One Minute With: Joff Winterhart, graphic novelist

Winterhart says: 'Jasmine Adams from 'The Member of the Wedding' is a character I identify with. I don't know what that says about me as she is a twelve year old girl and rather trying at that.'

Where are you now and what can you see?

I am in my basement flat. I can see people playing floodlit rugby out of the window.

What are you currently reading?

'As I Walked out one Midsummer Morning' by Laurie Lee.

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

Carson McCullers is probably my best author. 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter', 'The Mortgaged Heart' and most of all 'The Member of the Wedding' are all mind-blowingly great.

Describe the room where you usually write

It is a box room at the end of my flat. One of the walls is white and the others are a lurid blue.

Which fictional character most resembles you?

Jasmine Adams from the aforementioned 'The Member of the Wedding' is a character I identify with. I don't know what that says about me as she is a twelve year old girl and rather trying at that.

Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature?

Jonathan Richman, rock 'n' roll singer and Sister Corita Kent, radical screen-printing hippie nun from 1960s Los Angeles.

Joff Winterhart's 'Day's of the Bagnold Summer' (Jonathan Cape) is shortlisted for the 2012 Costa Novel Award