Carla Billinghurst

I write about fitting in.

I write about how hard that is and how beautiful it can be.

I write about how we all need to fit in somewhere even if we don't need the same things.

When I'm writing I want to have the same sort of dangerous fun that I can have improvising theatre.

I want readers to look up from my work and see the world around them in archetypal form: giants who can be brought down, sleepers who can be woken, magical helpers who can be seduced with crumbs and songs. I'm looking for the happy ending for our culture.

When I said I wasn't sure how to live with my collection of auto-immune diseases, my husband, a painter, said write a story about someone who does.

Solutions to our difficulties can be that simple.

Of course it's not that simple because I ended up writing a story about someone who wanted to be a penguin...