The pig is here because in life and in my writing, I’m drawn to things that are surprising or just beautifully ridiculous. I love that sense of wonder that hits when I see, for example, a five hundred pound Yorkshire pig rising from the Caribbean Sea like some blunt-snouted mermaid. My writing reflects this love of the beautifully unlikely, so I figured this picture (which I snapped a few years ago) would be the ideal way of welcoming you to my site and giving you a feel for what I do.
I write whatever the voices tell me to. Once a character starts talking to me I hand them some of my personal baggage, run them through a gauntlet of anguish and wonders, and see how they respond. Sometimes I end up writing a heartbroken comedy, other times I’ll crank out a literary dystopian novel. Once, I accidentally wrote a thriller. In all cases, I come to the work with curiosity, empathy, and a love of the unexpected.
Pig facts:
I met this majestic porker on the island of Exuma. Like most people, when I first heard of this whole hog-in-the-water phenomenon I thought, Why in the screaming purple hell are those pigs in the ocean? It turns out that some years ago a pig farmer relocated some excess stock to Exuma. There was plenty of forage on the island but the Exuma pigs had the brilliant idea of swimming out to the passing pleasure boats to see if anyone could spare a conch fritter or a bite of rum cake. Pretty soon, people started coming to Exuma just to feed these charming pigs, and over time they trained the humans to bring food straight to beach.
Well played, pigs. Well played.
