What is your earliest childhood memory?
It would be something faded by the Californian sun of the early-eighties, most probably.

What makes you happy?
Tea, my daughter’s laughter, good music on my headphones, finishing a new story, sunlight.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
When I was at art school, and decided I didn’t want to be an artist.

What are you reading at the moment?
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by the Bosnian-German writer Saša Stanišić.

What advice would you give to a first time writer?
There are no rules.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Lucky Charms cereal – pure sugar and chemicals.

How do you relax?
Watching kittens on YouTube.

What is your favourite book?
I don’t pick favourites.

Which author is underrated or deserves to be better-known?
Molly Keane.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?
One week in an office.

What is the most important thing life has taught you?
Ask me when I reach the end.

What’s next?
A new story collection for Faber.Similar Posts:

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Louise Phillips

What is your earliest childhood memory?
The toy attached to the side of my crib. It had a rotary dial, a puffy red ball which sent a tiny piece of metal shooting up a tube and other delights.

What makes you happy?
Golden retrievers, Steven Gerrard goals.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
When I found out about Roald Dahl’s hut.

What are you reading at the moment?
Robert Schumann: His Life by Ronald Taylor, and America Begins: Early American Writing by Richard M. Dorson.

What advice would you give to a first time writer?
Take good care of your hands and wrists! Stretch your hands, and invest in a mouse, and wrist guards.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Bravo’s Real Housewives series.

How do you relax?
See above!

What is your favourite book?
Nana, by Emile Zola.

What author is underrated or deserves to be better known?
I think Tama Janowitz’s early success might have made things a bit tougher for her in the long run.

What’s one of the worst jobs you’ve had?
Telemarketing; trying to convince people to attend timeshare sales pitches with a call list garnered from duplicitous contest forms.

What is the most important thing life has taught you?
Tomorrow is a new day, and be nice to telemarketers!

What’s next?
Hopefully a move to Spain.Similar Posts:

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Annamarie Neary

What is your earliest childhood memory?
Dolly Mixtures.

What makes you happy?
Venice in the winter.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
From the beginning – took me a while to get round to it, though.

What are you reading at the moment?
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

What advice would you give to a first time writer?
Just do it! And send stuff out. And when it comes back, make it better and send it out again.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Rufus Wainwright – if he qualifies. If not, Abba.

How do you relax?
Copious amounts of red wine.

What is your favourite book?
Collected Stories by William Trevor.

Which author is underrated or deserves to be better-known?
I can think of two – for different reasons. Elise Valmorbida for linguistic virtuosity and Tom Vowler for compelling storytelling.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?
A close run thing between picking the bad cherries off the conveyor belt in a German jam factory and writing deadly dull research that no one ever read for a certain London law firm.

What is the most important thing life has taught you?
Never give up.

What’s next? 
My immediate priority is the publication of my first novel, A Parachute in the Lime Tree, in March 2012. I’ve been going through the proofs today, in fact. I have another completed novel to polish and send out, and a whole load of stories in various stages of disarray to finish (or not, as the case may be). I also have plans for a third novel but it will take a lot of digging so I’m steeling myself for that one!

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Adam Thorpe

What is your earliest childhood memory?
I was about three and we were living in Calcutta. I have a vivid image of the white-bearded smiling face of our ‘Untouchable’ sweeper: he would often play with me. I also remember wandering on my own into the central room of our huge old colonial-style house. I heard the clock ticking and suddenly knew with a shadow of fear that nothing went on forever.

What makes you happy?
A lot of things: when the work’s going well; when I’m with friends or family and we’re laughing, especially if I make a joke in French that works; when my children are happy in their lives. When I’m lying on an empty, sunny beach in somewhere like Estonia with Jo (my wife) next to me and all I can hear is the sea.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
Learning to write at primary school, forming letters over and over on ruled lines, I experienced a deep, sensual thrill that I can still feel. I tried writing my first novel at the age of eleven and stopped wanting to be a vet.

What are you reading at the moment?
Ian Mortimer’s brilliant The Great Traitor, about Sir Roger Mortimer, lover of Queen Isabella and apparent murderer of the king – Edward II of red-hot poker fame. Take away the suits of armour, and England in the fourteenth century was much like present-day northern Mexico, carved up by psychopathic cartels: all massacres, mutilations and mayhem.

