Writer Between Worlds

This is my manifesto, my writer’s decalogue:

1. I write stories you can live in. Writing, for me, is an architecture of emotion and thought. Let us explore that edifice.
2. I write to articulate the world – constantly deconstructing and reconstructing to arrive at the essence of what it is to be human.
3. I write to create beauty. To enrich the reader’s experience. Writing needs to enchant, mesmerize, and allow us to partake of each other.
4. I strive to create immersive texts that are as akin to ‘texture’ (i.e. embodied experience) as possible.
5. I play with expectations and turn them on their head. By proving my narrative unreliable, I make you wonder about the nature of reality, frames of perception and stories in general.
6. I aim for catharsis, not pedagogy. Seduction; not didacticism. Art is not a thesis, nor is it a dissertation. Questions are better than answers.
7. I probe the dark corners of the human psyche. I honor the complex psychologies of my characters, the messiness and liminality of the human condition.
8. Writing is shamanism and invocation, exorcism and trance. Nevertheless, I remain fully aware that the fiction writer is at best a dream-weaver. At worst, (s)he’s a serial liar trying to get to the truth. I keep that in mind whenever I’m tempted to proclaim mine in ALL CAPS.
9. I write about what moves me and do so in a cinematic way. I play with form and style but stay true to my voice. Less is more.
10. I write at the intersection of commercial and literary fiction. Not theory, in which literature smugly references itself, but accessible texts about life as I encounter it; about what life feels like.