I grew up on fantasy and science-fiction, and often resented being told to read other things at school, which prevented me from pursuing English Literature, but a short and moderately disastrous foray into degree-level Physics led to a refocusing and an understand that reading outside one's comfort zone is necessary, desirable and correct. I still like to keep my head in other worlds on my downtime, but my degree taught me to keep an eye to the rest of the literary universe. I still naturally tend to write genre fiction (and can dash off convincing pulp fantasy parodies almost automatically), and fantastic elements creep into almost everything I write. I'm trying to turn this weakness into literary fiction - using genre to comment on genre, and on the value of storytelling for its own sake. I still think fantasy is the purest form of storytelling (except for possibly the country-house murder mystery...) and that it can say things about the human condition that other genres can't.