[Interview_4] Jonathan Taylor

Jonathan Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at De Montfort University in Leicester.

He is also the author of books that include the memoir, Take Me Home: Parkinson’s, My Father, Myself (Granta, 2007) and the academic books, Science and Omniscience in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Sussex Academic Press, 2007); Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003); and, Figures of Heresy: Radical Theology in English and American Writing, 1800-2000 (Sussex Academic Press, 2005) (co-edited with Dr. Andrew Dix).

In this interview, Jonathan Taylor talks about his debut novel, Entertaining Strangers (Salt, 2012):

How long did it take you to write the novel?

It took me a while to write the novel: I started it in 2007, shortly after the publication of my memoir, Take Me Home: Parkinson’s, My Father, Myself (Granta Books, 2007), and finished it four or so years later.

In fact, its origins lie further back, in that the starting-point was an episode which was eventually cut from my memoir. In 2001, my father was in intensive care, and I was travelling backwards and forwards to Stoke from Leicestershire, where I was working at the time. One night, in Loughborough, I was approached by a homeless woman, who said she hadn’t eaten for days, and who asked if I had anything she could eat. I’d had a few too many drinks that night, and decided it was a good idea to invite her back to our house to (and I quote) “eat our freezer.” She came back with me, I fed her, and then she met my housemate of the time, who proceeded to talk to her for hours about his current obsession: ants. After that, she slept on our floor, and then, next morning, just before she left, gave us both a kiss on the cheek and told us that she now “believed in English gentlemen again.”

It was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me. I never saw her again, but the novel is an attempt to imagine what her traumatic background was – what had brought her to that desperate point. In effect, she’s the novel’s narrator. The central character is a heavily fictionalised version of my ant-obsessed housemate (though he’s really a complex hybrid of my housemate, myself and other people I know).

Did you write everyday?

I wrote a great deal of the novel in 2008-9, when our twin girls were still babies. This meant that the writing process was squeezed between massive commitments – to my daughters (obviously), and also to my full-time job as a lecturer. So I’d sometimes have no more than an hour or two a week writing time. This meant that I had to maximise that time, and use it to its full advantage. Through sheer necessity, I’ve come to discipline myself to be able to write at will as and when I get the chance. I hardly believe in ‘inspiration’ any more – and I don’t have the kind of time available to wait for it to come. I’ve just trained myself to write as and when I get the odd hour free. In that sense, ‘writer’s block’ is something, I think, that is often the preserve of people with a lot of spare time.

In terms of how I proceeded with the novel, I actually wrote it in a linear way, from beginning to end. I’ve never done this before – the memoir was built up in a piecemeal fashion from fragments, and my second novel (which I’m completing now) is much less linear. But the story for Entertaining Strangers demanded this kind of treatment: it’s a very linear, step-by-step story, where each small chapter builds up towards the climax.

I wanted the story to move fast from episode to episode, and each chapter to move the story on one step.

I enjoyed the challenge of writing something so different in structure to everything else I’ve done. Of course, when I’d finished the first draft, I then went back and edited, redrafted, reshaped and expanded the novel – so, ultimately, the writing experience is never really linear. But it was in this case, at least for the first draft.

How would you describe the novel?

I’ve always described Entertaining Strangers as a ‘tragi-comedy.’ It’s a mixture of grotesque and dark comedy on the one hand, with horror and trauma on the other. The starting-point is the weird comedy: the tragedy is what lurks underneath the comedy (as it does with so much comic material).

Most of the novel is set in 1997, and centres on the mysterious narrator Jules, about whom little is known, and the manic-depressive Edwin Prince, who is obsessed with high culture and ants. Gradually, the narrator uncovers Edwin’s strange history and family background – and ultimately, in doing so, reveals another, darker and much more distant trauma which lies behind both Edwin’s family’s neuroses and psychoses and, indeed, the narrator’s own. Towards the end, the novel flashes back to 1922 and the Great Fire of Smyrna, which forms the traumatic backdrop to what happens in the novel.

