You have written many novels, including The Marsh People, The Poison Garden of Dorelia Jones, and a collection of short stories called Unconfirmed Reports From Out There. Your novel Losing It is about redemption, you say, and the dilemmas society faces in ‘treating’ people we have deemed mad or bad, or both. Can you tell us a bit about the ideas behind it?

I wrote Losing It following a training session and discussions with staff from a secure psychiatric hospital. I had worked as a psychotherapist in different settings and it always seemed to me that there was an irresolvable problem at the heart of any ‘treatment’ for people judged by the courts to have committed acts of murder and violence against others, but having ‘diminished responsibility’ for their actions. If, being held securely somewhere and unable to act out their violent impulses, they realise the full horror of what they’ve done, they are then often unable to carry on living. The only available victim is themself, and suicide is often an outcome – Fred West is a case in point.  What struck me was the fact that becoming ‘sane’ would be likely to drive them to self destruct, as they could no longer live with themselves.

The staff I met were caring, understanding individuals who acknowledged the humanity of their patients and did their best to care for them. They thought therapeutic intervention sometimes did more harm than good, as it uncovered disturbing material and the patient and staff then had to deal with the consequences and it had a destabilising effect all round. The patients could not undo their criminal actions and often there was no means of making any sort of reparation. Jane cannot move on from her actions; she’s trapped with the reality and enormity of her past deeds.

People deemed to have personality disorders are not mad in the clinical sense, and we don’t have effective ways of treating them, at least not ones we’re prepared to fund.  Psychopaths exist in and out of institutions. ‘The Army welcomes fit young psychopaths’  a psychologist told me recently. ‘They do well in the S.A.S especially.’  However, I know from working with distressed young ex soldiers, that to carry out some orders they had to become numb and hardened to the effects of their actions on others, ie. psychopathic,  but removed from that situation they often experience a collapse, from which, if they get the right help, they can recover. A diagnosable mental illness, such as schizophrenia, poses a different set of problems.

In Losing It, Jane has unwelcome flashbacks, but it is only by going back and understanding the reality of what has happened that she connects with the emotional content of it, and with her own sad childhood. I wrote it as a first person narrative, and there were times when I had to withdraw and have a break from it. Mad or bad?  This question may never be satisfactorily answered.

Your collection Shark Wrestling For Beginners contains some wonderful poems, the preface of which is: Holding on to the dangerous, slippery elements that make us human is like wrestling with sharks. You will need assistance and you may get hurt. Can you give us an extract from one of the poems and talk us through it?

In Shark Wrestling for Beginners, the poem titled DAMAGED, which won the Hippocrates Prize three years ago, was an attempt to focus on the vulnerability of a baby, possibly with Down’s Syndrome, but stressing the human need of this infant to be held and cuddled and loved. I worked for a while in a children’s hospital and I often walked past the baby unit and felt the urge to comfort these tiny beings. Babies with Trisomy, or Downs’ Syndrome, often have problems with their tongues and find it hard to articulate clearly. Stone, plum and tongue have a sound that replicates these efforts. The ‘lips that stayed blue’ is a reference to the baby’s poor circulation. I wanted the effect of those lines to give the reader a sense of seeing the baby for the first time and noting his appearance.

Here’s the poem:

DAMAGED

He had a stone where his mouth should be,

a tongue filled with a plum,

lips that stayed blue with the effort

of being born.

In the next stanza, I wanted to look past the ‘damage’ to the real child, who smiles and waves his fingers at the nurse. The word ‘fishes’ came into my head as something alive and squirming, connecting tears and laughter. We look past the ‘damage’ and see the tiny human infant trying to make contact with the world.

But when he laughed, later,

the world came alive and fishes swam

out of his eyes across the room

as he waved his stubby fingers at the nurse.

In the third stanza we’re taking another look, this time at his needs and at the basic         frustration and repetitive actions- head banging- that this small child comforts himself with. Autistic children often do this, but I wanted the poem to be more general, about the needs all children have for stimulation, comfort and love. The word ‘butt’ conveys several meanings, deliberately, and the alliteration in ‘cracks and connects’ adds emphasis to the rocking, which is interrupted by ‘poor kid’. We look at him, then look away. The last three words, staccatto-like, are the essence of what he needs, namely attention.

He doesn’t know the time;

only that he’s hungry

and his head hurts.

The butt of many butts,

it cracks and connects,

poor kid,

too many times.

He.

Me.

Want.

I toyed with other endings for the poem, including ‘cuddle me’ but in the end decided I would leave it open, since he can’t articulate what he wants. I had problems with the title, too, giving the child a name in the process – Simon. But I wanted it to be unspecific and about all the children who are born damaged in some way and whose human needs are overlooked at times.

The panel of judges felt it focussed on the humanity of the child, rather than the child-as-patient. I was pleased they recognised this.

What do you care about? What themes keep cropping up in your writing?

I care very much about children. We have three, plus a young man who came to us for the weekend aged sixteen and stayed for seven years. They’re all adult now. I’ve written about being a foster parent, about people experiencing mental health problems and about social issues and injustices, though this is cunningly disguised as poetry or fiction, or as humour.

