“Everyone arrives to the writer workbench differently. For me, I need to feel excited about the work in ways that exist outside of writing. I need to dream, and I need music to better visualize the choreography and energy of that dream. Writing is a lonely practice. When no one is around to pump you up in the process, music will always be there. When no one else understands, music finds a way.”
“Dream Facades is about the architecture of reality TV. It explores the feeling of unreality that comes from living in emotionally hollowed-out homes and the resulting yearning to feel real that drives us to look for reality on our TV screens by studying a handful of seminal shows.”
“While those years can sometimes feel like a blur, when I stop and slow down, these are the songs I can still sometimes hear.”
“…Swan Lake, the full discography of Beach House, and the In the Mood for Love soundtrack have long been go-tos for me while writing, as music just generally swollen with drama and emotion.”
“The novel was inspired by my own working-class upbringing in Glasgow, and reflects my love of punk rock. This mixtape has been dictated by my characters, all bands/songs included are name-checked in the book, and the fact that there are so many punk tracks is entirely coincidental!”
“I did most of the writing of Mass Mothering in silence, as it’s hard for me to write with music on without getting swept up and unduly influenced by it.”
“Writing the Dollartorium was an exercise in anger which I hoped to temper with satire, absurdity and a sense of hope at the beginning and end. These songs reflect the satire I felt or the values that underlie my own feelings and something of my own reaction to the events of the novel, both the good and the not so good.”
“During the year it took me to compose Mule Boy, I found myself going back to songs of longing, told like stories, and sung as though these might be the last songs a songwriter sings.”
“‘Visions of Johanna’ is the clearest artistic account of how desire distorts perception. Louise is present. Johanna is absent. Yet Johanna dominates. The song is not narrative so much as accumulation: images piling up without resolution, because, once again, obsession doesn’t resolve.”
“Neon Steel is a speculative collection of fiction set in Pittsburgh in the late ’90s and early 2000s. I wanted this playlist to reflect the flavor of the post-industrial city and project a certain energy, futurism, and joy.”