Paul McVeigh's 'The Good Son' launches in London

Author, signing books!

Hmm. The moral of the story seems to be don't have a rather nice carafe of Sancerre rose before attending a book launch, so you end up arriving late, as an Eminent Poet support act is about to begin reading. But that's what happened, so Nancy and I stumbled in quietly as possible, to find the cafe at Waterstone's Piccadilly packed, and we had to stumble through the audience, and to the back to find seats! Ah well. We got there, to celebrate the launch of a smashing book, one that has already garnered great reviews, so don't go by what I say - just read it before everyone asks if you have.

It's funny, it's poignant, clever, grabs you from page one and won't let you go until the end, when believe me, you won't forget the story, or the central character, young Mickey Donnelley. What more can you ask of a book? Mr McVeigh kindly agreed to answer a few odd questions for the blog  in celebration of the launch - so here you go.

VG: If you could choose a scene from The Good Son and have it painted, which scene would you pick, who would you choose as the artist, and why on both counts.

Paul: Most of the novel takes place in a couple of streets in a housing estate in Belfast during the Troubles, so one of the scenes that stands out for me visually is the first time the main character Mickey leaves Ardoyne. He stands on Napoleon's Nose (a high point on Cave Hill, Belfast) and from this view he sees Belfast Lough and a ship leaving, heading out of Northern Ireland and away from the Troubles. Quite pivotal for him. I would chose Turner to paint it because he is one of my favourite artists and his paintings of the sea are incredible. 

VG: When The Good Son is made into a film, who would you like to play in particular Ma, Da and  Paddy? 

Paul: Ha! I wish. It's hard to be obvious. And not just chose your favourite actors and make them fit. I loved Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake and I think she would play Ma to perfection.

That stoic quality she captured so well, the no nonsense working class mother and the understated compassion. She would be brilliant.

For Da, Daniel Day Lewis is one of my favourite actors. So intense. I think he would bring out the hopelessness and despair of the man, behind the simplicity of how Mickey sees him. He could also play the darker, violent side.

He'd make a deep impression of a character who isn't in the novel for a long time but has a huge effect on the family.

Paddy. I don't know many young actors. Do you have any suggestions?

VG: Erm, nope, come to think of it. Sorry! Next question, she said, sidestepping neatly. Is Mickey Donnelly a heroic character in the classical sense? (Wikipedia - "a hero is a character who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, displays courage or self-sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good. Historically, the first heros displayed courage or excellence as warriors. The word's meaning was later extended to include moral excellence.") 

(I think he is... but over to the creator...)

Paul McVeigh

Paul: Yes, I think he is. That's been on my mind recently. As writers we can show someone's true character by putting them under extreme pressure. How they react reveals who they are, or are to become. When you have a character like Mickey, who refuses to give in to the despair of poverty and war, fights to maintain his dignity when all around them are losing theirs, in a society where everything he stands for is mocked or brutally destroyed and yet stands in front of them all and says 'I don't care what you think. I know who I am,' then I think you have a hero. He is only a small boy, fighting on all fronts and living in fear, but he is fearless when it comes to protecting the ones he loves. He will take on his older brother, his father, the boys in the street and even the IRA if he has to. He protects, without them even knowing, never wanting to embarrass or trouble them (with Ma), or for them to the evil exists (with his little sister Maggie). Mickey sacrifices his own moral integrity to allow the ones he loves to keep theirs. But he's not a Saint either. He has flaws and a wicked sense of humour, and that keeps him from being too perfect or overly sentimental.


VG: I wish the book so much success, Paul - but suspect it doesn't need my good wishes. Here is just one review, from the eminent Booktrust:

Whatever your age, gender or nationality, so compelling is this narrative that while you read it you're eleven or twelve, on the cusp of puberty: a boy discovering your identity one summer holiday in Catholic Belfast at the height of The Troubles.
To grown-ups, Mickey Donnelly's the archetypal good boy. Polite and amenable, he'll do anything to help his mammy. It's just as well. Mickey's da is oppressed and floundering. He's an alcoholic, free with his fists, and prone to slipping his hand into Mickey's ma's purse to buy his next drink. That's why she keeps checking it's in her pocket. Mickey was heading for grammar school till lack of money ruined his chances. His brother tells him he's so soft he'll never survive the rough local school. If Mickey can't escape via grammar school, he'll escape to America through acting.
Paul McVeigh's Belfast is emotionally raw and brutal. The streets are barricaded, Brit soldiers drag children from their beds in the middle of the night, and their play parks are bomb sites. This is Troubles-era Belfast, though it could equally represent children's experience of warzones anywhere.  The Good Son is a triumph of empathy and the understanding of human dynamics, yet to say that is to vastly understate the range of McVeigh's writing. Mickey is the funniest, most endearing human being for whom we feel huge compassion as he faces each adversity. This novel envelops the reader with its humanity and its down-to-earth humour leaves you laughing.

The Good Son is published by Salt, and is available from all good bookshops. Support the indies!

Dan Powell talks about writing to music - and his fab collection of short fictions, 'Looking Out Of Broken Windows'

A couple of weeks back, I met Dan Powell when we were both on a panel discussing short stories. I've heard so much about this guy's writing - and I couldn't resist buying his new collection, 'Looking Out Of Broken Windows' - just out from Salt. It really is great - but I won't do a blather here, not yet - because Dan's here himself, talking about something I could never do in a million years - writing to music. Welcome Dan!

Dan here - 

Many writers can’t write to music. Not so surprising. The act of writing requires concentration and music can be a distraction. Jonathon Franzen, unsurprisingly, takes his limiting of distraction seriously and writes using ‘noise-cancelling headphones that pipe "pink noise" – white noise at lower frequency’. You might expect musician and novelist Willy Vlautin would use music in his process, what with him being the frontman and songwriter of The Richmond Fontaine, whose ‘alt-country opera’ The High Country was a narrative and musical highlight of 2011, and the fact that he co-wrote an instrumental soundtrack to his second novel Northline. In fact, listening to music while writing causes Vlautin to daydream. In a recent interview he described once trying to write to a loop of instrumental music: ‘It was probably the most fun I ever had writing, but the poor novel was so damaged and beat up and off kilter that I pulled the plug on it after the first edit.’

For myself, I cannot imagine writing without music. My entire process is influenced and helped along by a various playlists set up on my laptop. The stories in Looking Out of Broken Windows were all written while listening to various instrumental artists and soundtracks. That’s the rule for me. The music mustn’t have words if I am to write to it. Other peoples words get in the way when I am in the act of writing. When writing in public I struggle to block out conversation which is why, if you ever see me writing in The Bookstop Cafe in Lincoln, I’ll have earbuds plugging my ears, pumping ambient and drone into my brain to drown out the chatting of the other customers. No offence intended.

The stories in Looking Out of Broken Windows, for me, were as much influenced by the music I was listening to as I wrote them as they were by the short stories I have read and loved and learnt something from. Anyone reading the acknowledgements of the collection will see that I thank Andy Othling of Lowercase Noises by name. Andy is a very talented guitarist who, in his own words, is ‘interested in playing as slow as possible.’ He is a generous guy, who gives freely of his expertise on his various websites and blogs, helping other musicians with the technical aspects of music production and promotion on the web. He very kindly allowed me to use his music on my book trailers and his particular brand of emotive, ambient guitar instrumentals is perfect for reading and writing to. Without the music of Lowercase Noises, many stories in my collection would not have appeared on the page in quite the same way. Other artists and bands that fill up my specially created AAA Writing Music genre tab in iTunes are, Oathless, Stars of The Lid (great for writing darker stuff to), William Basinski, Olafur Arnalds, Industries of the Blind, Hildur Gudnadottir, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Explosions in the Sky, and the daddy of them all, Brian Eno. They are all worth checking out if, like me, you need something to fill your ears and free your brain as you write.