I care about solitude, stillness and wild places. Mindfulness is something I embrace. I care about mankind’s ability to mess things up or get things right, and I have a curiosity about other people and the wider world which has given me privileged insights into people from many different cultures. For this reason I love art, world cinema and music, travelling in out of the way places, and multi-cultural events. I have firm political convictions about equality, human rights and how we need one another to survive. The Marsh People takes this as a theme. It’s a dystopian narrative based on an experiment carried out with dogs kept in wire cages, who were fed, watered, then later offered an escape route, though this meant getting an electric shock. Most dogs unsurprisingly stayed where they were, but a few saw their chance to escape and despite not knowing what lay ahead, jumped out and found freedom. I applied this experiment to humans in a City, feeling that some of us have the ability to seize the day, while others are unable to.

Everyone has a story to tell. Sometimes I’ve been lucky enough to hear it. We can deal with other peoples’ stories in several ways: by allowing ourselves to be affected by them, by showing them to the world in the form of a story or a poem or by blocking our ears. Listening and acting on what we discover is often, I think, like wrestling with sharks.

You wrote two self help books after completing an MA at Edge Hill. How did you move on to poetry? Is it something you have always been interested in, or did it just develop?

I’ve always written poetry, since I could remember. My mother was very deaf, but liked to recite poetry and Shakespeare to us. She paid me a penny for every verse of The Ancient Mariner I could remember – I think I got to twelve – and entered me for verse speaking competitions.

The commissioned self-help books I wrote after my MA were based on my work as a psychotherapist, but before that I trained as a teacher and was lucky enough to have Alan Brownjohn and Martin Bell as English tutors. They encouraged me to write more poetry. I had some work published in poetry magazines and just kept going.

What is your creative space like? Do you write in one place?

My creative space is a cramped office which doubles as an extra bedroom, but it has my computer, reference books and filing cabinets. I have stacks of notebooks which I carry with me to jot things down and raid these for ideas and details. I stay off the internet when I’m working, as it provides too many distractions, but allow myself a limited window at the end of the day to read emails and make use of social media, though I’m not good at that.

Who has inspired you as a writer and why?

Writers who have inspired me recently are E Annie Proulx, Sebastian Faulks, Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Flanagan and Kazuo Ishiguro, for the inventiveness and originality of their writing. I also read a lot of non fiction, poetry and magazines. Private Eye is essential.

I read Clive James’ column in the Guardian and a mix of political comment, reviews and articles in whatever publication comes my way. Being eclectic and wide ranging in what I read has helped me broaden my vocabulary – I wrote a poem once about a scaffolder because I’d picked up a manual with hundreds of scaffolding terms in it and found the language intriguing,  I like to learn something as I read, and something new is always appealing.

A simple phrase can start a train of thought and like pulling a piece of string, writing is born from it. The Greeks have an expression:  ‘Slowly, the cabbages.’  When I learned how to say this in Greek recently all sorts of ideas for a short story came into my mind. It’s stewing away in my mind now and when it’s almost cooked I’ll get it out and work on it. Another phrase that set me off was the old Cotswold dialect word ‘mooncalf’, meaning a thing half-formed. I’m beginning to realise that the vulnerability of young life is a pretty constant theme in my books and poems!

What is next for you? Have you any plans?

I have a number of projects at present that I need to complete. One is to rewrite a historical work I’ve completed for young readers about a travelling menagerie in Victorian England. It’s provisionally titled What Happened to Selina Smith and it’s based on real events. Having had several rejection slips, I had a sudden inspiration that it needed to be a first person narrative.

Then there’s a book about triangular relationships, The Book Of Threes, which I wrote as a comic strip way back when I was working as a psychotherapist. Several publishers were interested but it didn’t come to anything. I feel its time has come.

Lastly, I am 70,000 words into a novel about the Ndrangheda, a branch of the Mafia, but I’ve got stuck at the point where the chief character has been kidnapped. How on earth am I going to write a convincing escape for her? I’m off to London to read at the launch of Lunar’s new poetry press. Perhaps inspiration will come while I’m on the train. I have my notebook just in case!

Check out the links below and get your own copies 🙂

Website

Amazon

Hello Elisabeth, it’s lovely to meet you. Can I start by asking about the foundations of your early writing inspirations? Who inspired you during your youth and adolescent years, and also can you see any aspects of your literary heroes within your own writing?

Hello, Kev, lovely to meet you too. Thank you for taking the time to interview me.

The foundations of my early writing inspirations have to be fairy tales! At a young age, I read many traditional British fairy tales, such as the two volumes collated by Amabel Williams-Ellis. Like many myths and legends, these offered an alternative explanation for events, happenings, geography, etc. and inspired my imagination. I was particularly drawn to the opposite forces at play: how the darker side was a constant threat, undermining any sentimentality in the tale.

Also, from the age of nine or ten, I read many of my mother’s paperbacks – typical pulp horror stories from the 1960s and ’70s, such as the Pan Books. I think the cover art – feral cats and zombies – drew me to these books. Ever the rebel, I probably felt as though I was reading something I shouldn’t.

My mother was (is) also a huge fan of Daphne Du Maurier. Novels such as Jamaica Inn and Rebecca have definitely influenced my poetry, and the synopses of these two novels have parallels with my own life. My father died when I was a baby and shortly thereafter my mother moved in with a man who was very domineering – I grew up believing he was my biological father.

