Six Questions in Search of An Author (Now with bonus online questions!)

Janice Galloway is the category winner for non-fiction for her memoir This Is Not About Me. She has previously written several books, including The Trick Is To Keep Breathing and Clara, a fictional book about Clara Schumann.

1. How did you come to the decision to write a memoir of your childhood?

I'm not that sure I did! I was writing something and realised part-way into the thinking and running over the drafts of that thinking that the people emerging from under my fingers at the keyboard were becoming too familiar for comfort. For once, I braced myself, came to terms with it and let them loose. I did have to talk myself into "outing" the events in the book as real, which was a bit of a mind-stretch. I have been used to the personal evasions of fiction: the switch is not a shift to the confessional but nearer an edge – the edge I'm keen to get to in fiction as well. It's not a novel, though (the textures of the rooms and relationships have to be recreated imaginatively and the selection of material and focus is like a novel; it's not a conventional memoir either, since it's in the persona of one "character" who does not use adult reflection, nor not much. The publisher wouldn’t let me call it both, though I think it is.

2. Did you plan out the work before you started writing, or did the material shape the structure?

No. Planning is something I have to avoid for a while at least – if I don't surprise myself while I'm writing I won't have a hope of surprising anyone else either. Letting the thing flow is the hard bit, the wild bit. Then, the refining, the clearer picking out of the shapes, the rewriting – that's more planned, deliberately surgical than anything else. It's always been important, even instinctive, to slip away from classifying or selecting a "form". My experience of poetry informs my writing as much as anything else.

3. I doubt your work is ever easy, but in a relative sense, how difficult was it dealing with this material as compared to your other work, whether fictional or, like Clara, based on fact?

Writing This is Not About Me was more like Clara in terms of structure than anything else - the "plot", as it were, was notionally already there. And I still had to recreate people I could see and hear clearly in my head vividly enough to allow other people to see them and hear them too. Then again, that's what writing the fiction is like as well, only the chance to avoid admitting one's own experience of a given subject – for example, poverty or emotional unheaval – is not on the cards. It was harder, in some ways, to come out and admit that personal involvement than to mask it behind concepts or ideas or "characters". Now of course writing fiction has its impossibilities too, but the difficulties of this kind of writing had not struck me forcibly before. I missed the fillip, the support, any fiction writer has that the ideas make the words transcend self, that one is a vehicle, almost. I had to try and do that another way. How I imagine a ventriloquist having to come on stage, admit it's them doing the talking, then sing. A powerfully vulnerable feeling.

4. A very basic question: were there any specific reasons for choosing the title This Is Not about Me?

The title was the only shield I had left! There are LOTS of reasons I had to call it that. 1) It's really not about me, it's about Cora and Beth and everyone else who makes the child. This is true of us all – we are the product of place and possibilities and who raises us more than anything. As a child, one is open and absorbent to others all the time. Your life is about taking them in, about them as exemplars and carers. The raising of children obsesses me, especially the attitudes beneath the surface in this country. This was a clear and desired political reason for writing the book. 2) You always hope your writing – fiction, poetry. play or whatever – is not you, but an open invitation for others to find themselves in what you write. I'd be disappointed if any book I wrote was "about me" in essence. How dull would that be? 3) I absented myself more than most kids from being a presence in the home and watched the other, more vibrant, people who surrounded me a great deal. 4) A kind of in-joke to keep me ticking over. I've been asked for years "Is that about you?" about everything I've written. Even Clara. So the one with me sort-of in it got the question out of the way at the kick-off.

5. Followed by, perhaps, a cheeky question: do you have favourite parts of the book, or favourite stories that you drew on?

In terms of "favourite stories", quite the opposite. I missed a good many "family stories" out as too chatty and incidental.

6. And (last of the general questions) can you tell me what your working procedure is? (Just to be clear, what I mean here is do you sit at a desk for 9 hours a day, or do you scribble ideas down in spare moments, etc).

Scribbler. I find writing a comfortless business, like drawing my own teeth. Sitting for hours in the redrafting.

7. Has writing about your past affected your memories of it, either simply by forming it into a narrative, or in a more direct way by bringing you in touch with others who have their own memories of these events?

Yes – in some ways, very much. It is enormously rewarding when people write to reveal a little of how the book reminded them of childhood things they had forgotten or saw in mine. I even met someone who had danced with my sister at the Bobby Jones, who told me things I'd never have known otherwise.

8. From the sample of reviews I've read in papers or online, a lot of people seem to find Cora extremely memorable. Did you expect this, or any other, reaction?

It would be naive to "expect" any particular reaction, though you do sometimes find some reactions is baffling! I had not seen Cora as being central, more my mother. Then of course, folk find wild girls – and aggression, generally – more interesting than tameness and doubters. I think they like Cora's daring, that indomitability, and I guess I'm delighted by that. Because I was fascinated by my sister too, in awe of her energy despite being scared of her. I saw what there was to marvel at, and I did want that to come across. Mum was the really strong one. Just not flashy. One of the great battles of writing is trying to render quieter, less certain people. The most rewarding reactions are those that see beneath the "plot", who find roundedness. I guess that's what we all hope we are doing – not making simple judgements. Reactions ought to be complex!

