I Wouldn't Call My Work Modernist. I

My Father Is From Newark In Nottinghamshire And My Mother Is From The Very North Of Ireland. They've Ended Up In Scotland, Where My Father - Well, Both Of Them - Will Always Be Seen As Having Come From Somewhere Else.

Short Stories Consume You Faster. They're Connected To Brevity. With The Short Story, You Are Up Against Mortality. I Know How Tough They Are As A Form, But They're Also A Total Joy.

Oh. To Be Filled With Goodness Then Shattered By Goodness, So Beautifully Mosaically Fragmented By Such Shocking Goodness.

I Had A Job, I Got Ill, I Left The Job To Get Better, And While I Was Getting Better, I Wrote Some Stories. I Sent Them To Some Publishers And The Fifth One Who Replied Said They'd Take Them. Then They Went Bankrupt. Then That Bankrupt Publisher Got Bought By A Bigger Firm. Story: In The End Is The Beginning, And In The Beginning Is The End.

There Are Things That Can't Be Said, Because It's Hard To Have To Know Them.