GMB. "Writer's Shop." Chapman 4, no. 4 (Summer, 1976): 21–24.

"I think that the work of some writers is shaped by a few over-mastering images. One image I discovered when I was just beginning to write stories and poems and was having some trouble sorting out important matters from trivial matters was that part of the gospel where Christ speaks of man's life as a seed cast into a furrow. Unless the seed dies in the darkness and silence, new life cannot spring from it – the shoot, the ear, the full corn in the ear, and finally the fragrant bread set on the tables of hungry folk. That image seemed to illuminate the whole of life for me. It made everything simple and marvellous. It included within itself everything, from the most primitive breaking of the soil to Christ himself with his parables of agriculture and the majestic symbolism of his passion, and death, and resurrection. 'I am the bread of life'. 'This is my body that is broken for you.' That image has a universal meaning for me, especially when I can stand among ripening fields all summer. You will find it at the heart of many of my stories and poems, 'A Spell for Green Corn', 'A Treading of Grapes', 'A Time to Keep', 'Greenvoe'. A poem called 'Stations of the Cross' in which Christ's passion is counterpointed with the work of the crofter is I think a key poem for anyone who is interested in my writing" (p. 23).

Reprinted in Maurice Lindsay, ed., As I Remember: Ten Scottish Authors Recall How Writing Began for Them (London: Hale, 1979), pp. 9–21.