Skip to Content

'Galloping imposter syndrome'

8 February 2016

‘Like a lot of authors I have galloping imposter syndrome: as far as I'm concerned I have cunningly infiltrated the writing community. With each book that gets published I have this dread fear that I'm going to be found out. Certainly when The Lie Tree was published, I thought: ‘This time they'll see through me for the fraud I am.' Things have not panned out as I expected!...

What I remember is the world I knew vanished and I was in this dark, other place with the sound of water and lights I couldn't identify moving in the distance. I remember a sense of awe and a sort of fear but also excitement and a weird stillness. Everything was potent and vivid and then the lights came back on but those seconds where I felt transported to that terrifying but fascinating other place left this imprint, as if part of my imagination never came back. I'm sorry, that sounds completely weird...

I was an everything-minded girl. I wanted to be so many things, but definitely a writer and an artist and an international spy.'

Frances Hardinge, winner of the 2015 Costa Book of the Year 2015 with The Lie Tree, in the Guardian