One event, two reports. This is a shorter summary by Meredith and there is also a longer report by Kyra.

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On March 14th, Diana gave a talk at Heffer's bookshop, Cambridge to support World Book Day. She centred her talk around a question which, she says, she is always asked: where does she get her ideas from?

"My new book started with a dream," she said. "I was looking into nothingness, except there were stepping stones like islands, and these were universes. It was both beautiful and frightening."

There were howls of dismay from the audience when we heard that the new book - The Merlin Conspiracy - might not be available until 2004, even though Diana has already delivered it to her publishers.

THE NEW BOOK

Diana gave two snippets of info about The Merlin Conspiracy. Apparently, it's got a very complicated ending. "I spent a month re-writing just the two chapters at the end, very slowly and carefully," she said. And, it took even its author in unexpected directions. At one point, the boy in it walks into a city, and Diana said she didn't know beforehand what the city was going to be like. It turned out to be so weird and strange that even she was taken aback.

Other ideas can come to her from real life. An incident in Power of Three was inspired by two of her sons fighting each other so hard that they knocked the radio onto the floor. "My husband tore them apart with a noise like velcro," Diana said. "He was very annoyed with them, and he was certain that the radio wouldn't work anymore. But we turned it on, and it said, 'Oh no. Not now. I've had enough.'

SPOOKY COINCIDENCES

Diana talked about how her unusual childhood at a conference centre in an Essex village "where every single person was weird" was a fruitful source of inspiration. "One woman opened cafes in every direction like a nervous tic. There was a man who stood in the churchporch all the time and thought he was a werewolf. He howled at the full moon. There was a man who made full-size working models of elephants. Two people confessed they were witches. They were both from the same family, and one was a good witch and the other was a bad witch, and you were supposed to go to the one you needed. There was a woman who looked just like a Neanderthal woman ... and when there was a show or something at our conference centre and the village people came and joined us, that was when all hell broke loose."

She reminisced particularly about the night the Saffron Waldon Operatic Society put on a show, with rather bizarre costumes on rather bizarre bodies. "When the curtain came up, the audience started back in horror - I remember, because I was pushed off my bench - because it was all so hideous."

DWJ fans will know about the spooky coincidences that surround this writer. Well, unbeknownst to Diana, in her audience in Heffers were some members of, guess what? the Saffron Waldon Operatic Society, who the night before the talk had put on 'The Pirates of Penzance', a show which some other people in the Heffers audience had gone to watch. (Presumably they were not pushed off their seats by a collective recoil of horror.)

Diana spoke off another odd coincidence which had happened to someone she knew. He was enjoying the hospitality of an airport's business travellers' lounge, where all the little luxuries are provided free of charge, when he noticed a man pick up the bottle of whisky from the bar and begin to walk out of the lounge. Diana's friend was so taken aback by this bare-faced theft, that he started to say quietly, "I belong to Chrestomanci Castle. I belong to Chrestomanci Castle." At this point, the bottle-snatcher announced, "Ah, but under this business suit I have a brocade dressing gown", and walked off with his bottle.

QUESTIONS

Questions from the audience included how she thought of Christopher Chant just walking into other worlds, and will there be a book about Cat when he is grown up.

"The Lives of Christopher Chant started with the Place Between, because I found such a place, and it was really frightening. Then it took me years to work out how Christopher got there, and I finally thought, why doesn't he just walk there in his dreams?

"A lot of people ask about Cat as a grown-up, but so far nothing has emerged from the tangle of ideas. It would actually be quite difficult, because Cat has got a lot of growing up to do. He's been so used to leaning on Gwendolen."

What about the rumour that Diana would be writing a sequel to the Narnia books?

"There was this rumour, and I publically denied it. I think the Narnia books are complete, and I wouldn't want to imitate Lewis. It would be a travesty."

In response to a question about her first-person narrative style, Diana said, "It's a style from 18th century novels, which were the first novels. They were often in the form of diaries, and I liked the idea that they were read as part of the plot."

And does she have a favourite character from her own books? Like many of her fans, Diana finds it difficult to pick just one. "I like them all for different reasons," she said. " I don't have a favourite. Though I do like the Goon, I must say."

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Photos: Chris Cowan