Sarah Hall
Sarah Hall
I'm a home-roamer and can't do study or office scenarios.
five four hours mornings
I write in the mornings or afternoons - I'm not a night owl and can write for only four or five hours maximum.
science
I was useless at science. I was never going to be an astrophysicist.
saw women
I was brought up in Cumbria where I saw all these fierce agricultural women.
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.
house kitchen wander
I wander around the house and write in bed, at the kitchen table, by the window, in the yard.
immensely later life won
I used to dislike bookshops immensely as a child and was won over only later in life.
human
I think you can tell any human story in a particular place.
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.
civil extreme people stripped veneer
I like extreme situations: people pushed out of their comfort zones; the civil veneer stripped off.
advertising work
I don't think practitioners should necessarily be advertising their work.
relevant written
I don't see that books can be written without political context - not if they're relevant and ambitious.
attainable pipe reckon writers
I don't reckon there are many writers who start out really expecting writing to be an attainable occupation. Well, I didn't. It was a pipe dream.
life novels people power tie
I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power.