen to in your spare time?

Gillian Welch, Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Robyn Hitchcock, lots of Blues singers, compilations my friends give me, usually folk music, rather than heavy rock. Early music.

What comes first? The title or the prose?

It varies. The Taxi Driver's Daughter was always the title and it stuck. Others I have agonised over.

If you could have a dinner party for five famous guests of your choice, living or dead, which five people would they be and why?

Reviews can be painful, or happy. These days I don't read them.

Jackie Kay, Jo Shapcott, Queen Elizabeth 1st, Patti Smith, and Jane Austen.

They are all powerful, opinionated women, and we could change the world!

Reading your diary entries on your website, you seem to do a lot of travelling around the world. Where else in the world would you like to travel to that you haven't been to already?

I would love to go to India, and the Caribbean, but I feel my adventurous travelling days are over and mostly I just go short distances.

What's it like reading reviews of your books? Do they have an affect on you?

Reviews can be painful, or happy. These days I don't read them.

Who is the single, most influential, person in your life?

My partner Beverley, who has given me great stability, and my two daughters, Scarlet and Florence.

If you could go back in time to any era, where would you go and why?

I would like to be part of a revolution, in France, or Spain, and see what it felt to overthrow an old order.

Julia Darling sadly passed away on 13 April 2005. For more information on the life of Julia Darling, please visit her website at www.juliadarling.co.uk