Jeanette Winterson made her name at 24 with her acclaimed debut novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985). The book fictionalises her upbringing in Accrington, Lancashire, where, aged 16, she told her evangelist adoptive parents she had fallen in love with another girl.

Born in Manchester in 1959, Winterson went to grammar school and read English at Oxford University. She worked for a London publisher and started writing full-time after the publication of her second novel The Passion in 1987. Fifteen more books followed, including Lighthousekeeping (2004), along with two books for children . Winterson was awarded an OBE in 2006. She lives in Spitalfields, London and Gloucestershire.

What book changed your life?
The Bible shaped me; Virginia Woolf’s Orlando shaped my imagination; and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities gave me the courage to write whatever I wanted.

What is your daily writing routine?
Now that I live in the country, I get up at 6am and I write until the middle of the day. I don’t let in any of the outside world until I’ve finished. Then I go running and do my admin in the afternoon.

Who would you like to be stuck in a lift with?
Meryl Streep.

How do you relax?
Cooking and sex.

What book do you wish you’d written?
Tom Jones. I love the bounce of the writing and I’m drawn to orphan stories.

What is the best piece of advice a parent gave you?
My mother’s parting shot when I left home: “Why be happy Jeanette, when you could be normal?” I’ve carried it with me ever since.

How would you earn your living if you had to give up writing?
I’d be a property developer. I’m obsessed with doing up old houses.

What does it mean to be a writer?
It means both complete freedom and absolute discomfort. I can never settle because of the freedom it gives me.

What are you most proud of writing?
My last novel, The Stone Gods. It took me to a different place. When I finished it I thought: if this was my last ever book, would I be happy with it? And I would be.

Jeanette Winterson’s latest children’s book is ‘The Battle of the Sun’ (Bloomsbury)