It's interesting that, given our culture has so many words that refer to women in a truly derogatory fashion, it's 'lady' - a term that has conferred social respect on our gender for over a thousand years - that has women up in arms.
The digital revolution has wrest a little control away from corporate publishers and white, male, middle-aged critics, but the financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.
My identity has always been confused. Born in Edinburgh of a Scottish/Russian/Jewish mother and an English/Irish/Catholic father, there is no form of guilt to which I was not subjected in my childhood. Members of my immediate family live all over the world - a diaspora of cousins, aunts, uncles and more in a dizzying mix.
I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi.
Let's be clear - for people like me, who are obsessed with story and for whom words are their medium, writing is the best job possible. I work hard, but I earn more than the national average wage while I play with my imagination, and for me, that's a dream.
I realized early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Because there are no pay grades and very little structure, people make interesting assumptions about the profession.
There are so many ways to do research - even watching old Ealing comedies, watching people getting on and off buses in London, looking at household interiors.
Personally I estimate about a third of my time is spent on author events, social media and traditional publicity.
I'm unique - a cosmopolitan mix.
The question shouldn't be 'Are we guilty about our colonial past;' it should be 'Why aren't we more guilty about our corporate present'?
Writers are a product of where we come from, but by looking at alternatives to the culture in which we live, we can find ways to change and hopefully improve it.
The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.
I once did an event with Ian Rankin where he said he didn't really need to do much background research because his books are set in the present, and I just thought: 'You lucky, lucky beast!' because as a historical novelist, I live constantly on the edge of wondering whether tissues had been invented.
People were consuming on average less calories after the war than during the war. Things were still very tough. If you look at the film footage of London streets, even in areas which weren't slums, there are kids in the streets who are dirty and have no shoes on. It was rough. There was a real edge.
How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow.
I wrote 'I'm Me' because I was asked to write a children's book.
I am incredibly jammy. I really am.
If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done.
Writers have it easy. If you write a bestseller or have your book made into a movie, you'll never have to work again, or so the myth goes.
Living in Edinburgh, I consider myself particularly lucky - we have the biggest book festival in the world, a plethora of fascinating libraries and museums, and some of the greatest architecture in Europe.