Where and when was the novel published?

The novel was published in Autumn 2012 in the UK. By coincidence, Autumn 2012 is also the 90th anniversary of the Great Fire of Smyrna, which occurred in September 1922, and which, as I say, is the formative trauma lying behind everything which happens in the novel (the majority of which is actually set in 1997).

How did you find a publisher for the book? And, what advantages and/or disadvantages has this presented?

I had a lot of help and advice in terms of editing from a literary agent friend of mine, called Meg Davis. Ultimately, though, I approached Salt Publishing myself: although I know agents are important for most writers, all my books have been published without one. In part, it’s just happened that way; but it’s also because I like to establish a relationship with publisher’s editors myself.

Salt has been a great publisher: both Chris and Jen Hamilton-Emery (the editors) have been incredibly supportive, and also – most importantly – seem to love the book. Salt’s books are beautifully designed, and Salt is also quite daring in what it publishes, in a way that the very biggest publishers often feel they can’t be any more. My novel is, no doubt, eccentric and individual – and, as such, suits an independent publisher like Salt, which is willing to take risks.

Which aspects of the work you put into the novel did you find most difficult?

I think the most challenging part of writing the novel was the large chapter – towards the end – which flashes back to the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. This was a terrible disaster, in which many people were killed, injured and made homeless. I had to find a style which somehow did justice to such an awful catastrophe. For that reason, the chapter on Smyrna is one of the most experimental and extreme pieces of writing I’ve ever attempted – and I hope it captures some of the horror, terror and grief of that event.

Another challenge, linked to this, was that of connecting the main plot, which is, at least in part, comic, with the tragedy of Smyrna, without the link between comedy and tragedy seeming bathetic. In the end, this wasn’t the problem I thought it would be, in that – as I’ve said – horror often lurks within comedy anyway, so the two plots had underlying connections. And, of course, bathos has its own horrors.

Which aspects of the work did you enjoy most?

To be honest, I enjoyed writing the novel hugely: it was a break from the pressures around me at the time, and was also a break after writing the memoir. Suddenly, instead of having to stick to the truth, I was free to invent, exaggerate, embellish.

Of course, the memoir itself could never be strictly and absolutely true – but here, writing a novel, I was freed up from truth entirely, notwithstanding the novel’s origins in various ‘truthful’ images.

I enjoyed playing around with the characters, and I also enjoyed writing something which, on the surface at least, is primarily comic. For all its constraints, there is something playful and liberatory about the novel form.

What sets Entertaining Strangers apart from other things you've written? And, in the same vein, in what way is it similar to the others?

I’ll address the second question first: it overlaps with the memoir in various ways, but particularly, perhaps, in its use of dark humour. I believe that comedy and tragedy – as I’ve said – are always mingled, even in the most extreme of circumstances. The memoir, I hope, demonstrated that – and so does the novel. People laugh at funerals, cry at jokes, feel melancholy at joyful parties. Many writers have understood this, from John Keats to Jack Kerouac. That’s what I want to capture in my work: that emotions aren’t monolithic, that experiences are strange hybrids of different emotions. Whether I’m successful or not is, of course, up to the reader to decide.

The main way in which Entertaining Strangers is different, I think, from other things I’ve written is as regards its plot: in writing the novel, I soon realised the importance of plot, and I struggled with this at first. Memoirs don’t need a plot, and short stories only need one small ingredient. A novel, by contrast, needs a whole chain of causes and effects for the story to work – and it took me a long while to get that chain right, so that each cause linked to the next effect, and so on.

