Ask the Author: Paul Kitcatt
Answered Questions (3)
Paul Kitcatt
I stop sitting staring at the screen, or the sheet of paper. I get up, go out, walk and walk until the rhythm of movement changes my mental state. I don't think about what I'm writing, but about where I am. I watch birds. They're always up to something. I don't chase the words, but let them come to me.
Paul Kitcatt
When I was six, my grandparents gave me a wonderful book for Christmas: The Golden Treasury of Natural History, by Bertha Morris Parker. It covered everything from the earliest forms of life, through the dinosaurs, to modern animals, and then on, out into space, with illustrations throughout. I spent hours with it, and decided that one day, I would write a book. I already wrote little stories in exercise books; now I set my sights higher. It's taken a bit longer than I expected.
Paul Kitcatt
I started to think about it while my mother was in a succession of care homes at the end of her life. In a care home, social interaction is limited: the carers are too busy and the other inmates are often in various stages of dementia. My mother, like many other residents, had far too little social intercourse of the kind she needed and was used to.
I’d been reading in New Scientist about developments in AI, and it struck me that sufficiently advanced AI could provide a solution. Especially if it was embodied in a synthetic human. It turned out to be something scientists working in robotics are actively developing, and while I was writing the novel some early experiments were carried out with elderly people.
I’d been reading in New Scientist about developments in AI, and it struck me that sufficiently advanced AI could provide a solution. Especially if it was embodied in a synthetic human. It turned out to be something scientists working in robotics are actively developing, and while I was writing the novel some early experiments were carried out with elderly people.
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