What advice would you give to a first time writer?
A literary writer? When you’re blocked, open the dictionary at random and whatever word you first touch with your finger, let it lead you. Be lead by language, in other words. Jump-start the imagination. Don’t be cerebral. Challenge yourself but stay simple and clear.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Reading in bed with a cup of tea – in the morning.

How do you relax?
Swimming. Walking in the hills. Watching old and new (good) TV series on DVDs.

What is your favourite French novel?
Madame Bovary, despite having translated it.

Which French author is underrated or deserves to be better-known?
Lettres de Mon Moulin (short story collection Letters from my Windmill) aside, Alphonse Daudet has never quite received the acclaim his writing deserves, perhaps because he was an anti-semite and a monarchist.

What’s the most challenging thing about translating literature?
Capturing nuance; sub-text; the music of the syllables… In fact, everything about it is a challenge.

And what’s the best thing?
When the three essential elements – accuracy, naturalness and musicality – click into place like a solid plane of colour in a Rubik’s cube.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?
Either three months as a machinist in a neon-bulb factory, or ten days as a refuse collector for Berkshire County Council, before the age of the wheelie. Excellent material for a writer, though.

What is the most important thing life has taught you?
Thinking the worst of people is too easy and leads nowhere nice or even interesting. Being generous in spirit, without too much naivety, is usually fruitful.

What’s next?
I may well be translating Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, trying to capture its dark charge by tuning the English to the right music.Similar Posts:

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Ascent was published in 2007 as a fiction novel by Jed – he then collaborated with Wesley on the text to create a graphic novel. Main character Yefgenii Yeremin is raised in an orphanage, but rises above the harsh conditions of his background to become one of the most prominent Soviet fighter pilots in history. But in the Korean war, the Soviet Union’s involvement must be kept secret, so Yeremin is exiled to an Arctic base. His name is erased and identity wiped. He lives as a ghost, a shadow of his former heroic victories. Until the day he is called back for one final mission…

'Ascent' - copyright Wesley Robins

Questions for Jed Mercurio

What is your earliest childhood memory?

When I was a toddler, I saw a gigantic industrial digger. I was so impressed that apparently I talked about it for years afterwards.

What makes you happy?

Getting the job done well.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I was a practising hospital doctor when my first scripts got produced (Cardiac Arrest). Later I was also going through a selection process for the Army Air Corps. Instead I decided to take a sabbatical to concentrate full time on writing – fifteen years later, I’m still on it.

How much of your writing is drawn from life and how much from your imagination?

I’m lucky to have had a lot of inspiring life experiences (medicine, the RAF), but for me storytelling is still primarily an act of imagination.

What are you reading at the moment?

Point Omega by Don DeLillo

What advice would you give to a first time writer?

To write a lot and read a lot.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Golf – it makes me feel like such a middle-class suburban cliché.

How do you relax?

I love sport, to watch, but especially to play – football, tennis and golf.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?

I’ve been lucky to do brilliant jobs – hospital doctor, RAF officer and writing. The only bad one I’ve ever had was a summer job in a factory while at Medical School. It was hard, repetitive and tiring, apart from the day when the welder was off sick and they asked me to step in.

What is the most important thing life has taught you?

Take-offs are optional, landings are mandatory.

First page of 'Ascent'

Questions for Wesley and Jed:

What is your favourite comic book or graphic novel?

JED: I was a huge Marvel fan as a kid. I loved the Incredible Hulk. My favourite graphic novel is Watchmen.

WES: Maybe When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs. Or Maus by Art Spiegelman, or Shaun Tan’s Tales From Outer Suburbia, plus anything by Seth. Don’t think I can pick a favourite!

Which comic book author/artist is underrated or deserves to be better-known?

JED: Wesley Robins.

WES: Really like Jon McNaught’s work at the moment – very atmospheric and has a lovely limited palette.

What made you decide to work together on Ascent?

JED: I was looking for a fresh artistic talent for the book and viewed art school graduate shows. Wesley’s work really stood out. I emailed him and over a Starbuck’s persuaded him to draw an audition page for the book.

WES: Jed was looking to turn his original book into a graphic novel and had been going around different end of year shows at different uni’s. I was one of a few people asked if I’d like to submit some spreads of the book – examples of how I would interpret it. After a short selection process, I was the last one left!

Wesley, what’s your working background?

