Interviews

	'Alex Pheby's debut novel, Grace, which tells the story of the dramatic escape of Peterman, from a secure mental hospital, was recently published by Two Raven’s Press, and, to cap his success (!) reviewed favourably here on Lizzy’s Literary Life. I would pour Alex a glass of champagne, but it is too cold on this snowy February morning. We have instead settled down next to the virtual log fire with tea and buttered toast as we discuss reading, writing and publishing...'
	I’ve always been interested in madness and the flexibility that reality takes on when we are mentally ill. It seems to me that, particularly when living in modern cities, there’s so much flux and anxiety, that sanity itself takes on many of the characteristics of mental illness – paranoia, feelings of being out of control, the constant assailing of the senses with new and unfamiliar experiences, fear – and that the ‘madman’ becomes a metaphorical everyman – out of place and vulnerable.