(what's the point of) making things

“It would be an act of, I think, cowardice and almost deceit, to never write in some way about the most important formative ideas, places and years of my life.”

There’s a mischief in me when I write, and I really like provoking and surprising readers and ideally winding them up. And I think there is something quite provocative about writing about a kind of background that a liberal, contemporary, secular reader would assume would have been in some way devastating to the psyche, and show that a) all upbring... See more

t would be easy to think that my setting something in Essex or Chelmsford, or East Anglia, was a conscious choice. But actually, it’s just the matter at hand. It becomes a natural location for my imagination.

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to b... See more