This Writing Life

This Writing Life

By James KiddArtsBooksFiction
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This Writing Life episodes

  • Episode 37 - Tom Drury Live at Bookseller Crow: Part 1
    A special episode in which I talk to Tom Drury, my favourite author of 2015, and possibly 2016 too, live in front of a lovely audience at the lovely Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace, one of the finest bookstores I know. ----more----

    The first of three instalments, including a Q&A, we talk about: Drury's extraordinary 2015 in which almost all his books have been released in the UK; about his debut The End of Vandalism; the latest novel to be re-published, The Driftless Area; about movies, inspiration, mis-reading and even Mariella Frostrup.


    Part 2 to follow.


    The Bookseller Crow website is: here.

    23 min
  • Episode 36 - Kate Hamer: Part 2
    Part two of our interview with Kate Hamer begins with a discussion of Carmel, the 'Girl' in The Girl in the Red Coat. ----more----Having avoided the subject of her special power - spoilers alert etc - we move onto:

    • love and its distortions

  • 'I am not really interested in monsters': Hamer on her villains
  • religion in the novel
  • Hamer and the Gothic

  • Beth, Carmel and the use of tenses
  • parents making maps of their children's lives
  • time in the novel
  • stasis and waiting: the challenge of writing Beth's narrative 

  • 'For both of them it was like a journal of survival'
  • how parenthood changes you
  • parents and their parents
  • is it an optimistic novel?

  • how to end the novel
  • Hamer's own childhood in Wales
  • religion, mysticism and storytelling

  • formative reading: 'Anything deeply, deeply tragic'
  • influences and Hamer's current literary crush: Nicole Krauss
  • why Hamer took so long to write her debut!
  • life as a novelist and future plans

    • 32 min
  • Episode 34 - Kate Hamer - Girl in a Red Coat: Part 1
    If Kate Hamer's debut novel The Girl in the Red Coat sounds familiar, in part because it joins a horde of books with the word 'Girl' in the title,----more---- then readers might be pleasantly surprised by the strange story that awaits. By turns Gothic and emotional, funny and heard-breaking, supernatural and realistic, it tells the story of a kidnapped girl and a grieving mother that takes a number of strange turns.


    When I met Kate at her London publisher, Faber and Faber, we began by talking about the (for her) strange, new prospect of discussing her first work of fiction. We then moved onto:

    • her creative writing course at Aberystwyth
  • answering personal questions
  • reading work-in-progress aloud
  • Kate described her novel
  • 21st century fairytales
  • where did the idea for the novel come from (I had to ask it!)

  • writing and working through universal fears
  • the cultural power of red coats
  • the title of the novel
  • using the word 'girl' in the title
  • the character of the 'girl', Carmel
  • to research or not to research
  • the unknowableness of children and parents
  • rural childhoods
  • divorce
  • the problem of spoilers
    • Kate Hamer's profile at Faber & Faber is: here.

    22 min
  • Episode 32 - Sloane Crosley: Part 2
    The second part of my conversation with Sloane Crosley about her debut novel The Clasp began with us discussing how books give bookish young people a map for their lives. ----more---- Crosley read a passage from the novel - in which poor Victor prepares for being beaten up by meditating on just this sort of idea. We then moved onto:

    • age, maturity and Don DeLillo's White Noise
  • Crosley's love of The Dubliners and the story, 'Araby'
  • how a desire to be funny and, separately, The Secret Garden inspired Crosley to write
  • comedy: light and dark, joyful and sad

  • 'I want to write something that's fun. I want to entertain'
  • fiction, money, expanding horizons
  • what next - essays or that album of ukulele music
  • why Crosley is not a crime novelist

    • Read my review of The Clasp in The Independent: here.

    17 min
  • Episode 31 - Sloane Crosley: Part 1
    Sloane Crosley is a journalist, essayist and now, thanks to her bright and funny debut The Clasp, a novelist. ----more----Sloane took a break from her home city New York to visit London and talk about the challenge of shifting gears from non-fiction to fiction. We began however with her own career as an interviewer, when she recalled a nightmare encounter with The Strokes' Julian Casablancas.


    From there, we moved to:

    • the difference between Crosley the essays and Crosley the novelist
  • her first (and diabolical) unpublished novel: 'Nothing really happens'
  • the importance of plot: 'I knew I didn't want a navel-gazing novel'
  • what kind of book did Crosley want to write?
  • 'I am a relatively rare bird in that I am a social writer'
  • how vineyards and egg-timers helped Crosley finish The Clasp
  • the importance of editing
  • The Clasp: a summary
  • Guy de Maupassant

  • Maupassant's 'The Necklace' and the importance of short stories
  • real and The Clasp
    • Part Two to Follow.


    Sloane Crosley's website is: here.

    26 min
  • Episode 30 - Hanya Yanagihara: A Little Life - Part 3
    In the final part of my discussion with Hanya Yanagihara on her (now) Man Booker shortlisted novel A Little Life, we continue our discussion of male repression. ----more----From there we take in:

    • the 'wolflike' character of Caleb
  • money as salvation

  • why JB and Malcolm recede in the novel
  • friendship and imagination 
  • Yangihara's own childhood in Hawaii
  • 'My parents thought I might be a cartoonist'
  • rebellion, careers and lax parents
  • New York and restlessness

  • 'I want to live in Asia'
  • Yanagihara on Japan and her Japanese heritage
  • Yanagihara on writing A Little Life

  • readers' response to the novel
  • A Little Life on television?
  • the importance of work
  • Hanya and the future


    • 30 min

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