Dani and Martha sound like complex and often challenging characters - were they difficult to 'get right' during the writing process?

Dani was always a bit easier - by the time I’d done a few drafts, she felt very real to me, so it was more like I was just writing down what I knew she’d do or say anyway! Martha was a little harder. She’s a more slippery character anyway, so she was a bit more of a challenge to pin down.

Your bio says that much of your novel is informed by your work for prison charities, especially connected to the Holloway Mother and Baby Unit. How did you decide what aspects of your work to draw on? What were the challenges when doing this?

The biggest thing I wanted to bring to the novel was to show people a glimpse into a world they might not normally get to see. This included being introduced to a character who was a prisoner, who was realistic - not a monster and not a hard-done-by saint, but a normal person who’d had some bad luck and made some bad decisions. This was also the challenge that I faced - it was very important to me to give an accurate and even handed account of life in prison, and as I have not served a sentence myself I did worry about getting it wrong.

Another aspect of my work that snuck in were in the details - I magpied a lot of different things I’d come across in prison and used them for the plot - like that HMP Holloway had a swimming pool!

Your past work has focused mostly on poetry and performance. How different did you find the process of working on a novel?

Poetry is quicker to write and the rewards come quicker too. You can write a poem in a day and get up on stage and perform it that evening if you want to - share it with the world and get the applause so quickly. Novels take a LONG time and the feedback is slower to come. But it’s also more permanent than performance poetry. I’m so excited that people will be able to experience my work without me physically having to be there! My story can live in someone’s handbag and go to the beach with them rather than me doing 20 performances and then that being the end of it.

Your publisher Dialogue Books' mission statement is 'books that spark a conversation'. What conversations would you like One More Chance to spark?

I’d like people to think about prisoners, and crime and punishment. I don’t think that doing a bad thing makes you a bad person, and I don’t think that punishment without rehabilitation helps us as a society.

What's next - another novel, or a return to poetry and performance?

I’m working on another novel right now! I still love performing poetry though - you can normally catch me at a festival or open mic around the city somewhere!