As such, the fairy tales, the Pan Books and the Du Maurier novels showed me early on that writers let their imaginations take them into very dark places sometimes and that it is okay to allow that to happen – although for me it feels uncomfortable at times. In a way, this echoes what Don Paterson says when he remarks, ‘Write about whatever you’re avoiding writing about. There are dragons guarding all the good stuff.’

From reading a selection of your poems, I am immediately struck by the breadth of the topics covered – ranging from conversations based on historical characters (‘Grazini’s Hourglass’), to personal memories (‘My Father’s Coat’ & ‘1979’), fantasy fairy-tales and much more. Is there one particular poetical genre that ‘calls’ to you most, or are you more focused on producing creative writing with a wide scope of feelings, topics and emotions?

I like to experiment with poetry. Several of my poems in my pamphlet and debut collection correspond to the three-part lyric poem principle and are narrative. I’ve heard that there is a movement against the lyric poem by some feminists; I consider myself a feminist, but don’t have an issue with writing lyric poems (in a non-ironical way). I grew up in a violent household with a domineering stepfather – just because I’ve written about him, this does not mean I’m celebrating what he did.

I’m also writing a sequence, possibly a second pamphlet, of poems inspired by the Bauhaus and titled, ‘Form Without Ornament’. You might define these as more experimental, minimalist and loosely ekphrastic pieces.

I read a lot of contemporary US poetry and am in complete awe of poets such as Robin Coste Lewis, Rickey Laurentis and Aracelis Girmay – the way they take the page and are not afraid to own the words they put on it. Thinking of contemporary UK poets – Andrew McMillan’s poetry has a similar effect on me.

Thank you, I’m now immediately researching ‘ekphrastic’ poetry; a term I’ve not heard of but which appears fascinating. Speaking of inspiration, do you utilise a specific pattern of planning before writing, Elisabeth, or is it a much freer and flowing process that creates your poetry?

I’ve become a bit of a workshop junkie of late, and the seeds of many of my poems were planted in workshop sessions. On occasion, I do sit down and plan a poem or its premise, but this is after the inspirational idea – what my mentor, Mona Arshi, explains is le vers donne (from Baudelaire) – has already come to me. Similarly, even with ‘gift poems,’ those that unfold themselves easily and quickly, there is a process of editing and sharpening – le vers calcule.

You’ve travelled across the globe and lived in several continents. How much affect do you think this has had upon your writing style? In your view, has experiencing different countries and cultures enhanced your own creative abilities?

Certainly, living in different countries changed my outlook. For instance, when I first went to Indonesia (in 1995), there were of course very few people there who looked like me, and I was pointed at and/or photographed in the street. This was a new experience for me, and I began to question my knowledge and beliefs. I visited the colonial section of Jakarta and began to think about the way in which Western history has continually asserted itself as superior to all others, through cartography (the Mercator projection, for example) and other processes. When I returned to the UK, I became interested in post-colonialism and spent the next decade studying and writing academically about various aspects of postcolonial theory.

Similarly, when I lived and studied in Iceland, I learned that the Icelanders who emigrated to Canada were subject to being called ‘white Inuit’ by British and French settlers and that there was a hierarchy of settler races in Canada, with white British and French considered superior to all others.

More recently, I was fortunate enough to live in Fresno, California, the city where former U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine taught and spent the latter years of his life. Due to the fact that Levine ran the MFA programme at Fresno State University, even after he had retired, there was a thriving poetry scene in Fresno. Poetry had found its way from the university and independent cafes to the everyday – I lived a block away from my public library, and there were rows dedicated to poetry in there, as well as several readings. I discovered the works of several wonderful poets in my local library – poets such as Ada Limon – whom I might never have come across.

In terms of how you write, could you share with our readers how you usually put words down? Does this involve notebooks and pens/pencils, or are you someone who feels the need to write on a word processor, or perhaps using some other form of modern technology?

I love notebooks. I fill them quickly and so am always in places like Papercase. I also only write in pencil with an eraser on the end. Typing up is the final stage of the process for me. I like the rhythm of writing, the cursive flow on the page – it helps with the music of the poem somehow: the breaths, the line-breaks, the momentum, etc.

When I visited Sri Lanka, I learned that Sanskrit poets would write on palm leaves. There’s something very organic and beautiful about that idea – writing on actual leaves.

To follow on from about how you write, could you share with our readers something about where your writing process takes place, Elisabeth? Is there one specific location that you visit daily/nightly in order to get the words down? Or is the process more random in nature?

I find that motion helps with the writing process – Ian Duhig told me that he writes on buses! For me, it’s trains. Some of my strongest poems have been written on the Great Northern line!

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with our readers, Elisabeth! It’s always a pleasure to read poetry that moves the soul and excites the senses. I’d like to end by asking you how you think your poetry has changed over the last few years (especially since the influences of university), also what creative plans you have for the rest of this year and 2017.

I feel it’s very important for me as a writer to keep reading contemporary poetry and understand what is happening with poetry around the world, as well as how it fits with, or works against, what went before. I’ve just read a poem in a sequence by Robin Coste Lewis, for instance, that lists thirteen statuettes of black women, such as ‘Venus of Willendorf’, and ends with the parenthetical statement ‘thirteen ways of looking at a black girl.’ This poem gains added meaning when considering the racially-charged titles of Wallace Stevens’s poetry.

I am proof-reading my pamphlet Glass at present (with my editor Ellie Danak), ready for publication in August, as well as polishing my debut collection manuscript, which is fifty or so pages long. I am also working on ‘Form without Ornament’, which might possibly be a second pamphlet.

