Spotlight On Writers
Andrew Minhinnick
@Minhinnick_A
- Where do you originate from?
Early memories are of the south west of the UK: beaches in the summer; the smell of a stale camper van; out in the fields and woods locally all day just coming home for food; running to the corner shop on a Friday with some pocket money; heading up the hill to the nearest grandparents house to an always full biscuit barrel, to be chased off by grannies laughter filled retribution. My later school years were spent in an old naval hospital converted into a school, trying to be cool and failing.
- What do you cherish most about the place you call home?
Home is halfway up the side of a Scottish river valley looking southwards over the confluence of two energetic rivers. The neighbours are a five minute walk away. Background noise is the burn running below us, in summer the softest of folded linen, in winter full barrelling confusion. Outside the garden and fields around are the dog’s playground. A playground populated by the smells of martin, deer, pheasant, hare and a cascade of smaller birds. Each morning is an ever changing horizon.
- What ignites your creativity?
It can be the smallest spoken phrase or a shadow in the hedgerow. There is no pattern, and if not caught quickly and put on paper the thought will fragment and dissipate. Those ignitions will sit, sometimes never to develop, sometimes to flourish, to be knocked into a more rounded and acceptable shape. Some obvious and prominent parts may be trimmed to reinforce obscurity and encourage imagination.
- Do you have a favorite word and could you incorporate it into a poetic phrase?
A favourite word is just, which I just use far too often. But I love how it inserts a cognitive pause in a phrase or sentence, or just reduces the volume of meaning in the following worms.
Oh I like the word worms as well, using it to replace words. The word worm delves, nourishes, burrows, and enriches everything we stand on, well just about everything.
- What is your pet peeve?
Insincerity, and all the falseness that entails. I would prefer open honesty in interest, performative falseness socially or otherwise is cowardly.
- How would you describe the essence of Andrew Minhinnick?
Hopefully I am looking to try and enjoy everything that happens during the day but I am disappointed to continually witness, read or hear the human compunction of selfishness. This trait of shallow insecurity, and its lack of authenticity, continues to disappoint.
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