Putting together the story collection itself was not unlike track listing an album or crafting a mix-tape back in the good old days before mp3s and playlists. I had to think about how each story fitted within the overall feel of the collection and how it influenced its neighbours. What is great about a short story collection is that the reader can dip in an out, picking on the stories whose titles spark an interest or whose first lines grab at the attention most. Kind of like how most of us experience music now, picking and mixing from our libraries and the various online stores or streaming services. To that end, I’ve put together the following Spotify playlist. It features key tracks from albums I listened to while writing the stories that make up Looking Out of Broken Windows. Think of it as an unofficial soundtrack to the collection. If you like what you hear, you might want to grab a copy and check out the stories these tracks helped onto the page. The list is here: http://danpowellfiction.co/2014/03/17/looking-out-of-broken-windows-soundtrack/

Music also influences my writing in another key way. Many ideas for stories come to me from song lyrics. Not so surprising this as prose writers have been pilfering from poetry for centuries. While I do read poetry and from time to time something leaps out that I have to ‘steal’ (in the T. S. Eliot sense), I listen to way more music as I race about taking my kids to school and getting myself to work. Quite often a lyric will stick in my head and evoke some feeling or idea that niggles at me until I am forced to write it down. Once it gets me that badly, hard enough to go from hearing the word to noting it dow,  chances are it will make it into a story. The latest song to do this to me is New Ceremony by Dry the River. I won't say which lyric it was that hit me as the story is currently on submission and the words ended up forming part of the title but the idea they suggested sat in my notebook for a year or more before I wrote something. Weirdly, though I didn’t listen to the song while I wrote the story and redrafted it, listening to the track now as I write this I'm amazed at how the tone of the track is somehow mirrored in the feel of my story. I find that a lot with the influence of music on my writing process, this stuff goes deep. The influence is not always conscious but it is always there. 

And here is Dan himself, reading a story for you: 

-----

Dan Powell is a prize winning author whose short fiction has appeared in the pages of Carve, Paraxis, Fleeting and The Best British Short Stories 2012. His debut collection of short fiction, Looking Out Of Broken Windows, was shortlisted for the Scott Prize in 2013 and is published by Salt. He procrastinates at danpowellfiction.com and on Twitter as @danpowfiction.

Dan is giving away a signed copy of Looking Out of Broken Windows to one reader of the blog tour; he will post to anywhere in the world. To enter the draw just leave a comment on this post or any of the other LOoBW blog tour posts appearing across the internet during March 2014 or Like the Looking Out of Broken Windows Facebook page for a chance to win.. The names of all commenters will be put in the hat for the draw which will take place on April 6th.

Notes on a book. Posthumous Stories by David Rose (Salt)

Posthumous Stories is a rich experience. A visual book certainly - filled with (literal) word-paintings. A book of sounds, music, and not. A book of detail, architectural, painterly, botanical, musical - it’s a treasure box in which strange obsessive narrators look up as you pass from their usually left-brained and controlling occupations, fix you with their disturbing gazes, then look away. 

     I read and re read with a sense of intrusion such as one gets when passing a door left ajar, hearing a snip of talk not intended. Or better - as when you can’t avoid overhearing a conversation held in lowered tones, on a train. Captive, intrigued, removed. A delicious intrusion - sense of glimpsing something special, by accident, wry smile playing. Disturbing, certainly. Deliciously. And surreal, I came across many descriptions of how the body responds to machine - car, van, bike...how they merge.

 I made notes on some of the stories as I went - so forgive the lack of carefully crafted review. Sometimes, notes is all that's needed. 

    

A Nice Bucket - 

Sensuality under the surface - in the music, the hints... in the lyrical voice of the apprentice asphalter, in the son’s descriptions of his late father’s reconstructed studio. a darkness, compelling and dual-natured. Goodbad, like so many scenarios in this book. Orwellesque. Magnetic. The asphalters might be doing any old repairing job - but no. Legitimate work, under supervision (even if the supervision is sporadic), and the job - laying speed humps. Slowing things down. A reminder that the best stories, and these really are some of the best, are only appreciated of you slow down, and let them work on you.
...had me thinking, isn’t this why I (we?) read? To enjoy, yes, but to empathise. Consider. Widen. Goodbad. Vicarious experience. To remind myself that beneath everything, everyone, runs such rivers? Not to forget that. Never to take at face value. Respect the possibilities. We are living in glorious metaphor. Perhaps. 

