We do not see the world as it is, indeed no-one does. Rather, in the first instance, we see what appear to be objects in space, moving around and interacting with one another. In the magical realm of the mind, these interactions generate a cascade of thoughts, feelings and associations. It is here that life and the world we know begin - as a dialogue of objects in space and thoughts in time. Whilst my scripts explore the interactions of a range of characters over a relatively short period of time, my literary projects are inevitably the portrayal of a solitary, displaced voice, over much longer stretches of time.
In my work, the desire to order words is echoed by a desire to order things in space. In scriptwriting this is obvious, as a film script consists of characters, words spoken and locations. In my literary writing, art works occur and reoccur, both as objects of discussion but also filling out and giving form to the characters of my stories. The stories told are then embroidered with insights gained from such disciplines as history, art history, archaeology and anthropology. In A Tale of Two Grandmothers the tapestry of reflection is further informed by the insights gained by my own humble endeavours as a sculptor; the process of moulding form generating a flow of thoughts and ideas that could not be reached through a dialogue of words alone. In Bacchus: Footnotes to History each of the book's four chapters is headed by a relief cast in bronze. I therefore find myself reconnecting to the twenty-one-year-old sculpture student I once was, the problems of sculpture and its reception that beset me back then, now washed away by a bubbling torrent of words. Life is a dialogue, a dialogue of objects in space with words, thoughts and feelings in time.