My other challenge, when writing Entertaining Strangers, came when I realised that a novel often demands to be more realistic than reality. This may sound rather strange – but I think readers will happily read material, such as memoirs, which is labelled as ‘non-fiction,’ and believe what’s going on, however crazy it is. Some of things that I talk about in my memoir – which did actually happen – are crazy, grotesque, bizarre. But as soon as you transfer those kinds of events and behaviour to a novel, somehow they seem less believable. However crazy reality actually is, you’re expected to tone it down for it to seem realistic in a novel. A novel is a more moderate version of reality, you might say. In the end, though, I wouldn’t and couldn’t really do that: I wanted to write a novel which captures the insanity of the world and the people in it, so if some people choose to think it’s a caricature, or satire, that’s fine. But to me it’s not.

What will your next book be about?

Well, I’ve got a couple of books coming out in the next few months – firstly, a poetry collection called Musicolepsy, which will be published by Shoestring Press in early 2013, and then a collection of short stories called Kontakte and Other Stories, which will be published by Roman Books in mid-2013. The material for these books is already written: I’ve been writing poems and stories for many years, so it’s a matter of selection, structuring, editing and ordering them at the moment. That’s what’s so wonderful about writing individual poems and stories – you can write them whilst you’re engaged on other, longer-term projects. Speaking of which, I’ve also just finished the second draft of a second novel, called Mellissa, which is very different to Entertaining Strangers. It’s more of a ‘concept-driven’ novel than Entertaining Strangers. It’s set in Stoke-on-Trent in the late 1990s, and is about ... well, actually, I don’t think I’ll reveal that yet.

Related books:

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Related articles:

• Angels, Ants and Vermouth [Book Review], SophieDuffy, September 6, 2012
• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_1], Conversations with Writers, August 10, 2007
• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_2], Conversations with Writers, February 7, 2008 
• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_3], Conversations with Writers, February 11, 2008

[Interview_3] Jonathan Taylor

Jonathan Taylor's memoir, Take Me Home: Parkinson’s, My Father, Myself (Granta, 2007) has been described as a “a beautifully constructed and often profound piece of work” which “stands as a fine testimonial to man whose life was a mystery.”

Taylor has written two academic books, Science and Omniscience in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Sussex Academic Press, 2007) and Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003) and has co-edited the collection of essays, Figures of Heresy: Radical Theology in English and American Writing, 1800-2000 (Sussex Academic Press, 2005) with Dr. Andrew Dix.

In this, the last of a two-part interview, Taylor speaks about Take Me Home, how it got published and how has been received by readers.

Who is your target audience?

I would say my target audience has various layers.

Obviously, people who have experienced Parkinson's disease or dementia in their family (or in themselves) are central to who the book is for.

The book is also for carers, and intended as a way of encapsulating the experience of care in a realistic way; I don’t think there are many books of this kind which deal with the subject in an experiential and personal way.

In more general terms, the book is for people who enjoy reading literary memoirs and biographies. There are elements to stories like mine which everyone can associate with: family secrets, hidden histories, illness and mourning are, of course, universal concerns.

How did you choose a publisher for the book?

I chose the publisher, Granta, primarily because they published at least two of the books which influenced me the most: Linda Grant's Remind Me Who I Am Again?, and Blake Morrison's And When Did You Last See Your Father?

Granta specialise in this kind of work, and they were always my first choice. I was overjoyed when they accepted the book, and they have been great ever since really looking after me and the book. Ian Jack (ex-editor of Granta) went through my book word by word, editing it with me, making the book much better than the original manuscript.

How would you compare Take Me Home to the other books you have written?

Before Take Me Home -- up till now -- I've only written academic books -- works of literary criticism. These really helped in learning how to write in a flowing style. Writing formally is a really useful discipline -- it forces you to listen to every sentence and make sure everything links up "logically."

My next book is in very early stages at the moment, but I'm trying to write a novel which is partly based on my own experiences and partly fictional. Years ago, one night, I was rather, shall we say, drunk, and I invited a homeless person back to the house I was living in at the time -- to feed them everything in the fridge. On request, we then listened to some Debussy together. I never saw the person again, but the experience forms the basis of the novel I'm currently trying to write.

How did you go about writing Take Me Home?

