Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson, MBEis an award-winning English writer. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 1995 and, under its new name the Costa Book Awards, in 2013 and 2015 in the Novels category...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
lengthy less needed practical stories
Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical way to do this, and less soul-destroying than working your way through a lengthy novel and then discovering it's rubbish.
acquires although depth goes mental plastic quite sounds
Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture, although that sounds weird. It acquires its character and its depth as it goes along.
brain half existential
(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time)
mystery cases fronts
I've always loved mysteries, the something there that you didn't know, and with 'Case Histories' I just decide to make that more up-front.
insane would-be looks
Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.
cheerful letters would-be
The Grim Reaper, Gloria corrected herself - if anyone deserved capital letters it was surely Death. Gloria would rather like to be the Grim Reaper. She wouldn't necessarily be grim, she suspected she would be quite cheerful (Come along now, don't make such a fuss).