Rachel Joyce
Rachel Joyce
beauty ordinary
I think of myself as a very ordinary person. I like writing about the juxtaposition between people: the beauty of them at times and then the banal, everyday context in which we find ourselves.
adapting afternoon bbc began broadcast fry harold novels originally pilgrimage plays unlikely
The story of Harold Fry and his unlikely pilgrimage began as an afternoon play for radio. For many years, I have been writing plays and adapting novels for 'Woman's Hour' and the 'Classic' series. So this was originally a three-hander play, broadcast one sunny afternoon on BBC Radio 4.
admit anyone ask confused debut expecting feels honoured listed man novelist response sorry violent
I am not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me, but when friends ask how it feels to be a debut novelist who has also been long listed for the Man Booker prize, I have to admit that my response has confused me. I am so overwhelmed, so delighted, so honoured and so surprised, I have come out in a violent cold.
mum romantic sisters stage tiny visions
I went through a stage of writing my cramped hand in tiny books. My two sisters and I did have our Bronte period. My mum is from Yorkshire, and we would go up to the Moors. It tapped into our romantic visions of ourselves.
harold life maureen meets ordinary people save terrible trying unspoken walks
In writing about Harold and Maureen with their terrible unspoken secret, and all those people that Harold meets as he walks to save a friend's life, I was trying to celebrate the ordinary people.
funny ordinary
I find that very appealing: the blurring of the lines between what's funny and what's tragic. And what's ordinary and what's not - the big things in the small things.
drawn life moved people
I'm drawn to people who find themselves on the outside of things. I'm moved by that in real life.
felt
For me, writing is such an escape, and I felt very lucky to have this to run away to.
pinch praise somebody takes
I think I'm somebody who takes praise with a very big - probably too big - pinch of salt.
loneliness car people
People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.
accepting no-hope ifs
If we can't accept what we don't know, there really is no hope.
unique stranger being-human
Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.
without-love ifs
It was not a life, if lived without love.
mistake journey accepting
He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others.