For further information, please visit: Elisabeth’s website

Hello Rachael!  It’s wonderful to meet you and also to explore your world of writing.  Could you start by sharing your founding inspirations with us? What writers have influenced your own creative pathway, and at what specific point did you truly believe that writing was going to be not just a passion in your life, but a career?

As a child, I was an avid reader. I loved nothing more than climbing my rope ladder into the large sycamore tree in my back garden, taking with me the characters of my favourite books: Peter Pan, pirates, mermaids, Red Indian princesses, faeries, and dragons. Closing my eyes and gripping the tree’s branches firmly, I played out scenes from the stories, exchanged riddles with Gollum, and became lost in my imagination.

M. Barrie was my hero, but I also revelled in J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis, and A. A Milne. I loved Kipling’s asides to his audience (dearly Beloved), the landscape of Narnia, and nonsense poetry. My young mind was full of mythical creatures and places; I still have my copy of The Sentimental Dragon by Grace Cox-Ife, pages now falling from their binding and signed at the front in my childish hand.

I spent many happy weeks in Switzerland when I was young, as my father worked there for periods of time. Those breath-taking mountains, lakes and waterfalls have now joined forces with the fjords and forests of Norway, to create a backdrop for much of my writing. Who could not be inspired by all of these influences?

As a result of my happy experiences in both real life and fantasy, I always wanted to write stories, from being about five or six years old. Of course, I had to be a serious grown-up for a while – teaching, earning money and bringing my two wonderful children into the world – but then, I reached an epiphany when sealing the large, brown envelope which contained the manuscript of The Warrior Troll. It seemed like the right time. Time for me. All it took was one deep breath and a leap of faith.

How did your specific idea(s) for the Trolls begin? Was there a singular event that led you towards writing The Warrior Troll, or did it involve a gentler series of inspirational steps? 

I have never had a bolt of lightning moment in the creation of my stories. They have evolved over time from squirreled away ideas and fleeting moments of inspiration. I liken the notions to butterflies – catch them in a net and then allow them to connect.

The first troll who lived with me was Hairy Bogley. He grinned at me, roguishly, and immediately, we became friends. To while away the evening hours in a small Norwegian cottage, in the middle of a dark forest, miles away from sanity, my father and I wrote a lengthy poem about him, which began:

“’Midst Norway’s craggy mountains,

In a dark and gloomy cave,

Sat hermit Hairy Bogley

Who wasn’t very brave…”

Other trolls followed until I had a whole excitable family of them: Ulf, Grimhildr, Dotta, Snorrie Magnus, Finnr, not forgetting Hildi and the Warrior Troll himself, Thom. It was then that I recalled a strange account my Nana had told me as a child, of a meeting in the woods.  She had been invited into a tiny cottage for tea, by an odd couple who were small, with faces as wrinkled as walnut shells.

The scene was set then, for my first novel. I had all I needed.

You engage in a lot of school presentations around the country, Rachael. In your personal view, how important are the elements of fun and laughter for inspiring young minds?

How else do children become engaged and learn?

When I walk into a classroom with my wicker basket bursting full of trolls, eager to scramble out and tell their stories, the youngsters in front of me are all excitement and giddiness. Every child is keen to talk, to ask questions, and to try imaginative ideas that take them away from the humdrum of the usual format. Familiarity breeds a certain amount of disdain, and the ensuing boredom can stifle creativity, never more so than in teaching. If an author can enter their lives for a short time, talking the peculiar language of trolls, and open their eyes to the escapism of fantasy, it is fun and laughter all the way!

I strive to be different. I want to inspire and enthuse. Imagine how I would have felt and behaved, as a child in the same circumstances – it would have blown my tiny mind!

A fascinating answer, Rachael! That does indeed make a lot of sense and took me back to my own early childhood inspirations. Moving on to your individual writing patterns now, is there somewhere special where you feel that you have to write? Or is it a more random process? Are you a pen and paper scribbler (with optional doodles)? Or do you prefer the rigidity of a word processor? Or both?

I have various places for different stages of writing.

Planning happens anywhere and everywhere. In this stage, I have a special notebook, preferably with a rustic cover, held together loosely with a piece of string and a button, which accompanies me wherever I go. I jot down my random butterfly ideas and make notes whenever they occur to me. If I am cycling and see a derelict farmhouse, I stop and record the tumbling bricks, the ivy clinging to the chimney stack, the sound of the crows overhead.  Crauk! Crauk! Even in the rain. Sitting on a grass verge. Getting soaked.

At night time, the notebook is by my bedside, with pencil, ready for dreamy-headed jottings in the dark, which prove tricky to decipher by day, but otherwise would have been lost in sleep. Travelling on a plane, the notebook is always in my hand luggage, never in the hold –   far too precious to get lost in another foreign land! Recently, my plans have become more visual. I am no artist, but perhaps this is an indication that I am becoming more confident to plan as I wish.

Then the butterflies are netted together and connections are made. The story begins to emerge, chapter by chapter, planned in pencil to free my mind and allow alterations, scribblings, and the flexibility to cross out. My favourite place for this stage of writing is through the troll tunnel and into the garden room. Troll tunnel? What other use is there for an under stairs cupboard, which normally houses only the junk that is never needed? Once through to the other side, the garden room allows me to draw the strands of my story together.