Private View 

The son of an artist is persuaded to write the commentary to a retrospective on his father’s work. Through memories, and almost despite himself, (this reluctance to engage with memory seems to surface now and again) he is almost compelled to do so, even though it takes him on a journey of deepening alienation.I’m struck by this description: “...sliced by black vertical straight lines, regularly spaced, but in each successive work, becoming closer and closer together. The experts talk of a homage to Mondrian or the creation of abstract perspective. I think they look like bars.”Oh OK  - now I’m getting the cover of Rose’s brilliant novel, Vault, also from Salt, and a novel I loved a while back. 

.. clever, aren't I?

Fracturing, isolation, miscommunication. Here, we are island folk. And some are more island than others. 

Flora

the big questions - including what exactly, is art? The issue encapsulated by the botanist narrator musing on having to destroy a fungus,  ‘I had to admit to a sneaking regard for the fungal growth – not only its persistence, but its own strange beauty, the subtlety of its opalescent colours, the intricacy of its structure. Are we right, I wondered, to divide Nature as we do?’

The Fall

oh and jokes... many over my head, I’m sure, which is evident -  but a giggle escaped me,  in a crowded train carriage appropriately enough, when I read this:  

“One of the Servants remarked that he thought Auden’s most inspired creation was the Fat Controller “   also this 

"I even used to call her Donna, because she was always è mobile.” 

Behind ‘The Fall’ there are echoes of not only Albert Camus, but also George Orwell at several points - a religious guerrilla group made up of Servants initially using art installations to make their point. Achieving the ‘exosoma’ ... 

but I’m afraid lost patience with The Fall. Form overtook story early on, and lost this reader with it.and is it my imagination, but does the futuristic cult-theme arrive again in Clean, with its Vision and Mission meetings, mention of service, and the Intendant? “freedom of spirit depends on freedom of space, freedom of land –”
Something about isolation.  ‘Above me there’s a mile of blue and beyond that an eternity of black, a furnace of ice.”

Echoes of Camus again in Viyborg - a novel - a dead pan outlining of a lyrically written novel - a wry  take on various scenes.

Mind you, what with these installations in fiction and the pieces desccribed throughout, I think I’d like to see Rose's visual art - if he does. Who knows.

The Fifth Beatle

The fab four becomes five, with the reminiscences of the unplanned extra in the iconic abbey road shot - I loved this one. And I didn’t understand one reviewer’s snip about Rose not writing women well. Yes, he does, just not many. Suspect that's what the reviewer meant, there aren’t many female main characters - and speaking as a writer who vastly prefers writing males than females - what’s wrong with that? 

Clean -

'the cause' raises its head again, Regional Intendant looms, and a ‘devotional’ meeting. 
Quotes: Life’s a bitch, but it’s all to plan.’ 

and 

“... below that, to the silken silt where there are no reflections, to the reality of the fish.” 

Rectilinear

I feel I ought to be listening to Mahler while reading this - the trouble is, my ears and eyes don’t multi-task. Bach - need to look up Chaconne. What a wealth of architectural detail here... and what a brilliant house - turning things on their heads - kitchen on the top floor, the south wall blank. 

“Holes for doors and windows are the destruction of form’ - Le Corbusier. I lived for a year within a mile or two of Firminy Vert -the  Le Corbusier development, near St Etienne. 

Moller (Muller) House, Prague

Church, Firminy Vert - by Le Corbusier

By the way, you can hear David Rose reading Rectilinear, here: https://soundcloud.com/user529052175/rectilinear?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook

In Evening Soft Light

The unexplained shower of stones - the wife, novels, reading one page then becoming tired... rather Alice-in-Wonderlandish. Or Through-the-Looking-Glass-ish. One is right. 

Shuffle

A world where there are season tickets for brothels, meters tick in the bedrooms. A world where you douse your e-reader in appropriate perfume - segue into ‘correlating my relationships with my library by sniffing the books for perfume.’ Control, control. And the ghastly but compelling image of a man working out how many books he might read before he dies - a sort of literary actuarial computation.

Lector

Who would have the job of reading aloud the minutes of meetings of those in government...at whatever level? Reading to workers at a factory lunch break seems better, until you see the political agenda behind the choice of books. ‘The evening’s theme is the means and meaning of a transparent society....It involves us all. Open government requires openness of its citizenry. We all know the problems we face. Ignorance, poverty, bad manners.’... and then the lights go out...

