Pudding and pie…..and podcasts
Podcasts and webinars have become more of a staple diet than pudding and pie during the lockdowns.
In the past two weeks I have enjoyed 2 digital delights:
The first was an interview for subscribers to The Times with Maggie O’Farrell, the award-winning author; the second was a digital rendition of the HAY Winter festival on the last weekend of November.
O’Farrell’s latest book is Hamnet, a fictional account of the life and youthful death at the age of 11 of Shakespeare’s son (and twin brother of Judith). His famous father does not feature as he is away in London writing plays and trying to make money for his family. The story is told mainly though the eyes of the mother, Agnes.
O’Farrell explained that the spelling of names was fluid in Shakespeare’s day, so Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable, as were Agnes and Ann. The author revealed more fascinating historical information, as well as insights into her own writing process. She claims not to suffer writer’s block. “There’s no such thing … writers need to get out into the world and not lock themselves away.”
The Arvon foundation
She also recommended that writers go on an Arvon course. “Arvon changed my life,” she said. Arvon runs both online and residential creative writing courses at three rural locations and they are led by leading authors. Grants are available.
This Friday (4 December) David Baddiel is giving a guest reading with a Q&A session. This year’s programme runs until 22 December and starts again in January 2021 with a writers’ retreat at Lumb Bank in West Yorkshire, in a house which once belonged to Ted Hughes.
Hay ride
Among several great interviews at Hay, the latest Booker prize winner Douglas Stuart was amusingly down to earth about the extended process over a number of years in writing his book, Shuggie Bain. Having spent much of his young life in Glasgow caring for his alcoholic mother, who died when he was 16, he moved to New York.
His first draft came relatively quickly but it ran to “900 pages of single-spaced type; my husband was my only reader; and I rewrote practically every sentence about 100 times”. He told authors to become resilient: “You are going to be rejected a lot – by publishers, by critics and by readers.” He had 32 rejections from publishers for his award-winning debut novel.
Get Hayplayer for £10 at: https://www.hayfestival.com/hayplayer/
Coming soon …
I’m working on a Christmas treat for the next newsletter, due out in two weeks and the final edition of 2020. A Secret Santa for writers, if you like.