Helen Simpson, short story writer: 'Jonathan Franzen accords women the same respect he does male characters'

The author discusses 19th-century German writer Theodor Fontane and print-making classes

Helen Simpson's latest collection of short stories is called 'Cockfosters'

Where are you now and what can you see?

I'm at a City Lit print-making class in Covent Garden because I wanted to understand the difference between etchings, lithographs, screen-prints and lino-prints. I can see a wall of caulking guns, a big old cast-iron flat-bed press and, at my feet, a parcel marked "Lithostone ready – please leave for Simon."

What are you currently reading?

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin, a hoard of vivid tragi-comic stories set in laundromats, detox clinics, prisons and Greyhound bus stations. Also, the first issue of Freeman's, the best-looking literary journal to come out of the States in a long while. And I've just finished Jonathan Franzen's Purity, which I couldn't put down. Let's get this straight about Franzen: he writes great women, he accords them the same respect he does male characters. They're not all saints –he depicts faulty women as well as men –but that's fine!

Choose a favourite author and say why you admire him/her

A recent discovery is 19th-century German writer Theodor Fontane, who didn't start publishing novels until he was almost 60 and then wrote 17. I love the candour and glancing quality of his dialogue, and his subtle moral take on life.

Describe the room where you usually write

A basement room, benign, book-lined. At last!

Which fictional character most resembles you?

Mr Woodhouse? Estragon? Millamant?

Who is your non-literary hero/heroine?

Brave obdurate German artist and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz, who lived through both world wars.

Helen Simpson's latest collection, 'Cockfosters', is published by Jonathan Cape