‘How do you feel about completing your PhD?’
I feel great about it. It was a long 4 years, and while the creative side of it came rather naturally to me, the critical side was not something that I was as comfortable with. Accessing both sides of the intellect in that respect is challenging, as is the related research, but I’m pleased with the project overall. It feels wonderful to be able to look forward to graduation in July.
‘The response to your new collection has been very favourable. What inspired the collection and what was the process used in compiling your material?’
The book is based on various experiences working various jobs, mostly factories and warehouses, as well as offices. But I set the action during a 12 hour Night Shift in a plastic factory, as I felt that would be a challenging space within which to experiment with form and narrative. The time stamps serve as a way to replicate the claustrophobic repetition of the worker’s experience, but mostly as a way of examining how time works while using the imagination as an escape mechanism. I incorporated modes of memoiristic flights and dream sequences, as well as varying aspects of pop culture, art and literature. Sexton’s If All the World and Love Were Young, Eliot’s The Waste Land and the replication of thought in real time of Fosse’s writing style were all important blueprints when structuring the book.
