I have a great advantage: I write from the perspective of my own voice. I'm not copying anyone's voice. It's my voice. I have the advantage of being a writer of English as a second language.

For me, the more I understand the story of others, the greater I am able to learn and help other people.

I am a community social psychologist and a lot of my work deals with social work and helping people overcoming addiction and trauma.

There are multiple things entering in your mind.

I'm also developing my own narrative, because I'm the son of a widow. And so, while working with women and gathering their oral histories, I'm taking a step back to do my own art book and visual work.

Mary's [Hamill] working from an outsider perspective and I'm working from an insider-outside perspective. In this case, it will bring an added dimension to the visual aspects of the work. Also the processes and approaches that I'm thinking are about learning. I'm playing it by ear to experiment and see what happens.

When you make art, those things change shape into something else. It's transformation into a body of different visual elements.