This Writing Life

In the fourth part of This Writing Life's conversation with journalist and novelist Kevin Sullivan, we move away from his experiences reporting on the siege of Sarajevo to his writing career more generally.

Sullivan discussed his formative literary loves, his romantic ideas of the foreign correspondent, before delving into the reality of writing about conflict from across the world. He recalls riots in Korea and finding himself in the middle of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Part 5 of 5 to follow.

'It was the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard.' Kevin Sullivan begins part three of his conversation with This Writing Life podcast by remembering the landmine explosion that almost killed him while he was reporting in Gornji Vakuf, in the early days of the Bosnian war.

Having described his dramatic rescue, Sullivan recalls the revelation that occurred as he lay in a nearby basement with two broken legs: 'I was very conscious then that however dramatic this experience is for me these [Bosnian] people lying on the same concrete floor are not going to get taken away and given morphine and the latest medical treatment.'

----more----

From here we discussed:

• how did Sullivan adapt to working in a warzone?

Part 4 to follow.

In part two of This Writing Life's conversation with the journalist and novelist Kevin Sullivan, we begin by asking why he travelled from Tokyo to Sarajevo in 1991 on the brink of the Bosnian War.

Sullivan offers his first impressions and a brief comparison of the city before the siege began, 25 years ago. 'It was such a great place to live.'

----more----

From here, we moved to:

• 'It is a little bit like a drug': the attraction and terror of war reporting

For more on Kevin Sullivan, and his excellent novel about the siege of Sarajevo The Longest Winter, click this link: http://sullivan.ba/

Our next guest on This Writing Life podcast is the journalist and novelist Kevin Sullivan. His latest novel, The Longest Winter, is set during the siege of Sarajevo, which began almost twenty-five-years ago to the day in April 1992. Sullivan covered the conflict as a journalist, and almost lost his life in the nearby town of Gornji Vakuf, when the Land Rover he was travelling in hit a landmine. Sullivan began The Longest Winter shortly after, whilst recuperating in Glasgow, but it would take many more years for the final story to be completed. ----more----In Part 1 of our conversation, Sullivan describes the liberal, tolerant Sarajevo that existed before the conflict broke out: '[It] has had a long tradition of creative co-existence among different cultures. Bosnia was in many ways a model for the rest of Europe. They were practicing multi-culturalism long before the rest of Europe.'

From here, we moved between The Longest Winter and the political back-drop to the Bosnian war - how Serbian, Croat and Bosniak politicians exploited nationalism to create emnities 

Sullivan begins by discussing his work for the International Commission for Missing Persons, that has worked tirelessly to find the thousands murdered during the Srebrenica genocide, for example. Read more about their work: https://www.icmp.int/

Part 2 to follow.

There's only so much a nice podcast can take. In part two of This Writing Life's chat with LS Hilton, we dive into Maestra, the global blockbuster that made its author's name (albeit with initials replacing Lisa). We begin by asking how much of a departure its compostion was for LSH, as are calling her these days.

----more----After some chatter about comparisons to 50 Sh&^des of Gr&y, we turn to:

• the reaction (or not) of her agent

In a new two-part episode, This Writing Life meets Lisa Hilton: journalist, historian and novelist. Her 15 year-career has produced five works of non-fiction, and three of fiction. Yet it took just one book to make her name, albeit under the thin veil of LS Hilton.

Published in 2016, Maestra was a marmite erotic thriller, that provoked controversy, accalaim and headlines across the world. Rejected by Hilton's own agent who found it 'disgusting', and then by almost every English publisher, it found a home first with a film agent, and then with the up and coming Zaffre Press. 50 Shades of Grey, but cut with American Psycho and Patricia Highsmith, it told the coming-of-rage tale of Judith, an ammoral art historian-turned-call-girl -turned-international-swindler-murderer-sex-kitten. It is unnerving, gripping and darkly funny in equal measure.

The challenge facing This Writing Life: how long can we talk to Lisa Hilton about her career without mentioning her succès de scandale? Find out by listening below. 

The final part of our epic chat with Richard Russo asks an epic question: what has it been like to write novels for 30 years? Having chewed over that question we move onto some other big topics, including posterity, death and what comes next (not the afterlife, just what is Russo's next project). 

Finally, we ask: will there be another chapter to Donald Sullivan's adventures? Everybody's Fool is available everywhere right now. We urge you to read it at once.

'This is not an attempt on my part to portray myself as anything like a prophet. I simply was born somewhere...I got to bear witness to something that was tremendously important to me and my family.'

In this fourth and penultimate This Writing Life interview with Richard Russo, we begin with the fictional small-town of Bath that is found in both Nobody's Fool and its sequel Everybody's Fool. Russo discusses his own personal and artistic relationship with small-town life, taking in his childhood in Gloversville and how it has informed much of his work. From here we meander towards death, in fiction and life, with a cheerier side-track marked: how to begin a novel?----more----Other subjects include:

• Russo and religion

Part 5 of 5 to follow.

'I have always been a meanderer. I have always loved digression.'

So says Richard Russo in part three of This Writing Life's conversation with the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. We approach the subject of comic meandering, initially as a way to explore through narrative ideas of luck, fate and free will. We digress through a peroration about self-made men, including President Donald Trump, and Brexit towards a deeper consideration of digression in Russo's new novel, Everybody's Fool, and his work as a whole. (A small warning: the final four minutes of this interview contain a spoiler alert about the end of Everybody's Fool).

----more----

From here we wander backwards towards:

• ideas of artistic control and chaos

Part 4 of 5 to follow.

Part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo begins with the idea of sequels: his new novel, Everybody's Fool is a follow-up to Russo's masterpiece, Nobody's Fool. What are the risks of continuing a story that is not just admired but loved? Did Russo intend to write a sequel to Donald 'Sully' Sullivan's adventures. What made him return in the first place? What was it like to revisit characters who were created over 20 years before?

----more----

From here we moved onto:

• Russo's relationship with his father: 'It shouldn't have been surprising that he had more to say'

Part 3 to follow.