Zimmerman

Description of a story - from the outside, as it is told/narrated. The opening goes like this:“The story begins with a man – we assume him to be Zimmerman – loading an accordion onto a cart, the cart being attached to a bicycle. He loads it carefully, with elastic straps through the handles and hooked to the cart. We gather later it is the last accordion in the country...”and Zimmerman has one of the most perfect endings of any story, anywhere. (Vast exaggeration, but try it. I’m right, aren’t I?)

Home

Terrific use of humour to relax the reader before the ambush. OK, I’ll enjoy, but am still ready for the ambush. “In home, my wife wear burka. They say to me, you Muslim? I say no, she most ugly woman.” 

“...find book, Kama Sutra. But is all dots. How you say it? Braille. I say in shop, is no good to me, is no pictures.” 

Ambush is good, too. :)

The Castle

The hand-made coffin maker, whose masterpieces are meant to echo the life of the deceased...and be buried before anyone’s had a proper chance to enjoy. 

 (Tis always disconcerting to find my name in a story, especially a Vanessa who plies her trade beneath the motto: ‘In constraint lies freedom...’ Yeah right. Even if this is an Oulipian tale, I have to fight against ‘but I never did that...’ which I guess Janes and Sues don’t get bothered by...) 

Loved this description of Eton, it seems rather appropriate:“...however much they try to shrug it off, self-assurance fits them like their handmade shirts. For all their little acts of bohemian defiance, their hands twitch in readiness for the reins...” 

However - and it’s a big however...I do wish there was no explanation of both this story and The Fall, earlier in the book. As Perec said, "The problem, when you see the constraint, is that you no longer see anything else.” Is it a mistake to actively draw the reader’s attention to the game? It was for this one. I see the contraption, the scaffolding, and it masks too much. 

M John Harrison, writing in The Guardian, found both The Castle and The Fall ‘tiring’. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/19/posthumous-stories-david-rose-review

...making it to the end, only to find that this particular end came along in an earlier story... and feeling a bit miffed.  

--------------------

But Harrison responds to the vast majority  of the pieces here, as I did, with pleasure, recognition, admiration.  “The best of Rose is fragile,” he says. “...retrospective, centred on the characters' recognition that something in life, be it a general condition or an absolutely specific moment, has evaded them.” 

Well, yes. 

 A kaleidoscope. That’s what this book is. And just as with a kaleidoscope, you will meet similar motifs in different stories - music, image, even strange recurring Orwellesque shadowy conductors of life - slightly autistic-seeming, detached, displaced characters, shifting, and tumbling. 
      If there is ever a book you can go back to, reread, assured that you will find something new, or something familiar seen from a new angle you missed last time round - this is it. Who knows. I might even set aside a couple of weekends, go somewhere very quiet, and read the Oulipan bits until they make sense, or I hit the bottle.

Here is a very interesting Q and A with the author, David Rose: http://www.neg-press.com/interview-david-rose/  He says at the end that he is no longer writing. If that is so, it's a huge loss to anyone who loves reading. 

His work is great. Posthumous Stories is one of the best reads in a long time - my non-understanding of a few pieces is my issue, not the book's!  Go read it. We could have such an interesting natter...

Looking back over 2013

I started to study writing (but not actually doing it) in October 2002. I only started writing writing when I joined a hardworking online writing group in November 2003. Writing is writing, to me. See? Good. 

So. To 2013. Books first. 
One of the joys of working with an indie press is that you can say, ‘Hey, this text book has been out for a few years - I’d like to update, refresh, add some new chapters by fab writers, maybe do a little pruning?’ and they say, ‘Good idea - do it.’

The result is  the terrific second edition of Short Circuit: Guide to the Art of the Short Story. Eight new chapters, new intro, sharper all round, I think - although the first edition was pretty good anyway. It’s been a huge privilege to be able to put together the text book I’d have liked when I started this writing lark myself, so thank you Salt Publishing.

So. That was book number five. A recap? Ok. 