This Is Not About Me is out now. Published by Granta Books. Cover price £8.99 paperback.

James Kelman is the category winner for fiction for his novel Kieron Smith, boy. He has been shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker International Prize. He previously won the Booker prize for his novel How Late It Was, How Late.

1. How did you come to the decision to write a book centred around a young boy?

I don’t make such decisions. It is not part of how I operate as a writer. I work on many things then gradually this narrows until I am concentrating on a few, then a couple, then finally on one. Incidentally, Kieron isn’t always a young boy. He begins the narration approaching five years of age, and ends it approaching thirteen.

2. Did you plan out the work before you started writing, or did the material shape the structure?

I never plan any such thing. It would be death.

3. I doubt your work is ever easy, but in a relative sense, how difficult was it dealing with this material as compared to your other work?

It required that I had written the earlier work.

4. A very basic question: Were there any specific reasons for choosing the title Kieron Smith, Boy?

No specific reasons but it isn’t ‘Kieron Smith, Boy’, it is ‘Kieron Smith, boy’; and that lower case ‘b’ is crucial.

5. Do you have favourite parts of the book, or favourite stories that you drew on?

Often the sections that were the more difficult to write become favourites but it is a sort of pseudo-favouritism; I’m just glad to finish the buggers without falling off the tightrope.

6. And can you tell me what your working procedure is? (Just to be clear, what I mean here is do you sit at a desk for 9 hours a day, or do you scribble ideas down in spare moments, etc).

I work whenever I can, from early morning onwards. I can’t say I scribble ideas. There again, I can’t say I don’t. Very rarely I do scribble something – usually if I’m travelling someplace – not an idea, more like a phrase or a word, but I don’t really look at these scribbles again, except by accident, if I’m sorting out old betting-slips.

7. I found parts of this book oddly familiar – especially so because I'm almost called Kieron and have a brother called Matt. When readers (from Glasgow or otherwise) talk to you about this book, do they mention recognising a lot of it from their own lives?

They do, usually in ways that don’t so much startle as raise within me a hankering for the ruminative murmur of Alasdair Gray. And the clumsiness of that sentence illustrates the problem.

'Kieron Smith, boy' is out now. Published by Penguin. Cover price £8.99 paperback

Andrea McNicoll is the category winner for first book for her novel Moonshine in the Morning.

1. How did you come to the decision to write a novel, and a first novel at that, in Thailand?

I have loved books and stories for as long as I can remember. Being a writer seemed to me the best thing anyone could be but I had no confidence to really start writing until I found a subject that moved me so much I couldn’t help but write about it. I lived in Thailand for 12 years and left in 2001 with only the first chapter – which began life as a short story. I wrote the rest of the novel between 2004 and 2005 whilst living in Edinburgh.

2. Did you plan out the work before you started writing, or did the material shape the structure?

At first my intention was to write a collection of short stories but as I wrote the material grew into something different. I had ideas for different characters, narratives and themes which I ended up weaving together to celebrate a whole community and its way of life.

3. I doubt your work is ever easy, but in a relative sense, how difficult did you find it to tell this story?

Because I lived in a small Thai community for 9 years I had plenty of time to observe, question and reflect on what grew into the material for my novel. Once I started writing I was never stuck for ideas – it did seem to flow quite easily. The second book is proving much more tricky – I hope I won’t have to wait 9 years for it to gestate!

4. A very basic question: were there any specific reasons for choosing the title Moonshine In The Morning?

The original title was ‘Fat of the Land’ but my publisher didn’t like it! I came up with a list of alternative titles and Moonshine in the Morning is the one that was chosen. It refers to the moonshine whisky some of the village men drink – sometimes until dawn.

5. Followed by, perhaps, a cheeky question: do you have favourite parts of the book, or favourite characters?

There are some comic moments that I really enjoyed writing. I feel affection for all the characters. Mother Pensri, Sergeant Yud and Gop Guu might just stand out. Coming back to write about a character that’s already established is tremendous fun- like meeting an old friend.

6. And can you tell me what your working procedure is? (Just to be clear, what I mean here is do you sit at a desk for 9 hours a day, or do you scribble ideas down in spare moments, etc).

I find that the more free time I have, the less I write. The less I write, the worse I feel about myself which means I need to go out to work for both psychological and financial reasons! I write in maybe bursts of two hours, usually early in the morning before work – I try to catch myself in that early morning trance before anything else intrudes. That’s how I harness the raw text. After that I can spend happy hours honing it and shaping it into something more polished: I can do that at any time of the day.

