How did you get into writing? How relevant are those early influences today?

 

Listening to Nick Drake with an injured neck, then writing a bad poem. I'd been in the England Colts rugby squad and played cricket for Leicestershire, but laid up in bed I realised I wasn't going to be 6 ft 4 or bowl at a 100 mph. All that fiery energy had to go somewhere else, instead of just being doused with drink. So I started writing poetry, reading John Burnside and Ted Hughes. The power of language was a revelation, that words could rock the body, shiver a spine. I read voraciously. I graduated with a psychology degree then took jobs that would let me read. Bike messenger with bag of books, a roofer with Penguin 60s hidden in my pockets. I read Catcher in the Rye while operating a Stop-Go board on a by-pass, letting the cars through every couple of pages. This love of language has never faltered.




Winning awards is a habit of yours. How important are these to young writers, New Ventures in particular?

 

No doubt that a public pat on the back, and a cheque in an envelope, is a boost to any writer. And the financial reward was as important as the credo. At the time of the New Ventures prize I was living on board a leaky boat on the Thames, fishing out driftwood to save money on fuel and not work full-time. I was teaching literacy skills to refugees a few hours week so I could finish my novel. The deadline to reach the final page was not set by me, but the bailiffs and the patience of my girlfriend. A cleared cheque in the bank was time and space. And certainly the publicity of winning is vital attention for a new writer. After the New Ventures prize I was in the honored position of agents approaching me, and I am certain that when Show Me the Sky was submitted publishers took notice because of the prize.




There's poetic, haiku quality about your work. What's the process of getting it on the page like?

 

The economy of language in a haiku is remarkable. That the pivotal point of a life can be balanced on three lines with syllables of 5-7-5 is a very fine focus, and a skill for any form of storytelling. I worked in Japan as a teacher and journalist, and even a very unqualified haiku editor for Japanese poets translating their work into English. Hopefully this experience has left me a better writer.




'Show Me The Sky' will be published next year, what can you tell us about it? Writing a novel for most of us is like eating an elephant, how did you do it?

 

I like the Denis Johnson simile that writing a novel is like "building a boat and setting sail for Africa, only to end up in Spain." It's the adventure of the unknown, of finding out something new, exploring, not knowing where you may end up. Hopefully my boat is big enough for the elephant.




What's the worst advice you can give a young author?

 

This is a tough one. There is no "way" to write, so what advice could I possibly give? Surely any advice would be bad in an art form which is ultimately about one person speaking to another? When I read I want the core of the writer, the impure whole. No novel is perfect, because no author is perfect. But what beautiful folly to try...


Show Me The Sky is due to be published in 2008