No mobile signal.

No Internet connection.

Just me, my ideas book and a pencil.

Then, with copious amounts of coffee, I write. This is where the serious business begins, and so I need a serious place. The study houses my laptop and I sit, notebook on one side, to tap away at the keys.

The main PC is switched on for research and reference material; perhaps Viking jewellery; how to keep bees; facts about minke whales; toadstools and fungi; herbal remedies; and how changelings were dealt with. Hours pass.

Write. Save. Check. Edit. Write. Save. Check. Edit.

From reading through your website, I’m picking up a humungous love of language and words, Rachael. How much fun do you have with words and the creation of new words in your creative writing? 

Word funneration indeed. Love it.

I adore language and the ever-morphing evolution of its change. I play with words and encourage children to experiment in the same way. A serpent, snake-like monster in The Quest of Snorrie Magnus eel-ripples over stones in his putrid pool of filth. Why use a simple – and clichéd – simile, when you can create a new verb, instead? And how glorious are his “suppurations of oozing ghastliness” and “cankerous gums”?

The Troll Talk in my books has developed into a language of its own. Each book has a glossary at the front to help the reader to translate, but after a few pages, there is rarely a child who cannot understand the language, in context. I can hold whole conversations in troll, and my family regularly texts troll to me, mainly “kissig, kissig” stuff, but delightfully pleasing! The first line I wrote in this talk was: “Gooshty morgy, Thom. Varken oop!” I realised that forest-dwelling, Norwegian trolls needed their own hurdy-gurdy language and so it was born. Whole classes are answering the register now, in troll. “Gooshty morgy, Miss!”, and they greet me in assemblies, in the same fashion. Marvellurg!

I play with the names of characters, too. It gives the reader an idea of their trustworthiness if someone is called Liar-nel, Fiblet or Fibkin. A mermaid is called Miasma for the effect she creates. A frog is called Herpet from the word herpetology; Mr Scarab scuttles from house to house wearing his bottle green overcoat; a kitten has something of the very devil in her –and so is named Lucy-fur; a pretentious slug is called Pearl.

My latest story, currently in production, The Changeling’s Child, has no trolls but word play is still very much a part of my writing. The main character urges her charges on, saying, “Come now, you two! The time is sun-dialling fast and soon the dimsk will be upon us! We must quick-hurry to beat it.”

How much more fun is that, than, “Hurry up, both of you!”?

What are the passions and hobbies outside of writing that bring you a sense of relaxation?  How difficult do you find it to switch the creative mind off and reach this state of relaxation? 

I am asked how difficult it is to switch the creative mind off and find relaxation. I am a keen swimmer. I find it clears the mind of everyday concerns and anxieties, enabling creative thoughts to blossom. These may be story ideas, or solutions to cliff hanger dilemmas, or the possible visualisation of a front cover. So this is relaxation of a sort, but no “switch off”. I run away to the mountains as often as possible. Here also, I am bombarded with ideas and cannot resist the urge to note them down. Once more, wonderful relaxation, but no “switch off.” I love cooking for friends and family – and many an afternoon has been spent cheerfully testing our homemade wine. Relaxation indeed, but…

Why would I want to switch off my creative mind? This is the least stressful part of my life! I consider my writing to be sheer self-indulgence, and any opportunity to disappear into my fantasy worlds is grasped, eagerly. It is other aspects of my life which get in the way, all too often.

Thank you so much for this delightful contribution to Ink Pantry, Rachael – so many of our readers are writing students and it is always fascinating to hear from established writers.  Finally, what future plans do you have for your writing? Do you always see yourself writing for children, or are there plans to delve into other writing genres in the years ahead?

Now that The Changeling’s Child is in production, I can uncross my fingers and start to plan the next story. Tales from the Dark Hole will be a series of books, this current publication being the first of them, and I am relieved that leaving my trolls behind has not caused my publishers concern.

I will always want to write for children: those inspired, imaginative children who climb trees and can occupy themselves with a good story; the children who are thinkers and enjoy embracing something a little bit different; those children who enjoy a challenge; the children who are happy to create pictures in their heads from the words in a book.

The children who I have in the palm of my hand, when I begin to read.

Rachael’s Website

Dr Ben Masters is a novelist, critic and lecturer in Creative Writing at the Open University. He was born and raised in Northamptonshire, attending a state school in the area before receiving his BA and MSt in English from the University of Oxford, and his PhD from the University of Cambridge. He was a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University from 2013 until taking up his post at the Open University in October 2014.  His first novel, Noughties was published in 2012 with Hamish Hamilton and Penguin in the UK, and Hogarth (Crown) in the US.  He has written articles and reviews for the Times Literary Supplement, Guardian, New York Times and Five Dials.

Could you please tell Ink Pantry about your first novel, Noughties ? Also, what were the highs and lows of such an undertaking?

Noughties is a comic novel about university life.  One of the challenges was to write a flawed and often unlikeable narrator who has anti-heroic qualities yet maintains the reader’s engagement.  Just as Eliot is a voracious and slightly bemused reader of books, he is also an over-reader and mis-reader of reality, which creates lots of potential for comedy and tonal awryness.  That was energising from a writer’s perspective.  Noughties is very much a voice novel, so the writing of it was led by the voice and the momentum it generated – this becomes a self-perpetuating way of writing, which is useful for the rookie novelist, I think.