7. Have you had any reaction from Thai people who have read the book?

No, not yet. My Thai friends don’t read English that well and the book has yet to be translated into Thai. I’ve had reactions from western people who live or have lived in Thailand and they have been very positive.

8. Will the book be (or is it already being) translated into Thai?

I hope so. I’d love to know what Thai people would make of it.

Moonshine in The Morning is out now. Published by Alma Books. Cover price £7.99 paperback.

Tom Pow is the category winner for poetry, for his collection Dear Alice: Narratives of Madness. He teaches creative writing at Crichton Campus, in Dumfries.

1. How did you come to the decision to write a series of poems based around Crichton when it was an asylum?

I began to work for the University of Glasgow in Dumfries, which is based at the nineteenth century Crichton Institution for Lunatics. It's a striking site, very beautiful and with lots of rich associations. There's a wonderful archive of material about the asylum – patients' art work, doctors' notes – and under the guidance of Morag Williams, who was the archivist then, I began to explore various narratives.

2. Did you plan out the work before you started writing, or did the material shape the structure?

I just plunged in at the points that most excited me and after a while I realised it might be possible to write a whole collection on the theme of narratives of madness. By this point I was bringing characters within the scope of the Crichton who had tenuous or no connections to it directly – Nebuchadnezzar, Charcot, The Wolf Man and Freud for example. I also began to discern a time-line running through the collection and this allowed me to arrange the poems in a roughly 'historical' way.

3. I doubt your work is ever easy, but in a relative sense, how difficult was it dealing with this material as compared to your other work?

I suppose this is the first collection that's had no autobiographical element, although the fact that I was at the Crichton every day at work means there's some autobiographical elements carried into the collection. But I've always been interested in narrative in poetry and always interested in exploring historical incident, so this was no different. I made a decision early on that I didn't want to deal in the contemporary situation at all, where I would have felt compromised. All the same, there are of course resonances nowadays with the states of mind I explore.

4. A very basic question: were there any specific reasons for choosing the title Dear Alice: Narratives of Madness?

To begin with, there is the title poem in the book, Dear Alice, which I like and which I wrote after my fellow poet Diana Hendry gave me the spark to write it. And I suppose that is the most autobiographical poem in the book. My son used to be obsessed with Peter Pan, so I did a lot of Captain Hook duty, some of it at the grand rockery at the Crichton site. The 'narratives of madness' is to establish that it is stories I'm interested in, which is why the book ends with the Don Quixote poem. Stories are to do with the imagination and I wanted to expand my imagination in the writing and to take the reader on a journey.

5. Followed by, perhaps, a cheeky question: do you have favourite parts of the book, or favourite stories that you drew on?

I hope the book makes a unity and that each poem earns its keep. There are of course many possible stories that I didn't use in the book, such as that Arthur Conon Doyle's father was one of the inmates for a time. And one story I particularly enjoyed was that during the First World War one of the inmates escaped and went to England; there, it transpired he had 'done his bit' working as an attendant in an English asylum. But there's lots of good material that gets sloughed off somewhere along the way in any creative process. Off the top of my head, I like The Wise Farmer, because it's a good story and because I know well the landscape in which it's set and also I like some of the Resistances sequence, which gives fragmented voice to female inmates.

6. And (last of the general questions) can you tell me what your working procedure is? (Just to be clear, what I mean here is do you sit at a desk for 9 hours a day, or do you scribble ideas down in spare moments, etc).

This project involved a fair amount of reading and research, so I would do that and let it settle, before working on it. What suits me best is getting a length of time – a few days, a week, three weeks, a month – without any other distractions and thinking and working intensively. Then back at the home desk, I can endlessly tinker and revise.

7. Was it your idea to add the notes at the end of the book?

The material was always going to require some notes – far more than anything else I've written. I hope the poems stand up without the notes, but that the notes are of interest to the reader and may clarify some aspects of the poems.

8. Were there any poets whose work you felt influenced your writing here? (I ask this one out of pure personal interest, because I was reminded of William Soutar whilst reading Glass, and then came to another poem with the title Tryst, which (of course) Soutar also used, and which struck me as an odd coincidence).

The only direct influence I can think of is the American poet, Kenneth Patchen. He wrote a series of wild non-sequitors called Because. I used his model to free myself in the writing of two poems, Deirdre and Nurses. I think also there's the influence of the Border Ballads in a few of the poems, The Wise Farmer and Rashin-Coatie. So you're not too far off the mark!

And Tom Pow emailed afterwards with more...

One thought for favourite poems: one of my favourite poems is The Last Vision of Angus McKay. He was Queen Victoria's piper and was convinced she was in love with him. He escaped from Crichton and was drowned in the River Nith. It's the 150th anniversary of his death this year and Morag, the archivist, just told me that, to mark the occasion, a lone piper played a lament on the banks of the Nith at the point where Angus might have gone into the river. Nice wee story!

Dear Alice: Narratives of Madness is out now. Published by Salt publishing. Cover price £12.99 hardback.