WES: This is my first graphic novel, and was also my first big commission. Previously at uni, I had done a lot of children’s work and some print (particularly etching) and reportage, so I liked and continue to like to cross over a bit, and draw on different areas and working methods.

How do you collaborate on turning Jed’s novel into graphic fiction?

JED: Wes did the hard part. I’d already done the original novel – two years of writing and research. I abridged it into script form, chapter by chapter. Wes emailed me rough panels, I’d give notes, he’d flesh them out, I’d give more notes, and then we’d move on to the next chapter. Although we talked on the phone a few times, we didn’t meet again until the book was finished.

WES: Basically Jed would provide me with a script – an already edited down version of the book. I would then go over it, rough out the corresponding pages to get an idea of the pacing and compositions etc. I’d send them over to Jed to see what he thought – they’d be a bit of a discussion back and forth before okaying them, and then I’d move on to the finals.

What’s the best thing about working in collaboration?

JED: TV is highly collaborative while novel writing feels an isolated process. For me, this project struck a happy medium.

WES: Being able to talk over ideas with someone, getting continuous feedback. It’s always nicer to share your work as you go along with someone, rather than being completely closed off.

And the worst?

JED: Wesley was so enthusiastic and turned in such brilliant art that there wasn’t a bad moment at all. I enjoyed every minute.

WES: I don’t think there is. It’s easy if you’re working on your own to get a bit cut off from the rest of the world in your own little vision. It might be OK if you’re working on your own story, and if you have a particular direction you’re determined to take and don’t want to compromise, but in this case that didn’t apply.

What’s the next project?

JED: We’ve talked to the publisher about another graphic novel but nothing’s confirmed yet. I’d love to work with Wes again but I’m worried we won’t be able to afford him now!

WES: I have recently finished a line of kids’ travel booklets, and have just started on a set of paper toys for children.

And finally … pitch us a new superhero in 50 words (and a sketch if possible)!

JED: I think I’ll delegate that one to Wes!

WES: Might have to get back to you on that! Though it would probably be some rubbish power, something mundane like ‘cat litter guy’, or ‘loose change boy’.Similar Posts:

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Do you feel fortunate that you’re able to incorporate your comics into performances? Since, apart from perhaps Q+A events, cartooning is a very solitary pursuit, with few opportunities to present directly to an audience.

Absolutely, considering the fact that with music the touring element is an accepted part of the whole, so you are able to take your art out to people all over the world instead of staying at home waiting for the world to come to you.  Comic books are more in the stay-at-home-and-wait category, so it’s very lucky for me that I have a good way to take my comics out to the world via the music touring.  And the illustrated songs that I do in performances are another good way to combine the elements of both.

Do you think drawing allows a mental break from writing, which is consistently intensive?

Yes, there’s a different part of the brain that I use when the drawing gets past the idea/sketch part and can switch to autopilot.  That’s my favourite part, whether it’s inking, or colouring, or an elaborate perspective drawing, or any other task that allows the verbal brain to take a rest and listen to music, that’s where I get a lot of music-listening done.  Just putting on album after album while engaged in those tasks, that’s a great way to spend time.  But the earlier planning stages of the comic stuff requires much more focus in a way that doesn’t allow me to talk to people or listen to music, just different parts of the brain.  I once read that Daniel Clowes (author of Ghost World and David Boring) concentrates so much even on the inking of his comics that not only does he not listen to music, he actually has to wear headphones to block out all sounds, and that’s even at the parts of the process that I’d consider the “autopilot” parts.

Do you think it’s a shame that comic publishing seems to be moving more in the way of graphic novels, with less and less serialised comics being published these days?

I do prefer the regular comic book format. The days when I could go to a comic store once or twice a month and find a new issue of Peepshow, Underwater, Eightball, or Optic Nerve: you wouldn’t quite know what you were going to find that week but chances are you’d find at least one new comic that had come out that you could be excited about buying for a couple bucks and reading on the train on the way home, or while sitting on a stoop on the street. Nowadays there’s no point to going to a comic store more than twice a year, because all the same artists are only releasing their work when they’ve got 8 years worth of pages to compile into a giant tome. There’s no surprise about finding it, because now it’s treated like a new novel or new movie or new album, with advance press releases and book reviews and signing tours, so you know in advance exactly when the new big thing is going to be released.  Plus it’s a bigger investment, both of time and money. Also, if the only really good comic books are coming out in only big book form then it even renders comic book stores obsolete, these big books are designed to be sold in bookstores so the comic industry is sort of backstabbing the comic stores that built up their fans in the first place.  That’s my take on it all, anyway.

