Where are you from? What have you read? How does this impact upon your writing life?

I am certainly not from the same place as John Cheever, or Emily Dickinson, and I have not read what a typical English lecturer would have expected of me.

White, middle class, supportive upbringing where my fancies were indulged. I never really questioned myself until puberty where the typical stream of depression and anxiety washed over me, recently giving way to my present state of moderate bitterness (you could say I've blossomed into a full Englishman).

I haven't been repressed because of my gender, (like Dickinson) and I haven't had any trouble with my sexuality (like Cheever). In fact, I haven't had much of what some might call 'genuine hardship'. But I have experienced something which has deeply troubled me, and indeed many people my age and beyond: a lack of agency.

In this society of bureaucracy and hidden strings, it is hard for people to think that their actions really matter. Even when it's clear what one has to do, it is muddled by over-thinking busy-bodies, and needlessly complex systems imposed by others.

It is because of this that I find solace in writings which concern people with the power of agency. I read about worlds with simple agendas, or worlds that have been cluttered by society, and are made neat again by straightforward solutions, such as in the Conan stories where malicious plots and backstabbing are ended through barbarian steel and simple self confidence. I read about characters discovering what they can do, what they can't do, and why that's nothing to be ashamed of.

I read from those that revere the path without pretence, and I write for those that think they can't, but don't realise they can.