Sarah Hall
Sarah Hall
country exotic modern rural spaces
My writing is called exotic or avant-garde because I write about rural places. Has it really come to this, that if you write about the country you are avant-garde? How did this happen? Modern agriculture and spaces are still so relevant.
beauty conversation mode
The beauty of interdisciplinary conversation is that the mode of expression is essentially different for each practitioner, even if ideas are shared.
aware begin ecosystem healthy modern science understand
I'm very aware of modern countryside issues, such as rewilding: how, as science progresses, we begin to understand that a healthy ecosystem is multiform.
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.
When I moved back to Cumbria, one of the first things I did was locate a decent bookshop.
born county growing including lake lived perhaps raised shaped variety
Over the years, I've lived in a variety of places, including America, but I was born and raised in the Lake District, in Cumbria. Growing up in that rural, sodden, mountainous county has shaped my brain, perhaps even my temperament.
anywhere brought child fighting girls mesmerized north remember
I was brought up in the north of England, which is probably no rougher than anywhere else, but I remember as a child being kind of mesmerized by girls fighting on the playground.
finding narrative piece tend
I tend to research as I write so that the narrative can take priority, which is important for a piece of fiction, I think, finding out facts as and when I need to.
course novel studied
I studied the short story as part of my creative writing course at university but then set off as a novelist. Generally, there is a sense that even if you want to write short stories, you need to do a novel first.
hope human reader somebody surprise work
You always hope you'll surprise somebody with the work. If you write something human and appealing, the perfect reader could be anyone.
harder metaphors readily work
Language description and metaphors seem readily available. The things I have to work harder at are plot, pacing, and form.
james novelists sell souls
James Salter has talents on the page we novelists would sell souls to the devil for.
happened history interested radical women
I've always been interested in the history of radical feminism - what happened to those women of the 1960s and '70s.