One of the biggest challenges came after the actual writing.  As is probably the case for a lot of first-time novelists, I felt like I had moved on from the book by the time it came out. Growing pains, perhaps.  As a writer you’re always thinking about the next thing and hopefully continuing to evolve.

Your forthcoming book The Ethics of Excess is about exploring the relationship between style and ethics in fiction, considering writers such as Nabokov and Angela Carter. Could you please give us brief examples of this concept, with regard to these particular authors? 

The Ethics of Excess is basically a defence of stylistic flamboyance and the art of overwriting, as well as an exercise in lyrical close reading.  I’m interested in how a writer’s style (ranging from language choice to rhythm, syntax, imagery, wordplay, tone, point of view) might embody or enact ethical concerns and commitments, which I interpret broadly – whether it be a commitment to curiosity, to individuality, to choice, to complexity, or even to discomfort.  So I re-evaluate extravagant stylists like Anthony Burgess, Angela Carter and Martin Amis, who have often been dismissed as morally shallow or circumspect precisely because they privilege style over character and plot, and probe at how their writing styles perform ethically challenging and renewing ways of thinking (how they think in style) and how this might then act on the perceptions of the reader.

You hold talks and read at literary festivals, including the Edinburgh Book and Port Eliot. Could you share your most memorable time?

The first festival talk I ever did was disrupted at the start by a rogue mouse, which sent the audience into a bit of a panic. Like any young writer, I was just pleased to have another audience member.

You have written articles and reviews for the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and the New York Times. What would be your advice for new writers who are looking for a career in that area?

As with all writing advice, it begins with reading.  You’ll already be reading widely if you want to write literary essays and reviews, but I would advise new writers in this form to make sure they read lots of other critics.  Just like novelists and poets, the best critics have their own distinctive styles and priorities.  Find those who speak to you most (or even who animate or agitate you most) and think about their artistry as much as their ideas (the two are likely to be inextricable).

Have you any advice for our Ink Pantry followers on the motivation to write? Have you had writer’s block, and, if so, how did you deal with it? 

I’m not sure about motivation.  It makes me think of someone in colourful Lycra bursting into my study with a whistle and making me do star jumps.  If writing is the thing for you, it will be more of a compulsion or necessity.  (If you do ever need a pep talk, that’s what other books are for.)  That’s not at all to say that it comes easily – in my experience there are days when writing can be excruciating work, especially if you get as easily distracted as I do.  But there should be something about putting words on the page that is essential to how you think and express yourself.

I’m not much of a planner.  I like to make discoveries in the act of writing.  I find that I think in and through writing (I suppose you could classify that as a motivation or reason for writing).  So writer’s block is something to be staved off at all times.  There’s a lot to be said for just making sure you sit down at your desk every day.  But I also find that I solve lots of problems when I’m away from my writing – going for a walk, watching basketball on TV, going to the cinema.  However, that’s all different from searching around for something to write about in the first place.  If writing is for you, a shortage of subjects or ideas hopefully won’t be a problem.

Which authors have inspired you?

When I was a teenager the Beats were the first to get me really excited about ‘adult’ literature outside of the classroom. Reading Amis when I was a student led me to giants like Nabokov and Bellow.  Then there’s Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter, J.G. Ballard, William Golding, Martha Nussbaum, James Wood … too many to name really.

Picture credit: Angus Muir

Amazon link to Noughties

Your beautiful watercolour illustrations printed in Songs of Life showcases Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by William Blake. What a lovely idea. What is it about Blake that inspires you? A lot of our followers are also fans of Blake, including our past and present Inky elves.

Blake was a mystic, and a classicist, sticking to his artistic path even when his artistic beliefs were unpopular. A typical English genius, ignored and ridiculed when alive, then hailed as a hero after his death! Why does that happen so often?! Perhaps a figure like that can always be an inspiration. It’s ultra-romantic to think that any one of us could be hailed as a hero and genius after our deaths, especially those of us who struggle with poverty and a ridiculous idealism for art. Tragic heroic figures like van Gogh or Chopin exude this precious feeling, liquid inspiration. Blake was a unique artist though, creating books of deep feeling and meaning, personal, and yet warmly social. His work is touching because of the personality in it.

On a more Earthly level, I illustrated Blake’s work by chance. I was attending as a demonstrator at a trade show for three days and needed something to paint, so I grabbed Blake’s book from the shelf and painted the illustrations live.

Your unique poetry book 365 Universes contains many illustrations to accompany your verse. Can you share one of your favourites with us?

Delphi

Ashes cast into the pit.
Pungent smell flows like snakes above it.
The oracle rolls her head and moans.
Sweat on her neck, eyes flit.
She awakes.

A bent finger extends.
The traveller bends his crowned head.
Shadows dart and fly by flame.
Silk gowns drape.
Here in Delhpi’s dramatic terrain,
most famed among Greeks.
Virgin priestessess bow.
The oracle speaks.

What do you care about? Which themes keep cropping up in your writing?

