MÁIRE T. ROBINSON INTERVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

I'm delighted to welcome Máire T. Robinson to the blog today. I first met Máire when I worked at the Western Writers' Centre in Galway, about 10 years ago, and Máire came along to a class. Her talent was obvious then and it's great to see her work between covers now, having followed her writing over the years in various lit mags including Crannóg, Horizon Review and the Chattahoochee Review.

Máire holds a Masters in Writing from NUI, Galway and was nominated for a Hennessy Award in 2012; she was the overall winner of the Doire Press Chapbook Competition 2013. And now Doire have published her début collection of short stories, Your Mixtape Unravels My Heart.

For any Dubs reading, Your Mixtape Unravels My Heart will be launched in The Irish Writers’ Centre tonight, the 11th of September, at 7pm.

I have a spare copy of Máire's fabulous book to give away so if you would like to win it, simply read the interview and leave a comment.

Welcome, Máire. Your début short story collection Your Mixtape Unravels My Heart is just out from Doire Press. Tell me about the book title, which is a unifying one. Are the story titles the titles of real songs?

Thanks, Nuala. Yes, the book contains ten short stories and each one is based on a different song. Music is a great source of inspiration for me, as I'm sure it is for many writers. I love how songs have that power to resonate and send you off on creative tangents. I'm also interested in the parallel between creating a mixtape and creating a collection of stories. You're weaving together these elements that shouldn't necessarily fit. They may vary in tone, shape, or emotional pitch. It's very much a labour of love. You're trying to create something that is more than the sum of its parts, that somehow becomes this unified whole.

The cover image and design are great. Can you tell me about that?

Certainly. The cover was designed by the very talented Celina Lucey who is based in Cork City. We met a couple of years ago when we were both working in the Irish Writers' Centre. She did some great designs for their posters and brochures at the time and I loved her illustrations. I told her the concept of the book and the image I had in mind, and she designed the cover illustration and found the perfect font to go with it. I'm delighted with how it turned out.  

Why do you write?

Tough question. The honest answer? I don't know. I do know that it makes me happy and I can't imagine not doing it, but it is this strange creative impulse that I don't fully understand.

What is your writing process – morning or night – longhand or laptop?

There's a lot to be said for routine, but I think it's important not to fetishise your writing process. If you become convinced that you can only write at a certain time of day, or with a particular pen, or in front of a vase of freshly cut petunias, or whatever, you're limiting yourself in what you can get done. My dream scenario would be to spend a few hours writing in the morning, then edit for a couple of hours in the afternoon. But I work full-time, so that's not happening. I try to make the most of the time I do have, whether it's writing at weekends, popping into the library on my lunch break for a spot of stealth scribbling, or ignoring the views on bus or train journeys in favour of using that time to make up people who don't exist.   

Who is the writer you most admire?

Margaret Atwood. I remember reading Cat's Eye in my early twenties and being blown away. Everything I've read by her since has never disappointed. Her prose style is utterly compelling. It manages to be fiercely intelligent, yet deeply funny. It's masterful and so, so enjoyable to read. I also love that she has this amazing social conscience, yet her work is never polemical. Her non-fiction is fantastic too. Her book Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing is one I keep returning to. 

Who is your favourite woman writer?

I love Flannery O' Connor's short stories. In terms of novels, I think Molly Keane's Good Behaviour is criminally underrated. And I recently read Elif Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul and loved it, so I definitely want to read more of her work.

Which short story would you like to see on the Leaving Cert?

It would need to be something students would enjoy, that speaks about contemporary Ireland, but also has a timeless quality (because once they add it to the syllabus, it'll probably languish there for quite some time). Something by Kevin Barry would probably fit the bill – linguistically inventive, funny, and sharp.  

What is your favourite bookshop?

Powells in Portland, Oregon. It's book heaven. It's this huge space that takes up an entire block and you get this colour-coded map when you go in. I would literally live there if I could, curled up on a shelf like Yumiko Readman from “Read or Die”.

What one piece of advice would you offer beginning writers?

Be kind to yourself. You will write utter rubbish and that's okay – you're perfecting a craft. It won't be perfect, nor is it supposed to be. The main thing is to actually write. I read this little mantra somewhere and it's stuck with me: You can fix a bad page, but you can't fix a blank page.

What are you working on now? Any plans to write a novel?

I'm currently working on the second draft of my first novel. It's set in contemporary Galway city and features an aspiring tattoo artist and a historian who researches sheela-na-gigs. I'd describe it as a coming-of-age story about two people in their late-twenties who should have their lives figured out, but don't.

TOM VOWLER INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY

Writer Tom Vowler

I am delighted to welcome back writer and blogger Tom Vowler today, to celebrate the paperback publication of his début novel What Lies Within. Tom has very kindly agreed to give away one copy of the novel to readers of this blog. Just leave a comment to be in the draw.

Tom’s short story collection The Method won the international Scott Prize in 2010 and the Edge Hill Readers’ Award in 2011. Now an associate lecturer at Plymouth University, his first novel What Lies Within is a psychological thriller set on the uplands of Dartmoor. It has already received wide critical acclaim. Tom is Assistant Editor for the literary journal Short FICTION and in 2008 he attained an MA in Creative Writing and is now studying for a PhD, looking at landscape and trauma in contemporary fiction. More at his website here.