I wrote Take Me Home over a number of years, constructing chapters out of fragmentary memories, and working out ways of turning isolated experiences into a narrative. At the same time, I was doing a lot of research -- interviewing relatives, contacting people who'd been "lost" for years, and searching for documents about some of his experiences.

There was so much that had been lost, hidden or forgotten -- a whole life in the Isle of Man, Oldham and afterwards which was shrouded by mystery. I really got caught up with the research. Then I suppose the majority of the actual writing was done in 2005.

Were you writing everyday?

When I was in full flow with Take Me Home, I was writing almost every day.

Coincidentally (and luckily), I got a sabbatical from my day job (lecturing) in 2005, so I had the chance to really get to grips with the book. I was sitting down at 8 am every morning and writing 1,000 words before lunch -- and then, after lunch, doing other jobs or editing what I'd done in the morning.

Although I'd written substantial amounts of the book before (and continued to redraft after) the sabbatical, those six or seven months of solid writing were essential. Otherwise, I don't think I'd ever have got it done.

I'd done a great deal of ground work before this period, so when it came to sitting down and writing, I found it relatively easy to write in quantity -- it flowed surprisingly easily, possibly also because I always felt there was something compelling me to write it. Somehow, I had to get it on the page. So, at that time, it wasn't hard to write at all.

Having said that, I never really believed I might finish the book: it felt like such an Everest. Even in the final rewrites, oddly enough, I felt utterly daunted by the magnitude of the task.

I suppose the problem here was the same thing that made it easy to write: I knew exactly what I wanted to get down, so I was daunted by getting to the end of a story I already knew.

My experience of writing in 2005 isn't representative -- normally, I find it very difficult to sit down and write at all. There are always other things to do: carpets to hoover; lopsided shelves to put up.

I think writing works best when I've got a substantial amount of time -- at least a week -- in which to sit down and write every day.

I do sometimes write in the evenings, or at times, around my job, but this is very difficult to do and often results in "bitty" work. It's suitable for short stories, but for longer work I really need proper periods of solid writing.

Generally speaking, I write all but the most first of first drafts on the computer. This isn't because I like computers(!), but because word processors are helpful for editing. I'm a very painstaking writer, and I like to edit the sentence I've just written over and over again -- and a word processor is useful for that.

How has the book been received so far?

I've been overjoyed how the memoir has been received. Most importantly, all members of my family and friends have loved it.

I've also had various letters and emails from carers who have associated with various elements of the book. Those reactions are clearly more precious than any formal reviews. But it has also received really good reviews in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Times Literary Supplement and on Oneword Radio.

I never expected to receive this kind of feedback, and have, of course, been overjoyed and surprised in equal measure.

All these people seem to understand what the book attempts to be: an honest literary memoir about my experiences and my father’s illness.

Inevitably, I’ve also received a few more negative reactions, for example, on amazon.co.uk. I expected this – I mean, if you write a book like this, then you're opening yourself up to criticism. I am myself more than aware of the ethical questions surrounding what I’ve done, and have wrestled with them continually. I believe, though that many of the negative reactions are because people have misunderstood the genre of the book, thinking its some kind of medical textbook rather than what it is: a literary memoir, an exploration of personal experiences.

Related articles:

• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_2], Conversations with Writers, February 7, 2008
• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_1], Conversations with Writers, August 10, 2007

[Interview_2] Jonathan Taylor

Jonathan Taylor has written and published a memoir, Take Me Home: Parkinson’s, My Father, Myself (Granta, 2007).

In addition to Take Me Home, he has written two academic books, Science and Omniscience in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Sussex Academic Press, 2007) and Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003) and has co-edited the collection of essays, Figures of Heresy: Radical Theology in English and American Writing, 1800-2000 (Sussex Academic Press, 2005) with Dr. Andrew Dix.

Taylor is also co-founder and co-director of Crystal Clear Creators, an arts organisation and not-for-profit company, which records, publishes, produces and promotes new writing, particularly for radio.

