Neil Gaiman: "Writers are otters"

In The Guardian, Michelle Pauli talks to genre-hopping writer Neil Gaiman.

"Writers are otters," states Neil Gaiman, firmly. And indeed, there is undoubtedly something otterish about this author, with his trademark dark jeans and black leather jacket, and just a hint of whiskerishness - though his shaggy moptop makes him perhaps a little less sleek than your average otter. No matter, Gaiman warms to his theme.

"Otters are not trainable," he explains. "Dogs are trainable - if you want them to sit you train them and give them rewards and they sit each time. But otters... if they do something cool and you give them a fish, the next time they'll do something even cooler. Or they'll try to do something completely different. I think that most writers - or at least a lot of us - are otters."