1. You’ve often mentioned Angkor Wat as the starting point. When did the story of The Red Silk Dress first begin to take shape?

The story began in 2015 at a writing retreat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. For a long time before that, I had carried a persistent feeling that I wanted to write a novel, but I did not know where to begin. It wasn’t a clear concept. It was simply there, quietly pressing.

At the retreat, Claudette appeared. I saw her stepping out of a taxi in front of Raffles Hotel, wearing a wide-brimmed white Panama hat and dark sunglasses. She was elegant and composed, yet something in her felt unresolved. I wrote the opening paragraph that week, and it remains the opening of the novel.

As I followed her story, what emerged was not a plot but a question: what happens to the parts of ourselves that become buried as we grow up? From the outside, life can look complete. Inside, something may be waiting beneath responsibility and expectation.

2. Were there moments when the story surprised you—or when the writing process changed you?

The story surprised me constantly, especially in the first draft. I would sit down without knowing what would unfold, and suddenly a scene would gather momentum: a hotel lobby heavy with heat, silk between fingers, a look exchanged across a room. It felt less like inventing and more like discovering. The joy of world-building was unexpected. Characters found their own voices. Places gathered atmosphere. Writing through the senses, through scent, touch and sound, deepened the emotional landscape.

If drafting was discovery, finishing was discipline. Rewriting became the real work, returning again and again until the whole held together. The process changed me quietly. For years, my professional work in innovation ran alongside a more private creative life. Completing the novel brought those strands together. What once felt parallel now feels integrated.

3. Many readers talk about a sense of “in-between-ness” in the story. Is that something you’ve felt personally?

I lived in Southeast Asia for twelve years, and that experience reshaped how I understand identity. When you spend that long outside the culture that first formed you, you begin to see yourself differently. You notice what is inherited, what is chosen, and what shifts over time.

Living there heightened my attention to place. Light, heat, monsoon rain, the density of noise in a city, these are not background details. They affect the body and imagination. When writing, I leaned deliberately into the senses. How does a room feel? How does silk move against skin? How does humidity alter the pace of a conversation? Those textures became part of the book’s emotional world.

Coming to Portugal marked another shift. After years of movement, I longed not only for stillness, but for belonging. We chose to live in a small Portuguese town south of Lisbon rather than in an international enclave, wanting daily life to shape us from the inside. I still value travel, but there is something steadying about belonging to a place while seeing it with fresh eyes.

4. The red silk dress is a powerful symbol. What does it represent to you now?

I was surrounded by silk in the boutiques and markets of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Colour was everywhere: deep reds, burnished golds, fabric catching the light. It was there that the image of the red silk dress first took hold. In the novel, it becomes a turning point. Each time Claudette chooses red, something shifts, not dramatically, but deliberately. The dress is an outward sign of inward change. Red carries presence. Silk holds sensuality and softness. Together, they reflect a central tension in the story: strength and vulnerability existing at once.

Claudette’s decisions are not simple. They are shaped by competing loyalties and desires. What interested me was the moment of interior recognition when she realises that something in her life no longer fits and understands that change will carry consequences.

5. What did the writing process look like for you?

Most of the writing happened early in the morning before the demands of the day began. I would rise around 6:30 and work for a few quiet hours. As the manuscript moved into editing, evenings and weekends became part of the rhythm.

Writing is not romantic. It requires return. You show up whether inspiration feels present or not, shaping and reshaping until the whole feels coherent.

Now the focus has shifted. Only recently have I begun to realise that I have written more than a book. The story carries its own atmosphere, a way of seeing and sensing, and I am exploring how it might live beyond the page through curated gatherings and artistic collaborations rooted in place, art, food, fabric, scent and conversation.

6. If readers take away just one thing from the book, what would you like it to be?

I hope the book creates a pause. A moment of quiet recognition. Not necessarily dramatic reinvention, but a gentle question: what is asking to emerge in me? Where have I been living on the surface of my own life? Sometimes we need only to listen more carefully — to notice what feels alive, what feels diminished, and where courage might be waiting quietly beneath the surface.

The first public Lisbon gathering around The Red Silk Dress will be held at The Vintage Hotel & Spa on Tuesday, 31st March at 7:00 pm, in creative collaboration with Swedish artist Ingela Johansson.The evening will bring together reading, art and conversation, and is open to readers. Details are available at
www.theredsilkdress.com