In this episode I interview Sean Lusk; a fiction author from the UK with some wonderful insights about writing and generating ideas. Described in his school report as a dilettante, Sean took the description seriously, failing his exams and traveling to Pakistan, India, Egypt, and on through Africa. Along the way, he has had jobs as a gardener, immigration officer, speechwriter, teacher, strategist, diplomatic official and conference organizer. He began writing seriously in 2000, winning prizes with his unsettling, darkly humorous, and intriguing short stories. After writing and later burning a novel set in the mountains of Pakistan and another set entirely in the small ads column of a local newspaper, he returned to work for the British Government, focusing on teaching officials to think strategically and plan for the future. He wrote an academic book on the subject in 2014, having observed that running exercises on pandemic planning or climate change seemed to have the effect of absolving everyone from the need to take any action, much as confessing one’s sins to a priest does little to stop sinning. The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is his debut novel, a celebration of fluttering birds, clockwork, travel, eighteenth-century spymasters, and love in all its forms. Sean has recently moved from rural Greece to the Scottish Highlands where he lives with his wife Sally and is in the process of acquiring chickens, dogs, cats, tartan carpets and, he prays, some llamas.

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