1. ‘Words from a Glass Bubble’ (short stories, published 2008 by Salt), 
2. ‘Short Circuit first edition (2009), 
3. ‘Storm Warning’ (short stories on the theme of conflict, published 2010 by Salt),
4. ‘The Coward’s Tale’ (novel, published in UK in 2011 by Bloomsbury)
4.5 'The Coward’s Tale’ published in USA 2012
5.  'Short Circuit’ second edition (2013)

and book number 6 crept into 2013 as well, allowing me to say I have almost managed a book a year since 2008 as the US version of TCT doesn’t really count.  

6. My debut poetry publication, ‘The Half Life of Fathers’ was published by Pighog Press in November and launched in Brighton. Again, a joy of working with an indie - I was at Gladstone’s Library in September, there was a literary fest, I was reading, and Pighog kindly produced some advance copies. Thank you Pighog. 

It’s a game, all this - a serious one, but a game still. The writing world is full of ‘you must do this, must do that’, and in the end you could spend your days dancing to everyone’s tune but your own. I’m certainly not playing anyone else’s game these days, just mine.

Little Owl, illustration by Lynn Roberts - from 'Ed's Wife and Other Creatures' 

So. Book number 7, and the one I have had more fun writing than any other, is now with my agent. This is the collection of tiny fictions called ‘Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures’, beautifully and cleverly illustrated by artist and poet Lynn Roberts. Lynn’s own collection of poems inspired by paintings in The National Gallery is due out in April, and I am hugely grateful to her for going with the flow when I changed the goalposts from ‘about ten’ illustrations to ‘oh they are so good, can each story have a drawing?’ when there are almost seventy stories.  Thank to Lynn!

Anthology publications this year include a story in the lovely Red Room, published by Unthank and aimed at raising funds for the Bronte Birthplace Trust - and a lovely trip to Manchester to read at The Portico Library, staying with Elizabeth Baines. Then there is ‘The Irreal Reader’ a compilation of the editor’s picks from The Cafe Irreal, one of my favourite online journals, together with academic essays on irrealism. 

Theology Room, Gladstone's Library

Going places thanks to writing - I look back with huge pleasure over a NAWE conference at York, two (two!) stays at Anam Cara Writers and Artists Retreat early in the year, during which I was able to focus hard on the two separate strands of the next novel, ‘Kit’. I then put the novel away, letting it stew, until a glorious month at Gladstone’s Library in September, during which I was able to focus on getting a wobbly draft together, with invaluable input from both my agent (thanks Euan Thorneycroft) and military historian Jeremy Banning. Thank you to both. 

Part of The Western Front, at July 1916

Mr Banning led an unforgettable trip to France for what is becoming an annual event - the Writers Pals visit to the WW1 battlefields. This year, readings of poetry by the grave of Isaac Rosenberg, readings in  a sodden Strip Trench at Mametz Wood from 'In Parenthesis' by David Jones, and a walk with poet and friend Caroline Davies from the Citadel at Fricourt down to the Hammerhead were real highlights. As was the group writing every evening by the fire at Chevasse Ferme. Next year’s trip is already planned, and full. Can’t wait! Thanks to all the Writers’ Pals, including Tania Hershman, Sarah Salway and Zoe King. 

A bit of judging, notably the Gladstones Library Flash competition, a panel effort,  with the editors of Flash Magazine (Uni of Chester), was lovely. And a bit of supporting The Bristol Short Story Prize, giving out the prizes and giving a short address - wonderful. Bristol was also the venue for a George Saunders event, during which he was interviewed by Nikesh Shukla, back in May. 

Teaching always takes a place at the table. Workshops have been great, giving the odd talk also great, especially to writing students at Lancaster and Brighton Universities- but the best thing this year has been mentoring. This was a  professional working relationship brokered by New Writing South, and it was a huge privilege to mentor a terrific writer for nine months, a novelist who wanted to pull together a collection of short stories. Tick! 

A good year - now on to 2014. What am I most looking forward to? Finishing ‘Kit’ and thus getting the renowned ‘dreadful second novel’ everyone waits for, out of the way. Having 'nothing' on my plate for a while while I think about what I really want to do next, creatively. Readings and other events already organised include Oxted Literary Festival in February, another exciting gig in London in March. A ten day novel-finishing (please!) retreat at the unparalleled Gladstone’s Library also in February, and poetry poetry - I’m exploring being mentored, myself - very exciting. Definitely off to Ireland in October for a week’s poetry at Anam Cara. A weekend at Cambridge with SWWJ in April, also judging a competition for them, on the theme of war, off to the brilliant International Conference on the Short Story in Vienna in July, and judging a short fiction competition for Cinnamon Press later in the summer- I will be busy. 