Are their plans to make a ninth edition of Fuff (Jeffrey’s self-published comic book)?

Definitely, I just haven’t had time to start it because the album artwork for A Turn In The Dream-Songs ended up much more elaborate than I’d anticipated.  But I’m almost ready to print Fuff # 0 which is a 72-page collection of earlier comics from 1998-2001, all of the little comics that I used to use as advertisements for my concerts when I was first playing shows in NYC.  I had released this collection in photocopied form around 2002 but it’s been out of print for a long time and this new printing will be better quality, with more material.  It’s taking a long time to clean up and format all the pages but I’m almost ready to send it to the printer.  There’s a lot of other old comic stuff of mine that I might reprint too, maybe I’ll do a Fuff -1 and a Fuff -2, though really I should be getting to work on Fuff +9.

Can we expect to see any new music videos at the UK dates later this year?

I’ve got at least one new one that nobody’s seen yet, and a couple from last year that I barely performed live at all because I didn’t have them memorized, so I’d like to incorporate those into the upcoming shows at least a few times. I’ll bring some of my old music videos along, too. During our recent China and South Korea tours I performed my illustrated History of Communism in China, and my other illustrated history song The History of Communism in Korea. It was a great opportunity to see if I had gotten the stories right at all.

If I’m not mistaken, you spent some time studying in London. What was your impression of the city while you during your time there?

It was very exciting to be away from America for the first time. I was in Ealing for a few months in 1996, so it wasn’t exactly the heart of London or the heart of anything, but even living in the suburbs was a thrill to a kid like me who grew up in the city.  The guy that I shared my room with was a strange force in my life, we were at odds about many things but we both agreed that it was very important to not spend our little bit of money and little bit of time on anything pointless – instead we used our bit of cash to take weekend bus trips to Scotland, or hitchhike around Ireland, stuff like that.  We became so frugal that we actually decided to be homeless for a few weeks when the weather was warm enough.  We would stash our school stuff at the lockers in the school building and do our homework in the university library and then sneak into the park to sleep at night.  So we were doing all this travelling together and having this homeless experience, basically depending on each other for survival, even though we had some serious personality conflicts.

I remember stumbling on a small comic book shop that was selling original comic book pages, including original art pages from V For Vendetta and Watchmen.  They were only about £200 – 300 per page at the time, which of course was way out of my budget, all I could do was stare at them, but I’m sure that now those pages must be worth a small fortune.  I don’t think I’ve ever found that shop again in all the times I’ve been back to London, but I’m sure those pages are long, long gone in any case.

And of course Alan Moore’s comics informed a lot of my impression of London, because this was during the time when the From Hell series was coming out, concerning London history and architecture and city planning, so that was on my mind a lot during my time in London.

What can we expect from A Turn in the Dream-Songs?

I generally lean towards a more scattered batch of material, I think consistency has been sort of my enemy on most of my albums and concerts, but this new record is a lot more consistent than the albums I’ve done before, for better or worse.  It’s mostly the same musicians on every track, and all recorded in the same room, plus it’s the first time I’ve put out an official album that has zero input from my brother Jack (my usual bass player and occasional song collaborator).  So, this is sort of my first solo album in a way.

During your set at Brixton Windmill last May, there was a song including the lyrics: ‘time is going to take so much away, but there’s a way that time can offer you a trade: you better do something that you can get better at, ‘cos that’s the only thing time will leave you with’. Do the lyrics surmise your motivation for creating?

That’s on the new album.  The older you get, the faster time seems to go, everybody knows that.  So how come people don’t wait until later in life to do things that take a long time?  It would be so much faster to do a 3-year project when you’re 40 years old than it would be to do a 3-year project when you’re 20 years old.

A Turn in the Dream-Songs is released by Rough Trade on 10^th October. On the release day, Jeffrey will give a presentation of his artwork at London’s Rough Trade East. Info. can be found here.

Full information on Jeffrey’s UK tour can be found here.

