Creative non-fiction is simply non-fiction that’s imaginative and inventive while still cleaving to the facts. Writing non-fiction – even different types of non-fiction – in addition to fiction and poetry, is a bit like being able to switch the instrument you’re playing to bring different kinds of tunes to life. Some writing is trombone writing, and some simply demands that you employ a xylophone. Or a triangle. .

For Arts-Council funded photographic book, Angels: millennial messengers, I wrote bite-sized, intensively researched, journalistic-type pieces. An essay about Will Self, the M40 and my own motorway driving experiences evolved into a chapter in the book Common Ground. When I was commissioned by writers’ collective, 26, to write a history of their first 10 years, I penned a playful, extended digital piece: Short History of 26 – an A to Z in 25,000 words. It can be read in a linear fashion or by cycling through a pattern of web links.

As part of its 26 Characters’ exhibition, Oxford’s Story Museum asked members of 26 (see above) to choose the character they’d most like to be from the books they’d loved as a child. My first thought was either Hal or Roger Hunt from Willard Price’s Adventure series. Then I remembered how I’d been turned on to reading by Angela Banner’s Ant and Bee books – they’ve recently been reissued. I was delighted to plump for Bee. Read my piece about Bee.