I live in Scotland although I was born and raised in and around London. I have just completed a full length novel called 'Jerusalem' which will be available here soon. I have always been concerned with the magical nature of language (as opposed to the magical). I try to explore areas of thought and experience through a very particular use of language and narrative structure. It seems to me that a novel does not need to be contained within a very basic narrative chronology as this does not reflect the way we actually experience life. I use language and structure to break these arbitrary codes and open out the form into less well defined patterns. I have been influenced by William Burroughs, John Cage, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce and Herman Melville in terms of what can be done with form and language. Other writers I admire: Cormac McCarthy, Paul Bowles, Franz Kafka, Dostoevsky, Samuel Beckett, Joseph Conrad, William Blake, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac.