Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
My family moved from Italy to Australia when I was really young, so I learned English at the age of 8. I got teased a lot because I had this Italian accent, so I learned to master English grammar. I won all the spelling competitions, went above and beyond to write better than my classmates. By the time I moved to London as a 20 year old, I had started writing for magazines for fun. So my influence came from turning a negative experience into a positive one!
What's the story behind your latest book?
Mr 303 started off as a romance. In fact, after writing Monique - which is a Memoir about a former prostitute and drug-mule, I thought it might have gone down a similar path. I was shocked when it became this dystopian and apocalyptic book with the romance component. Shocked but happy, because it's a genre I like anyway.
Read more of this interview.