Sarah Hall
Sarah Hall
When I moved back to Cumbria, one of the first things I did was locate a decent bookshop.
characters competing possibly
Wonderful characters rotate around and through bookshops on a daily basis, competing with and possibly even triumphing over fiction when it comes to entertainment, strangeness and inspiration.
frozen
Writing, and its theatre of operation, is better than working shifts packing frozen sausages; that's all I need to think about if I'm having difficulties.
daniel form might prose rather
Daniel Woodrell has made a name as a master of prose with personality - a densely descriptive, gamey form of storytelling, one might say traditional storytelling - of late rather an unfashionable mode.
evoke
One of the things I try to do with my writing is try to evoke the spirit of the place. I think these things imprint on the landscape and the culture.
connecting early fiction reason rhyme seemed
In my early 20s, connecting with fiction was a difficult process. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to what was meaningful, what convinced, and what made sense.
fish reason stands
It all stands to reason. You've got to fish where the fish are.
arranging art became bullied department happened head history option school sixth year
Art history became an A-level option at my school the year I started sixth form. This happened because another student and I cajoled and bullied the head of the art department into arranging it with the examination board.
tattoo men he-man
I'll tell you this, lad: A tattoo says more of a fellow looking at it than it can do of the man who's got it on his back.
solitude misunderstood conditions
Of all the conditions we experience, solitude is perhaps the most misunderstood.
craft
For every prescriptive idea about the craft of fiction, there's at least one writer who makes a virtue of the contrary.
northwest pacific school virginia
I married an American. He was from the Pacific Northwest but went to law school in the South, so I was living in Virginia and North Carolina.
bbc card looked painter portraits terrible
I was a terrible painter - my portraits looked like the evil chimera love-children of Picasso's demoiselles and the BBC test card clown.
science
I was useless at science. I was never going to be an astrophysicist.