Muddy metaphors

Michele Roberts is an articulate, feminist writer; how is it that I have only previously read one of her books? I met her last month at the Beverley Literature Festival and learnt about her interests in poetry, Jane Austen and French culture. All of these appear in her recent book of short stories called Mud and subtitled stories of sex and love.

Mud, the title story explores a squidgy, sensual relationship but the idea of mud is used as a metaphor in many of the other stories in various ways including how aspects of writing can be compared to mixing earth and water to make mud.
Michele Roberts writes a story in 3 weeks but takes 3 years to produce a novel. Just out is her memoir of the 70s Paper houses that has taken 30 years to think about. A metaphor she used to talk about organising her memories and creating the book is that of ironing and putting all the neatly ironed garments into a tidy cupboard.
I'll let you know if the book really is like that.