What are your earliest memories of Kingston?

My mother is telling my brothers and me a story about the world before there was light or time. Meanwhile, a bar across West Main Drive in Maverly is playing Bob.

What is the most memorable meal you have enjoyed in Kingston?

Apart from my mother’s cooking (she was a serious chef) I would say Hellshire Beach seafood.

What would you do if you were mayor of Kingston for a day?

Create a space where people felt free to share ideas on how to improve our city. All would be welcome. Then maybe I’d suggest a Ministry of Imagination in general.

What would be your recommendations to a first-time visitor to Kingston?

If you’re a tourist, don’t miss the Marley Museum; it’s not a cliché. Learn as much as you can about Jamaica’s first inhabitants, the Tainos. And be sure to have a drink and chat with some friends in a place where you can see the Blue Mountain range. If you’re from rural Jamaica: ask directions.

What is your beverage of choice?

A mojito — with real mint. Where’s the leaf? I need to see the leaf in it.

What was the last bit of music that impressed you?

Quite a few. But I’ve written chapters to the instrumental for Kanye West’s Runaway and Jhene Aiko.

What cologne are you splashing?

Kenneth Cole Black.

What was your last major retail indulgence?

Italian shoes. Tan.

Share the fave places in your travel black book.

New York City, all of it. Alcazar De Colon (Columbus’ house) in the Dominican Republic, Temple By The Sea in Trinidad and Tobago, Kingston-Upon-Hull in the United Kingdom, where I got my break as a writer, and Jakes in Treasure Beach.

Share the title of the last book you read.

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

You’re a recently published author of the debut novel, Sketcher. Is your work autobiographical in any way or pure fiction?

The emotions and some of the incidents are real. Overall it’s a fictionalised version of growing up with lots of reality left in there.

How do you strike a balance between being a copywriter in an advertising agency with your artistic creativity as an author?

Most times I don’t have to. You write the truth of what you feel. The first part of it starts at three in the morning. The rest is in the daylight, somewhere else.

Whose work influences your writing?

J D Salinger, Olive Senior, James Joyce, Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hahn, Khalil Gibran, Osho, Derek Walcott and the Gnostic Gospels are a few.

Where’s your go-to spot to relax?

Anywhere I can see the ocean or the mountains. And then there are places I create.

What’s your take on introducing Jamaican patois as a formal language in the island and English as a secondary tongue?

Let English and patois both live together and love each other and let’s all code-switch as much as we want. But we need to know which is which and when to use what.

When last did you have a great laugh?

When my two-year-old scolded me for drinking his apple juice.

What occasion last moved you to tears?

Watching footage of children being surprised by their parents home from war.

What is your life philosophy?

Everything in life gets old and broken. There is beauty in broken things and many things become perfect with age. It’s called wabi-sabi.