Dear Dogs
An introduction
Dear Dogs,
My name is Philip Webb Gregg, and I am a mongrel.
All my life I have moved between extremes. I have mingled among people, places, ideas, feelings and obsessions which swing wildly from one polarity to the next. I was raised in an eco-anarchist community in the mountains of Spain and educated among the cobbled streets of Cambridge, UK. I’m an ardent environmentalist who also adores video games and the wonders of technology. I am fierce proponent of the values of science and a passionate advocate of the essential human quality of faith.
In short, I was born from a set of origins that should not fit together and yet they do. They mix, and together they make something which is ultimately more valuable than the individual bloodlines alone. I suspect you are the same.
OK, but who are actually are you?
I am a fiction writer. I make things up for money. Generally, these things are strange and unusual because life is strange and unusual. Occasionally, I flirt with travel writing where I don’t need to make anything up at all. And these stories are always far stranger than the first.
It’s my belief that best stories are also mongrels. As any fiction writer will tell you, the heart of a good story is not something you can easily put your finger on. All you can do it point to structure, character arc, dialogue, etc. But those things are just surface. They are the brushed pelts of an otherwise wild thing.
If the story was wild without the gloss, we wouldn’t want it. If it was tame and civilised without the teeth, we wouldn’t want it. What makes it a good story is that it has both: teeth and tameness. It’s my belief that we should all aim for this.
Why this newsletter?
This newsletter is concerned with our relationship with nature: the land, the sky, and everything in-between. Because I believe the defining question of our age will be ability to reconcile our relationship with the Earth. I also believe the best way to do is by finding peace between our wild selves and our civilised selves.
Every week I will look at another aspect of our wild/tame world, usually through the lens of literature and creative writing. It could be an essay, poem, artwork, short story or an extract of a novel. But always it will be a letter, a reaching out, from me to you.
I promise nothing except that I will try to keep our feet softly on the ground, and our heads firmly in the clouds.
Yours,
p.
