B M-S: What are the values, if any, of writing courses?
PB: Writing courses can be a great inspiration and motivation and an opportunity to meet other writers. I enrolled in a novel course for a year when I just had the germ of an idea for the novel I am now working on. Both the teacher, Olga Lorenzo, and the sudents gave me enormous hope: their interest in my work gave me an incredible kick start. At the end of the day though there is only yourself having to produce something worthwhile. Writing courses can give you the tools to do this but they cannot produce a good writer if the good writer wasn't there to begin with.
B M-S: How important is research to you in the process of writing both poems and novels?
PB: Well, it's enormously important for my novel, because I am working with historical facts - weaving a fictional narrative around something that actually did happen - two thousand Jewish refugees spent eight months in Kobe, Japan just before the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Research is actually very difficult. It's easy to get bogged down with facts and this can be really destructive for the creative process. On the other hand, particular facts that are really essential to a believable narrative can be peculiarly elusive.
The only time I've ever done research for poems was when I wrote the Rothko poems for the Gallery. In this case, details of Mark Rothko's life (especially his childhood) inspired the poems.
B M-S: Where do you see yourself (as a writer) five years from now?
PB: I'd like to have published two more books of poetry, (though realistically speaking, I work so slowly I'll probably be half way through my third), the novel I'm working on now plus another novel. I'd hope to be working more as a writer than as a literacy/media teacher. I can't say more than that, it's all so changeable. On a good day I might feel that I'm going to write many successful books over the