Currently Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at De Montfort University in Leicester where he specialises in prose writing, memoir-writing, radio writing and literature of the nineteenth-century.

In this, the first of two interviews, Jonathan Taylor speaks about how the process of writing Take Me Home helped him understand his experiences as an informal carer as well as his relationship with his father.

What motivated you to start working on the memoir?

I always felt there was a real imperative behind my writing it -- when I was writing it, I just felt I had to do it.

I wanted to write something which could help me understand what had happened to my father and my relationship with him -- something that (retrospectively) would help me understand the "story" of his illness.

There were so many hidden complexities in his life and illness that I wanted to unravel them, and I thought writing the book would help me do that. I also wanted to write the kind of book which I would have liked to have read when I was caring for him -- the kind of book which would have helped me to understand my experience and conflicting emotions as a carer.

Did writing the book help you understand these emotions?

I think it helped by making sense of what had happened to us and what the illness meant.

If nothing else, I learnt that certain elements of his illness had names. Putting names to things sometimes helps, I suppose.

At the time it was happening, I just saw the symptoms and didn't understand -- or often thought he was being deliberately irritating. For example, he suffered from Capgras Syndrome, which means that the sufferer becomes convinced that a "significant other" isn't him or herself, but is a someone impersonating him or her.

My father became convinced for a long while that I wasn't me, but was being impersonated by an old colleague at work whom he hadn’t got on with. At the time, I just thought he was angry at me, and the disease had made him forget who I was. But retrospectively, I came across an academic research paper written about my relationship with my father, which said that he suffered from Capgras Syndrome. Being able to put a name to his inability to recognise me helped me to understand what had happened.

I suppose the difficulty is that it also made me feel bad for being so impatient with him; when I realise that so many of the things I got cross with him about (repeating things over and over, misrecognising me, repeating actions over and over) were real symptoms and recognised conditions, I can't help feeling guilt about my impatience with him at the time.

So, that understanding is a two-edged sword in some ways.

All carers, I think, have to deal with guilt over how they behaved, what they did.

Impossible standards for carers are set in the media and on television, and they suffer terribly from guilt when they're not always patient angels, but human beings who get cross, frustrated, impatient and so on. I wanted to show that that's normal -- that a carer can't be 100% happy and patient all the time.

The guilt is an inevitable part of the process, but it helps (hopefully) to know that other carers feel the same, that other carers get cross too.

Another way in which writing the book was both a positive and a "negative" experience in one was that a lot of what I uncovered didn’t really add up. I realised that my father would remain a bit of an enigma, however hard I tried to find more out. For example, the father that I knew and the father that my half-brother knew as a boy seem to be two wholly different people, and it’s impossible to reconcile our views of him as children. I had to come to accept that my father was a hugely complicated and contradictory person; that was the "conclusion" to the book -- that there was no conclusion, no simple way of understanding him.

How old were you when you started caring for your father?

I suppose it was round about when I was 17ish that I really started looking after him (in 1990).

What did your duties involve?

I used to take over from my mother (who was his full-time carer) for a few days at a time, when she went down to Torquay to visit her parents (who were themselves ill). The responsibilities and duties changed radically over time, but they obviously involved 24 hour care -- everything from feeding him, organising the medication, moving him about the house, putting him to bed, picking him up when he fell, toiletting and so on and so forth. Every single part of the day was devoted to a particular job or routine.

How did this affect you?

I think it had a deep effect on me as a person, though it’s hard to know what without having something to measure it against.

On the one hand, I felt proud to look after him -- I felt I was doing something important, something that needed to be done -- and I loved him very much. On the other hand, it exposed to me all the worst parts of my nature at the same time. I suppose care often does that.

All I can say is that, since his death, I have missed caring for him terribly -- because very few things feel as important or worthwhile, however well or badly I did it back then.

Do you feel you had adequate support?

The whole family supported each other -- we all took up different roles "round" my father, caring for him in different ways (for example, my sister is a doctor, so she dealt with many of the medical matters, and, indeed, saved his life on one or more occasions).

