Jodi Picoult is one of the highest-selling authors writing today, with a massive fan base in the UK.

For the first time in two years, fans will have the opportunity to hear her talk live about her latest and most important book yet, Small Great Things, when she visits the BIC on December 1.

She answers some questions ahead of her Bournemouth visit...

Q: How does it feel to be back in England?

A: Oh, I just love coming here. My fans are the greatest, most responsive people and I have such fun meeting them. You have an amazing country and I really enjoy exploring it when I come. I just wish my publisher gave me more time to look around and see the sights! I have holidayed here with my family a lot and came to Scotland on my 10th anniversary! So I am really looking forward to being back.

Q: What was the inspiration behind Small Great Things?

A: Racism is a topic that weighs heavily on the hearts of people in my country – and heavily on my heart. But most white people have no idea how to talk about it. It’s very easy to make a mistake when we talk about racism – or to unintentionally offend someone. And so, as a result, white people often don’t talk about it at all. I had been trying to write a book about racism for 20 years, but couldn’t figure out how to do it. I kept asking myself: Why do I have the right to write it? I grew up white and privileged. True, I do research. True, I’ve written about many kinds of people I’m not: Rape victims, cancer patients, school shooters, men – but racism is different. The answer came in realising who my audience was.

Yes, I hope people of colour read the book and find it resonant. But I really am reaching out to white people who - like me, like many of my friends - would never think of themselves as racists – but need to think a little harder. I was pretty blissfully ignorant about racism before I began this book, because I had the luxury of being ignorant. Now I can’t NOT see race, and I can’t stop discussing it.

Q: What research did you do?

A: Well, I knew I wanted to write from the point of view of several characters - a black nurse, a skinhead father and a defence lawyer, a woman who, like me, and like many of my readers, was a well-intentioned white lady who would never consider herself to be a racist. First, I read many books by social justice educators, and enrolled in a social justice workshop. I listened to an Asian-American woman recount her love/ hate relationship with eye liner, because of her features; I heard a black woman say that she had to put on a mask every day just to act the way white people needed to see her act. I left in tears every night as I came to see that I was not nearly as blameless as I thought I was. I then sat down with women of colour who overlooked my ignorance and graciously shared their successes, failures, hopes and fears.

Here is the grievous mistake I had made for the majority of my life: I assumed that racism is synonymous with bias. Yet you could take every white supremacist and ship him off to Mars and you’d still have racism in the world. That’s because racism is systemic and institutional… and yet it is both perpetuated and dismantled in individual acts. Of all my books, this one will stand out for me because of the sea change it inspired in the way I think about myself and how far I still have to go in terms of racial awareness.

Q: Did you enjoy writing with the voices of such diverse characters?

A: Actually, ENJOY is the wrong word. I thought a lot about whose story this was to tell — in other words, why was I - a white woman - writing about racism? Was I trying to profit off someone else’s oppression? Eventually I realized that my audience was not people of colour.

There is nothing I can tell them about their lives they don’t already know.

My audience was white people — I wanted them to realise that although it’s easy to point to a skinhead and say that’s a racist, it’s harder to point to oneself and say the same. To that end, I had to create the voice of a black woman but in a way that was empathetic and authentic — not just me trying to figure out what it might be. I was as diligent as I could be trying to learn from women of colour, and asking them for their help in creating Ruth’s voice - and I truly could not and would not have done it without them. As for writing a white supremacist — I honestly had to come down from my office each time and take a shower.

Jodi will be at the BIC on Thursday, December l at 12.30pm. Tickets, to include a hardback copy of Small Great Things, from bic.co.uk.