• lyrical, character-driven fiction with a gritty edge

    Sarah Hunter, Booklist

     

     

     

     

    broken image

     

     

     

    broken image

     

     

     

     

    I grew up on Long Island in the 1970s and 80s. So that was weird.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    broken image

     

     

     

    I worked in advertising photography in the city until one day an art director subjected me to a diatribe about how mink teddy bears were unethical. The thing is, the art director was wearing alligator shoes at the time. It seemed like a good moment to leave New York.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    broken image

     

     

     

    I went to live on the beach in Oregon for a little while, and then to New Orleans for a longer while. I lived around England for a while and now I live in Wales. One time, a santero told me if I missed my chance to make a decision about where I wanted to live I would wind up wandering the world for the rest of my life. That turned out to be true.


    broken image

     

     

    I've done a few degrees in English Literature and published some academic books. I've been an angry performance poet and learned to swallow fire. I've done itinerant farm work and been a cleaner in a leather bar.


    broken image

     

     

     

    I raised a clever and beautiful child, too. That whole time I've been writing, first poetry and then fiction. Like everyone else who writes novels, I wrote a really bad one first and put it away in a drawer.


    broken image

     

     

     

    Then I wrote Little Wrecks, a novel inspired by growing up on Long Island, and people liked it. So the moral of that story is, just because it’s weird doesn’t mean it’s not useful.

    broken image
    These days, I live and work in Cymru. I've got two more novels on the way, and a house, chapel and garden in various states of renovation and repair. The chapel will be a place for everyone, for writing, reading and performance. The garden will be lovely one day. Honest. Currently, I write in a makeshift office in one of the chapel porches. Someday, hopefully soon, I'll be writing in a room in the garden. That is, when I'm not distracted, looking at my favourite mountain.