Sarah Hall
Sarah Hall
promoting quite required terms work writers
Quite a lot is required of writers these days in terms of, if not promoting the work, then being a representative of the work. It's a difficult thing, really.
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.
amount certain hard listening maturity mean nerve short simply stories work
Short stories are often strong meat. Reading them, even listening to them, can be challenging, by which I do not mean hard work, simply that a certain amount of nerve and maturity is required.
asked explain label people reader work
You are often asked to explain your work, as if the reader isn't able to work it out. And people always try and label you by your work.
harder metaphors readily work
Language description and metaphors seem readily available. The things I have to work harder at are plot, pacing, and form.
advertising work
I don't think practitioners should necessarily be advertising their work.
work
My work is of me; it's not me. I want it to be far more extraordinary than I am.
breaks good looking system
The short story is very good at looking at shadow psychologies and how the system breaks down underneath.
bland characters fiction lacking landscapes seemed whose
There was a lot of fiction I did not enjoy, whose landscapes seemed bland and unevocative, the characters faint-hearted within them, the very words lacking vibrancy.
best library special
The Special Collections Library is the best we have. They have such fascinating things in there.
brought close interested main park since wildlife
I've always been interested in wolves, since I was a child. There was a wolf enclosure in a wildlife park very close to where I was brought up; they were the main attraction.
michael novels various
Various books revolutionised what I think about novels and showed me that they're not strict, formulaic things. 'Coming Through Slaughter' by Michael Ondaatje was one of them.
atlantic terror
There's nothing like the vast, dark Atlantic to remind you of your mortality. But terror can also be exhilarating.
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.