CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

Who is your all time favourite Author? Why?

Predictably Dickens, although Virginia Woolf comes very close because of 'Orlando'. He summed up characters and entire lives in a paragraph, and anyone who can open 'Bleak House' with an image of a dinosaur walking through Holborn is cool in my book...

Which of your own books do you consider to be your favourite? and Why?

I personally like 'Calabash' although I think it is flawed, but it's my Growing Up book, and I'd like to revisit the subject one day, because being lonely and imaginative is something so many kids go through.

Is it true that you once found a lobster on your lawn and that this inspired the second Bryant and May novel 'Water Room'?

Totally true. I sent it to the Natural History Museum, and they told me it was a Turkish Crayfish that lives in the Regent's Canal, the outlet of which was connected to my drain. I now live even closer to them at Battlebridge Basin in King's Cross, where my house is surrounded by water, crayfish and geese - not bad for the centre of London.

We've noticed that you have the first two chapters of a novel currently called 'Plastic' up on your website When can we expect to hear more about this? Is it completed?

The book is finished and now called 'Wife Or Death'. It's the first of a trilogy that should appear concurrently with the final Bryant & May book. I've had great feedback from readers about it - now I have to convince the publishers!

We heard through the grapevine that one of your previous novels Roofworld is going to be made into a movie? Is this true and if so, how involved will you be wih it regarding script-writing/editing etc. Any chance of seeing some others like 'Spanky' or 'Psychoville' following this path?

Over the years I've sold the rights of many books to film companies but it's almost impossible to get funding for such films in Britain. New Line Cinema, the people behind 'Lord Of The Rings', now own the rights and have a finished script with an attached director. 'Psychoville' was owned by Jude Law and Sadie Frost, and would have been made, but it started pre-production on the very morning they broke up.

A few years back you helped save a pub in Kentish Town called the Pineapple from being demolished. What was it that inspired you to help out?

Actually I had used the pub as a location for a story, and loved the place. It has a clock from Newgate behind the bar, and fireplaces. We now run Sunday reading nights there called BIG WORDS, and my business partner has bought the place, thus making sure it stays a good local pub.

Favourite place in London?

Changes all the time, but the Wobbly Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the bar at the Tate Modern rate highly, along with the Canal bar in King's Cross, Camden Market and of course, The Pineapple...

Quick Fire Round

Lager or Spirits?

Lager

Going out or staying in?

Going Out (EM Forster said he'd have written many more novels 'if he hadn't gone out so much'!)

Bret Easton Ellis or Agatha Christie?

Both

Bryant or May?

Both - they're the two halves of my brain