Outside the family, we saw the best and the worst of the modern health system. There were some wonderful individuals who helped, but the institutions (such as hospitals) were often very poor. They don’t cater well for Parkinsonians, or people suffering from degenerative disorders. On a simple level, for instance, Parkinson’s sufferers often have complicated pill regimes -- but the pill regimes often don’t fit into the hospital routines, and pills are forgotten or switched around for no good reason.

Hospitals, I think, deal well most of the time when things are at crisis point, but slow, degenerative disorders often meet with institutional neglect and a general malaise.

When did you decide you wanted to write about these experiences?

The very first inkling I had that I could write about my experience was way back, in 1998, when I discovered that I had a half-brother I'd never heard of. At the same time, I found out that my father had been married before.

As these revelations started, I remember my mother turning to me and saying, "Gosh, it'd make a good book, wouldn't it?" That was when I first thought about it.

Then I first started working on the memoir seriously in 2001, when my father died. In that sense, the memoir is a memorial to him.

How did you find out about your half-brother?

One Christmas (1998), my mother sat me down at the kitchen table and placed a series of letters in front of me. One of them was from the Salvation Army tracing service. Colin (my half-brother) had decided to trace my father after 30 years of not seeing him.

Did your mother know about his previous marriage?

Yes -- in fact, I’ve gradually realised that most people knew apart from us (his children from his second marriage)!

How did these revelations make you feel?

I wasn’t totally surprised, I suppose, in that we had always wondered where he’d been before he met my mother. There were years of his life he didn’t talk about, so (as an imaginative kid) I used to make up all sorts of fantasy stories about that time. It’s also possible that, because of the trauma of his first marriage and, indeed, because of the Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) he may or may not have had after his first nervous breakdown, that it really was all blotted out.

I’ve got to know my half-brother well now, and that’s been a real delight -- he is the spitting image of my father, looks-wise. So it’s been a strange, but positive experience. I also understand why my father didn’t talk about these things, why these things were hidden. After all, we were young children and wouldn’t have understood -- and then, by the time we would in the 1990s, he was very ill, and probably couldn’t talk about them very easily.

Related articles:

• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_1], Conversations with Writers, August 10, 2007
• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_3], Conversations with Writers, February 11, 2008

[Interview_1] Jonathan Taylor

Crystal Clear Creators is a not-for-profit organization which develops, records, showcases and promotes new and established talent for radio.

Founded in 2004 by Robin Webber-Jones and Jonathan Taylor, the organization has gone on to build an impressive list of achievements, assisting in the production of a notable range of new plays, poetry and prose for radio. It has also hosted creative writing workshops for teachers and school-age children, as well as for other people with an interest in writing.

It has recently produced and published Speaking Words: Writings for Reading Aloud, an anthology of short stories, monologues and poetry.

It has also published a mini-series of poetry pamphlets, provisionally titled Presenting Poets. Each of the pamphlets showcased an up-and-coming poet who is a member of Crystal Clear Creators.

In addition to this, there are plans to publish an anthology of children's stories taken mainly from those that the organization has produced for Leicester's Takeover Radio.

Crystal Clear Creators co-founder and co-director, Jonathan Taylor spoke about the project.

Perhaps we could start by talking about Crystal Clear Creators. What is it? What are its objectives? And when was it started?

Crystal Clear Creators is a not-for-profit arts organization based in the East Midlands (a region of England --ed), which was established with a start-up grant from Arts Council England. We've since been funded by organizations such as the National Lottery, Ernest Cook Foundation, Riverside Housing Midlands, Charnwood Arts and so on.

We set up Crystal Clear Creators officially at the beginning of 2004 after the founder members had worked on producing various radio plays.

Our stated aims were (and still are) to develop, produce, and promote new writing, acting and producing talent, particularly for radio. To do this, we work with both established and new writers, voice-overs and engineers.