I wish everyone who reads this a very Happy New Year. Lets hope it brings fresh ideas, the calm to explore them, a few exciting storm clouds punctuated by flashes of brilliance. 

Welcome Jon Pinnock, and his Scott Prize-winning 'Dot Dash'

I am thrilled to crash in to a blog tour in celebration of Dot Dash, the long-awaited (in some circles, mine for one...) Scott Prize-winning collection from Jon Pinnock. 
        I thought I'd start with one of the worst questions any writer can be asked - 'Where did the idea for xxx come from' - because you usually can't answer that. 'From my head. Duh...' is the standard reply. However -  structure is another matter, methinks, so I can ask it with impunity. This collection is alternating tiny tiny stories (and I mean tiny - one is reproduced with permission below...) and pieces of 'normal length (what's that?) short fiction. 
       When I was a kid, I loved Roald Dahl. Actually, when I almost grew up, I still loved the stories of Roald Dahl - and I think Jon has the same magic about his work.  So there you go - Jon Pinnock is Roald Dahl's natural successor.  Quote.
        The work feels so 'nutty' and supremely creative, free-and-easy - and yet something unexpected is always round the corner, waiting. It is very clever stuff, an absolute joy to read. Dare I say it's perfect for Christmas stockings? No? Oh OK, I won't... 

Hi Jon. 

 1. The obvious worst question is ‘where did the idea for tiny tiny pieces interspersed with larger pieces come from?’ 

First of all, I like things to have some kind of structure. I'd been playing around with tiny stories on Twitter (and elsewhere) for a while, initially just to see if I could. I was quite pleased with the way some of them had turned out and I thought it might be nice to incorporate them into my putative collection. It turned out I had enough to alternate the two types of story, so I now had my structure.

2. Do you think a very tiny story can ever hold the weight of a  full length short?  

 Sometimes, yes. For one thing, a good tiny story - like, say, the classic six-word Hemingway one - is inherently memorable, because you can literally remember the whole thing without much effort. More importantly, because of its concision, the reader has to work a bit harder to engage with it, and that makes it ultimately quite satisfying. The other thing is, sometimes how much you like a full-length story can come down to just one line. A tiny story isolates that line.

3. My favourite short short short is ‘The Experiment’. Please can I reproduce it here?

Of course!

The Experiment

Professor the said, "surprise a was that, well." Backwards run to began time, on machine the switched they when." 

              4. Do the shorter pieces here serve several purposes? What?

The primary purpose is to give the collection its structure. I think there's maybe also a sense of    giving the reader a little break between courses - to refresh the palette if you like. If I were to be honest, the marketeer in me would also see them as an opportunity for differentiation - a bit of a talking point, perhaps.

 5. Your work remind me of Roald Dahl - snappy pieces, often amusing, then suddenly, a turn in the journey that takes me somewhere unexpected. ‘After Michaelangelo’ for example. Do you have a relationship with the wonderful work of RD? 

Oh yes. I used to read a LOT of Roald Dahl short stories back in the day. He is, I know, a bit unfashionable these days, and the idea that every story has to have some kind of twist in it is regarded as a bit naff. I can see that, but at the same time I do like a story to come to some kind of conclusion, to have some kind of point to it, and I don't see any harm in a well-executed twist as long as it doesn't come out of nowhere. One of my favourite recent examples is "Far North" by Sara Maitland, which performs the most extraordinarily breathtaking handbrake turn - and then you go back over the story and realise that everything's been pre-planned without you realising.

6. I love the way you can tell a story that is on one level entertaining - but which holds real weight. ‘Return to Cairo’ for example. Or ‘rZr and Napoleon’ to name but two. When you start a story, is it ‘inspired’ in some way by something you want to say? Or does the ‘something’ just appear?