Hi Tom and welcome once more to WWR. Always a pleasure.

Thrilled to be back your way, Nuala.

Your début novel What Lies Within is a literary thriller. Can you give readers a flavour of what to expect from it?

The story began in my head with a shocking news event, but it was the contrails of this that fascinated me. I wondered how far someone would go to hide their past, particularly to those they love, but also how things would evolve once that past returned. That’s the thriller bit, if you like. But language, character and setting are more important to me than plot, so it was important to weave the action, the narrative, into a textural milieu I felt comfortable with. I also like to challenge the reader morally, ask them some difficult questions.

The novel’s title is ambiguous and intriguing – did you deliberately reach for a layered title? How important is titling in your process (in stories and novels)?

Good question. I am drawn to abstract, evocative titles (see Peter Hobbs’ and EvieWyld’s latest – great books, great titles), more so than a single summative word, though of course we can name plenty of these that work well. What Lies Within might have been The Kiln at one point, but then the lovely Alex Preston mock-mooted Kiln Me Softly and I couldn’t take the former seriously again. But often these things are governed by factors outside your control. It’s always easier to think of titles that don’t work. Finding the right one is deeply pleasurable.

One reviewer said of the novel’s landscape: ‘The moor is more than just a backdrop to this story. The sense of unease and menace is compounded by the wild and lonely landscape.’ Is Dartmoor a place you know well? Is the setting a crucial part of the novel’s make-up?

I live on its fringes, and although I had a fondness for the place, it wasn’t until I spent a year immersed on its slopes, researching everything from the people who live and work there to its flora, geology and fauna, its pubs, that it got into my marrow. Certainly the moor adorns the book, working as allegory and metaphor for its narrative and characters. But I wanted the place to become a character itself, so the reader invested in its past, present and future as much as they did the people in the novel. To me the two – character and place – are inextricably bound. Landscape in fiction brings characters into relief, reflecting their internal states, often saying what they cannot. A symbiosis must occur between the two, where character and setting lay claim to one another in mutual dependency.

Were there times, during the two years or so it took you to write the novel, when you thought ‘What the hell am I doing?’, or did you have a clear path ahead of you as you wrote?

I like to plan, yes, having a vague sense of structure to fall back on, but it’s important to be flexible, to give your characters enough rein to wander, without being able to flee entirely. I’m not sure the path ahead is ever clear. If it is, you’re probably in trouble.

A lot of writers who write both short stories and novels say they are truly passionate about the short story rather than the novel. Do you have a preference for one over the other?

The two forms come with their own set of challenges, their own particular thrills. As someone who came late to fiction, I worked my way through the novels you’re supposed to read, enjoying many, one or two staying with me, forging an early influence. But I think reading and writing short stories really tightened my craft, awoke part of my aesthetic faculty that lay dormant. The story seemed to take more risks, be conducive to avant-gardism. It won’t be tied down or encumbered by structure, as the novel sometimes is. This said, I’ve read some wonderful novels in the last year, my love affair with them rekindled for now. And it annoys me when people, often writers, say how nothing can be wasted in the short story, that every word must count, as if you can just waffle on inconsequentially for pages at a time in a novel.

You seem to have had a good experience with your agent. Were you a long time looking for representation? Was it a smooth or bumpy ride?

As soon as I wrote something strong enough, I found an agent. There’s no real mystery. Yes, of course they are seeking something with at least a semblance of commercial value, but more than anything an agent wants an original voice. I wrote the obligatory dreadful first novel, submitting it everywhere, confidently waiting for it to be picked up, which of course it wasn’t. I look back, when I can bear to, at that book and for the most part it’s terrible. Most emerging writers send their work in too soon. Let it simmer. Move onto the next one, build up a body of work. But, yes, Charlie Brotherstone (A.M. Heath) deserves special mention for the impact he’s had on What Lies Within as well as my second novel. He’s a good drinking buddy too.

He sounds like the kind of agent most writers dream of having. Well done!

I know you are a big fan of Irish fiction. Who are the UK or international writers who keep you reading into the small hours?

I’ve mentioned two above, rising stars, the kind of writers to cause a small thrill in me when I see they’ve a book imminent. David Vann is one to watch also, Legend of a Suicide is a wonderfully brave and modern novel. And I’ll always come back to Banville, like a wavering addict needing a hit. Who else can write like that?

You play cricket. Can we expect a cricket novel – maybe the next Netherland – any time soon from Tom Vowler?

Not sure my agent or editor would be thrilled with that idea. Or at the Dartmoor pub-themed memoir lurking at the back of my mind, We Need To Walk About Devon.

Ha ha, love it.

What is next on the agenda for you, and/or what are you working on now?

The final edits for my second novel, due out next spring, plus the PhD are keeping me busy. Reading and editing stories for Short Fiction too. Like a stalker or sleuth, the third novel is loitering in the shadows, about to announce itself to me just as I plan a holiday.

Thanks for dropping by, Tom. Wishing you lots of luck with the book. Readers can buy What Lies Within here.