What do I care about, now there’s a question! At times I feel so removed from humanity and society that I wonder myself where I am and in what realm, like Blake perhaps! At times I feel utterly apart from the humans that fill this world, untouched by any, like the moon, like Mars, a castaway. Yet this is how it’s always been. Humans. All faults, evils, wrongs come from ignorance, people not seeing the consequences of their actions, yet it’s nobody’s fault. People destroy things because they don’t notice, and people destroy the environment, or cause extinctions. People breed excessively or choke the Earth. So I care about the environment, yet other animals behave in the same way, rats or bees or any creature expands to fill its space, and would do the same as humans. Monkeys would dominate if people didn’t. So I could care about education, but there are limits, even if everyone was educated, it wouldn’t stop damage to the world, or people doing things senselessly. I know that the self-preserving parts of us all will ensure that the world is also preserved; a society reflects the personality of its occupants, and all of humanity is reflected by its individuals. So, I care about the environment and all life, yet am dispassionate. I care about understanding, empathy, and beauty. It’s an old idea that beauty can improve humanity, and I believe that. Beauty is the simplest form of inspiration, and a tool we can all use to change society.

Which themes crop up in my writing? Always personal themes, I guess, whatever I’m feeling at the time. The best things I read, for me, are the moving things, the personal things that make you feel for and understand the writer. To read someone going through something you went through can be so special and touching. People love van Gogh, not for his paintings, but for his life, which he illustrated with his paintings. To express myself is my art philosophy, and therefore help others in similar situations.

Can you tell Ink Pantry about The Many Beautiful Worlds of Death?

I outlined the story a few years ago. It’s about a man who is dying, but who has invented a fantastical time and space machine, which he uses to find a cure, or really, explore his life, and the important things in life generally. It’s sort of like the literary version of the Bergman film, The Seventh Seal, but much more fantastical and bright! It’s written in a surreal and magical style, like most of my fiction.

You are also a professional oil painter of surrealist art and have exhibited widely across the UK. Tell us about one of your most memorable exhibitions.

I had one in Crewe called Heaven and Hell where I divided the venue in two, one half for Heaven, with seven cotton-wool clouds hanging from the sky, a beautiful azure silk drapery, and a soundtrack of tweeting birds, then in the Hell side, darkness and four lamps of the apocalypse, huge things made from card and wire, mostly skeletons grasping the bulb in some way, and a soundtrack of clanking bells and screams! We all dressed up as mythical gods for the opening night. Such fun! All of my exhibitions now have a show element; theme, characters, music, lighting. Art is more than painting, it’s total expression.

As an accomplished musician you have produced and published over 20 albums, from electronic to orchestral, even soundtracks. You have a sound effect library called IndieSFX. Interesting! Tell us more.

I started writing music years ago, I needed to for the computer games I used to design. So my early style was that sort of music, very computer-gamey. It was only in the last few years that I started to think of music as art and personally expressive. I recorded a concept album of ’80s style pop songs called The End and The Beginning which was about a personal awakening, a later The Love Symphony was about loneliness leading to love, in a Beethoven’s 9th Symphony sort of way! My music philosophy is Romantic in the 19th c. tradition. My last album The Anatomy of Emotions was my first of live piano music and I’m moving more towards a live sound and away from digital. It annoys me now that so much contemporary music is “too professional” sounding! Odd, that ubiquitous recording technology has somewhat killed the raw-ness, the truth from the heart that music should express, ideally!

Can you share with us a typical day in your world of art?

I do so much that each day varies, except that I get up at 8am, have regular breaks and work until 11pm every day. I’ve never had a holiday and always been self-employed. I take care of my health first, it’s our most valuable asset, but I find it easy to create, and I work by the clock. When I’m writing or painting I’ll just start at 9am, and keep going until break time at 10:30, resume and keep going until the next break. I’m highly disciplined.

Have you any plans for the future?

So many. I perform each month now in Macclesfield, art performances but often piano playing with video. I’ve got many paintings in progress, and ideas for new types of art. Painting is nearly a dead form in this century, it’s a hobby, not pushing boundaries. I have ideas for new types of art. I want to make a couple of albums too; a piano concerto and maybe a new concept album, and lots of events lined up for 2016 including an installation on Crewe station in June 10th to commemorate the Queen’s birthday, but oh, at times these all seem like pointless indulgences. None of these things bring in money and I need to start to do that. This year will be difficult, so I must also try to create things that will sell! Much as I admire heroic Blake’s poverty and post-mortem acclaim, it’s not something I wish to emulate! My destiny must be to be known while I am still alive.

Mark Sheeky’s Website

Previously an Agony Uncle, Mike Gayle is a freelance journalist who has contributed to a variety of magazines including FHM, Sunday Times Style and Cosmopolitan. He is the author of ten best-selling novels: My Legendary Girlfriend, Mr Commitment, Turning Thirty, Dinner For Two, His ‘n’ Hers, Brand New Friend, Wish You Were Here, The Life and Soul of the Party, The Importance of Being a Bachelor, and the latest The Stag and Hen Weekend. His ninth book is a non-fiction work called The To Do List, about his own efforts to complete a 1277-item To Do List.

How do you feel about your books being included in the ‘chick lit’ genre? Do you think male romantic fiction deserves a title of it’s own, and what would that be?

There are up and down sides to being included in any genre whether it’s literary fiction, crime or indeed Chick lit. On the one hand it helps to deliver an audience to authors who may not be particularly well known and who otherwise might have struggled to find a readership. On the downside the effect can be quite limiting in terms of its effect on the author’s output but also in terms of readership too. I’ve lost count of the number of times new readers have told me that they’d avoided my books because they thought they were one thing and only realised how wrong they were when they finally forgot about preconceived notions and just picked up the books. In an ideal world there wouldn’t be genre there would just be good books and people would be open to the idea of reading books about anything at all.