The theme almost always emerges in the writing. If I were to sit down and think "I want to write a story about XXX", it would turn out to be thoroughly boring. A good story should start out as a blank canvas onto which the writer's prejudices, worries and convictions get painted, almost unconsciously.

7. What does it mean to you to have won The Scott Prize? 

So many things. First of all, it's wonderful to have a collection published at all, let alone one with "Winner of the Scott Prize" printed on the cover. And it's especially wonderful to have my name on a book published by Salt. When I started out writing seriously a few years back, all the best collections seemed to be published by them - including one about a glass bubble, I seem to remember - and it became my ambition to join their list. But I guess the most important thing is validation, though. Sometimes you need someone to say to you, yes, you can do this.

8. Sticking with competitions - you have many many competition credits - what is it about your work that sends it to the top 10% regularly, do you think,?

Ha. You should see the list of the ones that have flopped! Having seen things from the judge's position as well now, I guess there are a few things that I've done - almost unconsciously - to make my stories stand out a little. I always try to make the title intriguing, for starters. But I think the most important thing is that I tend to come at things from a slightly unusual angle, often with a bit of humour. It's surprising how few short stories there are that are prepared to risk a laugh along the way.

9. Loads of good luck with this collection - and is it too soon to ask what’s next from the Pen of Pinnock?

Thank you! Well, what's next is an odd non-fiction project that is currently out on submission, and I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen with that. I'm trying to work out what happens next. I've probably got half of another short story collection in the can, but it's going to be a few years before anyone lets me publish that. I've also got nearly enough poems for a collection, but  - well, that's not really going to happen, is it? More seriously, I'm about 5000 words into a reasonably serious scifi-ish novel and I really am going to have to decide whether to go any further with it or if I'm going to try something else instead. I have quite a few novels hidden away in a metaphorical drawer that haven't made it past the first chapter or so, and I suspect this may turn out to be another one.

Whatever it is, I shall look forward! Good luck. 
So - Dot Dash has its own website, from which you may purchase signed copies: http://www.join-the-dots.com/
Here is the Salt Publishing website, from which you can purchase many many excellent books: http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=9781844718825 
Here is Jon's blog: http://www.jonathanpinnock.com/

Competitions, collections, Salt Publishing - Interviewed by Jen Campbell

Writer Jen Campbell is running four interviews with Salt writers this month. Up first, discussing everything from my father's influence on the stories in 'Storm Warning', to how I bounced back from potential disaster when writing 'The Coward's Tale' is meself. Plus a lot about the lovely Salt.

Read the interview here.

and scroll down for a great interview with Jon McGregor whose third novel 'Even the Dogs' I am reading at the moment. Fascinating, not the least because we share a publisher in Bloomsbury, and an editor...

SALT PUBLISHING NEEDS YOUR HELP...

Well, the book below will appear if the publisher does not under before November. Salt is in trouble again, and asking you to buy Just One Book. This is me doing my bit to help spread the word, because quite apart from 'me me me' here, good independent publishers are like hens teeth. I'd like to see them survive. This is the message from the Director, Chris Hamilton-Emery, taken from the publisher's website.
I hoped I’d never have to write this note. The recession has continued to have a very negative impact on sales at Salt and we’re finally having to go public to ask you to help support us.
Our sales are now 60% down on last year and have wiped out our grant and our cash reserves as we continue to market and publish what we can from what we believe is a great list. We’ve plans in place to help secure the business from November 2010 — though the books we’ll be publishing won’t deliver any real revenue until 2011. We’re sorry to ask, embarrassed to ask, but we need your help to survive until then and if you were considering purchasing a Salt book, we’d dearly love you to do it right now. We’ve less than one week’s cash left.
If you can help us, please do two things:
1. Buy one book from us — we don’t mind from where, it can be from your local bookstore (they need your support, too), it can be from Amazon or the BookDepository. It can even be directly from us. But please buy that book now.
2. Please tell everyone you know to do the same. Buy just one book and pass it on.
You can visit our Website right now, simply go to
http://www.saltpublishing.com
and buy JustOneBook.

Remember too, that every book you buy gets a raffle ticket in our Big Summer Raffle — and you could win one copy each of the next 20 books we publish from 1 September.
Join us on Twitter and help spread the word.