Jade: Of all of the awards you have had for your work, is there one in particular you are most honoured to have received?

All awards are a great honour and I’m grateful to win anything, but the big one for me was the Carnegie Medal, which I won in 1998 for River Boy. I still pinch myself sometimes when I think of having won it.

Jessica: Is there anything specific you do to help yourself clear writer’s block?

I don’t tend to suffer from writer’s block. What I sometimes get instead is self-doubt, especially if I can’t get a particular story right. But I’ve learned over the years that the story will come if I just keep going, keep writing another page, and so that’s what I do. I write another page. If that’s no good, I write another, and so on, until the better stuff comes, and it always does, if I’m patient and refuse to give up.

Lauren: What was it like to win an award in the US? Did you get to travel there to receive your award?

It felt great. As I mentioned in Jade’s question above, it’s an honour to win any award, wherever it comes from. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to travel to the US to receive this one but it still felt great just to know they liked my book!

Steven: For Night Runner, what was it like writing a book from the perspective of a 15-year-old whose experiences are so different to what yours would have been at that age?

If you think about it any story you write (unless it’s an autobiography) is about somebody who isn’t you. What you have to do as a writer is try to identify with each character, especially the main character, whether it’s an old man, a young woman, or a boy of 15 who is running for his life. None of the characters in Night Runner are me but my job, as the author, is to try to empathise with them and tell their stories as believably as I can.

James: When you chose to study Swedish and Scandinavian studies at university, did you have a specific career in mind or was it just purely out of interest in the culture and have your studies influenced your writing in any way?

I chose Swedish because when I was 16, I met some Swedish people of my own age and just loved the sound of their language. It stuck with me and I decided I wanted to take a degree in Swedish. I’m not sure whether this has influenced my writing but it did enable me to earn a living for several years as a Swedish translator while working on my first novel. I used to write in the mornings and translate in the afternoons. Eventually I dropped the translation and just focused on writing.

Steven: After you won the prestigious Carnegie medal, did you find that your books following that received more attention and publicity?

Winning the Carnegie Medal had a huge effect. Firstly, my book sales went up considerably both in the UK and abroad (eg River Boy became a bestseller in Korea) and secondly, it drew much more attention to my books as a whole. So yes, it was a fantastic boost for me as an author.

Emily: Do you have a favourite place to write your novels?

I do have a favourite place to write and you can see pictures of it on my website. I’ve always loved quiet, secluded places in which to think and work. In 2001 I found a little stone outhouse that I rented from its owners and worked in until last year. I then moved to a timber hut in an even more secluded place and that’s where I work now. I have hens and ducks for company and that’s it. A lovely place to work and I feel blessed to have it. I’m in it right now, writing these very words to you.

Chloe: Do you have a certain approach to writing a novel? Is there anything specific you do before you start?

I try to get myself calm. Sometimes I’m dying to jump into the story, especially if an idea has been buzzing in my head for a while and feels ready to go, but I make myself sit quietly and focus on breathing and just thinking about the story, trying to picture where I think the next scene wants to go, and then I start. If I lose my way during the writing, I stop and calm myself again, and wait for the thread to come back. Quite often I close my eyes. Sometimes I take a short walk. I try to stay internalised so that I’m living in the story and the story is living in me. Often this carries over to the rest of my life and I find the story with me everywhere.

Gabrielle: Have any of your stories or characters been based on experiences in your life?

All my stories take elements of things from my own life, but the incidents that happen in my stories are transformed into something that relates to the characters. In other words, they are no longer my experiences. They belong to the characters. The characters themselves are sometimes based on people I have known but they too are transformed. I may have a real person in mind when I start with a character but after about two pages, that character has developed his or her own qualities and the original person on whom that character was based has faded into nothing.

Amy: What do you look for yourself when choosing a book to read? While you are reading do you compare books to your own novels?

What I’m looking for in a book is something that grips me. I don’t care what kind of a book it is – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, whatever – but I want a book that will make me miss sleep, miss meals, miss everything in my desire to read it. I don’t compare other people’s books to my own but I do apply the criteria above when I write my own work. In other words, I try to write books that will make people feel so gripped that they’re ready to miss everything else in their desire to read on.

Amy: Before starting a book do you have a target audience in mind for each novel?

Mostly, I don’t think of a target audience. That’s because I generally write books that will be read by teenagers and young adults and those readers are mature enough for anything I could throw at them. I have, however, recently started writing some fiction for younger readers (aged 9-12) and there I do picture the younger readers as I write, just to remind myself of what that audience is like. It’s an easy audience to picture because I often drop into my local village primary school and talk to the children there about writing. Their faces are the ones I keep in my mind when I’m writing my younger fiction.

Laura: Out of all of the books you have written do you have one that you enjoyed writing the most or do you have a character which you are particularly fond of?

I have a particular affection for Blade. I hated him when he first appeared in chapter one of the first book in the series but by chapter four he had won me over. I just felt so much admiration for his courage and compassion for his suffering and that deepened as the story went on and I learned more about him.

Joseph: Why is the name of your main character in Night Runner so obscure? I have never heard of the name Zinny before. Had you heard the name elsewhere before you started writing?

I hadn’t heard the name Zinny anywhere. I just made it up. It felt right the moment it came into my mind. Not sure why. By the way, the first character I ever wrote about in a novel had your name – Joseph. Just thought I’d share that with you!

Amy: What benefits do you think YA readers get from pleasure reading? Have you always been an avid reader yourself?

I’ve always been a keen reader, Amy. Reading is wonderful. It’s good for developing your understanding of language, good for developing cognitive skills, good for developing your awareness of how others see the world. But most of all it’s fun. It’s joyous. It’s life affirming. Reading is great!

Rachel: Do you have a certain way of writing your novels? Is there a structure which you follow or do you have characters in mind first then build the story around them?

I start with just one thing and it’s usually a picture. I don’t worry about building a plan or a plot to fit that thing into. I focus on the picture, the thing that’s happening now, and try to imagine myself there, in that present moment, experiencing whatever is going on, and then I start writing, to find out what will happen next. For me the physical act of writing generates the best ideas and shows me what will happen next. Not all writers work this way. Many create a plot and follow that. If you’re a keen writer, Rachel, I would say: do whatever works for you. But that’s how I write my novels. One scene at a time, one page at a time, one paragraph, one sentence, one idea at a time.

• Tim Bowler’s latest book Night Runner is available at the Guardian bookshop

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