We record our members' poetry, prose and plays, upload them onto our Web site, and from there promote the work to other organizations and radio stations. We've had members' work broadcast on various radio stations, including Resonance FM, Takeover Radio, Virtually American, BBC Leicester's Web site, Heat FM and we are currently developing work for Rutland Radio, Carillon Radio and the national digital station, One Word.

As well as this, we run creative writing day schools, courses and live readings and events across the East Midlands.

How did the idea behind Speaking Words start? How many people, artists and/organizations were involved?

We've now got nearly 100 members.

The Speaking Words project started in December 2004 when we received a grant from the Awards for All scheme of the National Lottery. The project consisted of putting on four creative writing day schools during 2005 across the region. Two [of the creative writing day schools] at Loughborough University, one at Monks' Dyke Technology College in Louth, and one at BBC Leicester's Open Centre.

We worked with BBC Leicester, Loughborough University, Literature Development Officers across the region, Monks' Dyke Technology College, Loughborough Campus Radio, Takeover Radio and various other organizations to market, publicize and develop these day schools.

All of these events were fully or over-subscribed. Workshop leaders included well-known writers such as Tony Coult, Julie Boden, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, Mitzi Szereto, Mystie Hood, Maria Orthodoxou and others.

From these workshops, participants were invited to submit writing they'd worked on during and afterwards. In August, we collated all of the material we'd received from participants, members and so on, and passed it to the anthology editor, Deborah Tyler-Bennett. She came out with the collection as it now stands. This was then art-worked by Linda Young, printed and then launched in December at our launch event, held in the Martin Hall, Loughborough University.

The launch event was attended by nearly 65 people and included an extended reading by Julie Bowden, followed by a structured open mic session in which lots of writers performed their work.

You mention a number of radio stations. Are they all in the U.K. or are some in other countries?

The radio stations we've had material broadcast on are mainly based in the U.K., though Virtually American, is a U.S. radio drama broadcaster and organization.

What's the feedback been like on the material that's been broadcasted?

We've had excellent feedback on a lot of the stuff that's been broadcasted. We've been asked for more content by all of the stations we've worked with, which is a good sign. And listeners of Heat FM, Resonance FM and Takeover Radio have all fed back to us that they really enjoyed our plays and stories and poetry.

Virtually American has also asked for more material. They loved the radio play, "The Music Master" which is now on their site.

Are there any opportunities for U.S. or overseas-based writers and performers to take part in your projects? Have any done so? If they would like to, how do they go about it?

We don't have any U.S.-based members yet, though we do have members from the U.S., and we've had material from overseas, including France and the continent.

What would you say sets Speaking Words apart from other anthologies that have been and are being published?

What sets Speaking Words apart from other anthologies is its emphasis on writing for reading aloud. The idea of writers performing and reading their work in public has boomed in recent years and this anthology reflects this huge increase in public readings.

The anthology does not, though, just cater for public readings. It also includes more private material, which can be read, whispered or sung to family and friends. What binds the collection together is simply the performative aspect, the stress on sound as well as words on a page.

The anthology encompasses a whole range of writers: from new writers for whom this is their first publication, to much more established and well-known figures. It's great to be able to publish an anthology like this, in which professionals rub shoulders with talented newcomers. The emphasis is on quality, though, throughout the editor picked what she felt to be the best of the material, and the material that made a homogeneous collection.

Who would you say is the books' target audience? Who would the book appeal to?

The book is all about audiences, readers and listeners, that's in the nature of a collection of words to be read aloud. I suppose the primary audience is anyone who's interested in new writing of good quality, as well as people who are interested in looking for material they can read out loud to each other or in public. The anthology is, more than anything else, meant to make entertaining and enjoyable reading.


This article was first published on OhmyNews International.

Related Books:

,,

Related articles:

• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_2], Conversations with Writers, February 7, 2008
• Jonathan Taylor [Interview_3], Conversations with Writers, February 11, 2008