I think my cheerfulness keeps my writing from sinking into the depths of melancholy, while the darker side keeps in check any literary silliness I mi….

I admire writers who have the tenacity to write a blog, and I'm told by everyone that it's an important element in remaining visible in the online wo….

I think it's probably true that creative people are touched by melancholy more than the average person, and to the extent that delving into that shad….

I would put forward a modest proposition that we were very much better governed by Henry VIII than we are by King Gordon..

I think I give far more space and play to avant-garde writing than any other contemporary textbook author. I want students to be able to decide for t….

Once a piece of writing gets to a moment where it's not going to get much better than it already is, marinate it. If you still like the piece, send i….

My biggest poetic influences are probably 20th-century British and Irish poets. So I suppose I'm always listening for the music I associate with that….

I do think poetry needs to invite the reader, especially when there are so many other distractions while reading..

Compare the scale and magnifcence of Versailles with St James's - the brick-built hovel in which the 18th-century kings of England lived. What was th….

In the 20th century, the position of the monarch as head of the Church of England was given a meaning which it never had before. You took the fact th….

Embrace the melancholic voice completely in the drafting stages, to explore it for all it's worth. Then, in revision, privilege craft over pure feeli….

If you really want people to pay attention to how you feel, you need to express your feelings in language that's worth reading..

Out of the chaos of post-Roman Dark Age Britain, the English had created the world's first nation-state: One king, one country, one church, one curre….