Jim Crace
Jim Crace
James "Jim" Craceis an award-winning English writer. His novels include Quarantine, which was judged Whitbread Novel of 1998, and Harvest, which won the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the 2013 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth1 March 1946
audience deeply falls gives happily itself onto percentage stay stuff
I'm not thinking when I'm writing, 'How's this going to read?' Or, 'What percentage of the audience is going to stay with me?' The thing itself is what gives me pleasure. Sometimes stuff just falls onto the page so beautifully and happily that it's deeply satisfying. It's selfish!
I'm not that well-versed in literary theory - I don't know what it is.
issues writers
In the U.K., a lot of writers won't show up to support activist issues because they figure they're already repairing the world. I don't want to be one of those people.
detailed invented mostly
I offer detailed but mostly invented narratives about the provenance of my books.
colleague friday good reach target weekend weekly word work
Good old-fashioned, puritanical work guilt is, for me, a better colleague than any Muse. If I reach my weekly word target by Friday afternoon, then the weekend is guilt-free.
certainly
I liked journalism and thought it was important, certainly more important than fiction. I'd probably still be doing it if I hadn't been elbowed out.
invent spray
I invent words you think you've heard - spray hopper or swag beetle.
aware driven hours less pregnant share suffer text wake writers
I'm very aware when I share a stage with other writers that I'm much less driven than they are. I don't wake up in the middle of the night, pregnant with paragraphs. I don't suffer for my text twenty-four hours a day.
empty fortnight fright heavens morning thank wake writers
I am not - thank heavens - one of those 'driven' writers who spend a fortnight buckled with empty fright over an untouched page only to wake at two in the morning feverish with paragraphs.
canadian flock spent
For 'The Gift of Stones,' I spent an afternoon chasing a flock of Canadian geese.
certain certainly last promoting talk
If I talk about my father's funeral, as I did when I was promoting the last novel, 'Being Dead,' I'm not going to tell any lies, but there are certain things I'm not going to tell you, and I'm certainly not going to tell my grief.
based book distance felt good happy health heart marriage novels subject wants
I felt that, in some ways, my novels lacked heart because of the distance between me and the subject matter. But no one wants to read a book based on good health, a happy upbringing, a long marriage.
editors trying pitching
Try pitching a story of happiness to your editors and their toes are going to curl up.
pregnancy secret
Secrets are like pregnancies hereabouts. You can hide them for a while but then they will start screaming.