Before you wrote My Legendary Girlfriend, you did a lot of writing for magazines. Was it a difficult transition from writing factual articles to writing a novel? 

It was actually a lot easier than you’d imagine. As a journalist I’d long since grown tired of writing what editors wanted me to write and so the opportunity to explore my own imagination couldn’t have been more welcome. As for going from writing 1000 word articles to 90,000 word novels it was simply the case of breaking down the big task of writing a novel into lots of little tasks. People always ask how do you write something as mammoth as a novel and my answer is always the same: write little and often.

Did you get many rejections for My Legendary Girlfriend before it was accepted? And how did you keep up your motivation whilst you were waiting for your ‘big break’?

I’d completed the novel in its entirety before I sent it to agents because that was my primary goal: to prove to myself that I could write a novel. By the time I was ready to send it out I was actually quite confident of the quality of what I’d written and because of that I felt sure it would eventually find a home so you can imagine my disappointment when I received my first rejection letter quickly followed by my second! Thankfully the third letter I received was from someone who actually liked it and so she gave me some very detailed notes and we worked together on making it the best book it could be.

Can you give us a few insights into the way you approach writing a novel, after you’ve had the initial idea? As creative writing students, we’re encouraged to carry notebooks with us at all times to jot down of ideas. Is this something that you do?

It’s a great idea but like most great ideas has positive and negative attributes. The negative is that it leads you to think that everything you write in it is a sharp insight into the human condition and not the product of someone who has a new note book and wants to write in it! The positive is that when you do have a moment of genuine insight it helps to write it down rather than (as I have done) convince yourself that it’s so profound a thought that it will NEVER leave you and then promptly forget about it when you come to your next writing session.

You have a strong internet presence with your website as well as Facebook and Twitter, and seem keen to interact with your fans. How important do you think social networking is to the modern author?

I think it’s essential but then again I think interacting with your audience has always been fundamental. As a teenager I was a huge fan of the band The Wedding Present and they were the most approachable band you could ever hope to meet. Everything I do I pretty much nicked from them. Being approachable, being interested in your readership engenders a two-way feeling of community that can be positively infectious. Who doesn’t want to belong to a club where everyone thinks you’re ace?

Your website contains a lot of tips for anyone hoping to get published, but what is the single most important piece of advice you  would give to an aspiring novelist hoping to follow in your footsteps? What is the most useful piece of advice you’ve been given as a writer?

I’ve already told you it: Write little and write often. Too often new writers set themselves targets that are simply too high. Better to write 500 words and be desperate to get back to your desk the following day then 2000 and fill with dread at the sight of the computer. Writing is a habit. Cultivate it correctly and you’ll never want to stop.

I loved Turning Thirty – it reminded me so much of my own life and circle of friends, but I was a little bit disappointed that Matt and Ginny didn’t get together at the end. Do you think it’s important to occasionally  upset readers expectations like this?

I think you have to do what’s right for the story and for me the main story of Turning Thirty was an attempt to answer the question ‘is it okay to turn thirty and still not have your life sorted?’ For me there could only ever be one answer and that’s why Matt’s still single at the end of the book. That said I do think it’s important to challenge your readers, they might not always like it but I think they do tend to respect it.

You’ve now also written Turning Forty. Can you tell us when this is due to be published, and what was it that made you want to revisit those characters?

Turning Forty is due out June 2013 and has probably been the most difficult novel I’ve ever had to write. I actually finished a draft that I’d spent a year working on back in 2010 but ended up dumping the whole thing because it just didn’t feel right. It was quite traumatic at the time but it was absolutely the right thing to do because sometimes even if you plan you, you only find out what a book’s about by finding out what it’s not about. The new version couldn’t be more different to the previous version, in fact the only thing it has in common is the title and the characters, but it’s absolutely the right story. I absolutely love it and can’t wait for fans of Turning Thirty to get hold of it.

Your latest novel The Stag and Hen Weekend is quite unusual in that it’s really two novels which can be read from front to back or from back to front. How did you come up with this idea, and what did your publishers think when you told them?

I knew that I wanted to write about a stag and hen weekend but didn’t want to write a story that was too obvious. I tried looking at it a million different ways and then finally my wife came up with the idea and the moment she said it I knew that she’d got it. I suppose what that shows is that it’s good to talk about your ideas with the people closest to you but be prepared for their eyes to glaze over once in a while! My publishers loved the idea and immediately rose to the challenge of turning out a book with two covers which is no mean feat!

We see that you liked ‘Late Lunch’, we loved that too? We love Great British Bake Off too and celebrate our writing milestones with cake. How do you celebrate when a book is published?

Ha! I’d forgotten that I mentioned Late Lunch on the website! I used to love that programme. I think I’ve only ever had one proper launch party and lovely as it was I’d rather my publisher spent the money on advertising rather than feeding and watering my friends and family! These days publishers prefer to stick to a nice lunch for the author which I for one am a huge fan of.

Ink Pantry would like to thank Mike Gayle for his time, we appreciate him agreeing to be interviewed for our blog. Mike’s latest novel, The Stag and Hen Weekend, is available now, published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Find out more about at http://mikegayle.co.uk/