To find out a little more about their work, we asked Ali the following questions…
What inspires your work?
My mixed (in many ways) heritage. The interaction between the culture we’re given and the one we find for ourselves is very interesting to me. Good writing should reflect the many-sided nature of people’s personalities, rather than put people in boxes. Travel and South London are two big inspirations, too (which often means ideas come to me while squashed onto the Northern Line).
Tell us a bit about your writing process…
Ideas usually come to me as a single image or a single line first, I then build a story around that image. I always write the first sketch, and partial draft, by hand before moving to the computer. I recently discovered a wonderful paper-style tablet (the ReMarkable) and I now do all my initial drafts on it. I then force myself to cut out a lot of words before sending it to my first two readers, who are always my partner and my mother.