Ryder is a bipolar author seeking to construct a new reality from a few memories, a handful of dust and a puff of wind. Coming from background in newspaper journalism his reliability as a narrator has declined steadily from that initial highpoint, despite his best intentions.

His fiction often explores the possibilities that unfold when a bipolar or schizophrenic person is chosen as the protagonist of a story. The reader is advised to assume that what unfolds on the page is of this world, despite the indications to the contrary.