A short story can be packed with meaning and impact, with the concentrated density of a collapsed star, but should preferably also have a kind of elegant simplicity.

I first conceived of my far-future setting 'Punktown' in 1980, and though it contains 'punk' in its name, the term 'cyberpunk' hadn't been coined yet. I took my inspiration strictly from punk music.

I've polished up stories for their reprinted appearances. I guess there's always something to be changed or improved, but one could get carried away and work on one story indefinitely. I'm too restless for that, too eager to begin the next one.

After the cancer-free diagnosis, I thought I'd go off and do the things I never did in my teens and twenties. I realised putting things off in life can be dangerous because suddenly you can find you've run out of time.

I am just as ordinary as anyone else, and I also have my problems, but I also am responsible for my own health. So I'll be on that exercise bike, I'll be out there walking and try to improve my health and diet as much as I'm expecting of other Tasmanians.

In my home state of Indiana, we prove every day that you can build a growing economy on balanced budgets, low taxes, even while making record investments in education and roads and health care.

In my late 30s, I flirted with the idea of having a child without necessarily being in a steady relationship. But I've never had a strong maternal urge, and then I got cancer of the womb - luckily caught at an early stage - so that put paid to that.