Um, and on your website, you have a bio, and it says, "My deepest interests lie in connections between spirituality, language, and healing the earth and each other." Um, and I know you've kind of touched on this a little bit already with the spirituality, um, but what would you say our role as writers is in this work?

I think one of the main things writers can do now, especially in a very contaminated, um, social media environment and public conversation, is to provide language that's al- an alternative to the incessant market language or the highly partisan language or the violence that has invaded language.

That we can, because we think about words themselves, part of our work is to offer people a way of putting it that provides an alternative to the, the, the kind of polarized political rhetoric that I know you have some of that in England as well as here.

Um, and the oversimplifications and the hyperbole that are so pervasive in, in the tabloids, but these days, even in mainstream public sources.

And so I think to pay attention to the value of making careful distinctions and the value of that middle range of emotional language, which I think of as Jane Austen language, that people are, aren't either outraged or depressed or thrilled or, one completely overused word, excited.

But that they're vexed or perplexed or, um, bemused, or someone is affable or agreeable.

And I'm not suggesting that we retrieve 18th century language, but I am saying that to name things a little more carefully is to call people's attention to something that is more complex and more subtle.

[laughs]