Rob Fred ParkerSimilar Posts:

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Adrian Tomine

Adrian Tomine is an American cartoonist whose distinctive, meticulous and elliptical style, complete with strikingly realistic characters and minutely observed dialogue, has earned him the label of “one of the greatest graphic novelists of our time”. Tomine’s comics delve into the lives of characters struggling with ingrained flaws and loneliness, striving to communicate or even connect with those around them: the eagerness of Summer Blonde’s protagonist to bond with an attractive shop assistant soon leads to stalking; a young lady in The Connecting Thread is driven increasingly paranoid by personal ads she is convinced are addressed to her. These stories are at odds melancholic and disturbing, yet always deeply human, crafted with a deep sensitivity and honesty, the absence of conclusive resolutions meaning they refuse to leave the reader’s memory.

Tomine self-published his Optic Nerve comics whilst still at high school, the series later chronicled in Sleepwalk and Other Stories (1997) and Summer Blonde (2002), as well as Shortcomings (2007), the author’s longest piece yet, which details the failed relationships of neurotic Asian American Ben Tanaka. Scenes from an Impending Marriage, a collection inspired by the author’s wedding preparations, was released earlier this year, and his illustrations also appear on the covers and pages of The New Yorker. With issue 12 of Optic Nerve set to appear next month, I spoke to the man himself about his influences, evolving style and creative process.

'Missed Connection', The New Yorker, November 8 2004

In many ways, comics are like films on paper. Which filmmakers would you say have influenced your visual sense?

I don’t know that any filmmakers have really influenced my visual sense, at least not as the result of a conscious effort on my part. Applying cinematic techniques to cartooning is kind of setting yourself up for failure, because at best you can only approximate or translate many of the qualities that make movies so exciting. But certainly there are many filmmakers that I’ve admired and studied in terms of content and writing.  A few that spring to mind: Mike Leigh, Woody Allen, and Yasujiro Ozu.

The narration and dialogue in your work displays a flair for language and an ear for dialogue. Do you ever written prose?

Yes, I’m interested in other forms of writing like prose fiction and screenwriting, but I’m most focused on cartooning right now.

Which comic releases have you enjoyed reading so far this year?

The Death-Ray by Daniel Clowes. I also just got a big stack of comics from a London publisher called Nobrow Press, and I thought it was really beautiful stuff. I’m not sure which volumes came out this year, but I love some of the comic strip reprint projects that are going on now, like Walt & Skeezix, Little Orphan Annie, and Peanuts.

Your work has been compared to Raymond Carver a number of times, presumably because you both portray characters at a loss of what to do with their lives, and present issues which are often not resolved by the end of the story. Is Carver a particular influence, and are there any other authors you would list as inspirations?

I love Carver, of course, but I’m not exceptionally well-read, so I actually discovered his work when his name started popping up in reviews of my comics. I felt obligated to acquaint myself with his writing so I wouldn’t look like a total troglodyte if it came up in conversation. I read that biography of him recently, and it was fascinating, but it also made me like him a little less, both as a writer and a person. But I’m an unapologetic fan of that whole school of realistic, modern short fiction. I love guys like Richard Yates, John Cheever, Andre Dubus. I’ll go through phases where I get burned out on that stuff and then get really interested in something totally different, but those are the kinds of guys I always go back to.

What can readers expect from issue 12 of Optic Nerve?

I just turned it into my publisher this week, so I’m not really able to look at it objectively. All I can say at this point is that it’s a return to short stories and it’s in colour. I’m a great self-promoter, aren’t I? Actually, I feel like my life has changed so much in the past few years, and for better or for worse, that’s going to be reflected in my work.

Judging by the short preview, issue 12 of Optic Nerve seems to display the less realistic, perhaps more cartoon-like drawing found in Scenes of an Impending Marriage, rather than the style evident in your earlier work. Have you made a conscious decision to move in this direction?

The art style in my comic is certainly evolving. I kind of touched on this earlier when you asked about cinema, but lately I’ve been really trying to think about the unique qualities of cartooning (as opposed to the influence of other media such as cinema, illustration, etc.), and that’s naturally affected the way I draw. That said, part of the appeal of returning to the short story format was that I didn’t have to get locked into any one particular way of working. I think it keeps the inevitable insanity that affects all older cartoonists at bay somewhat if you’re not forced to draw the same thing the same way over and over.

This will be your first comic in full-colour. Why did you decide to work in colour for this issue?

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but I was working on my book Shortcomings for awhile, and was forced to stick with the black and white format. During that time, I started doing these little one page colour strips for The New Yorker, and that got me even more eager to work in that way.

Was it daunting, at first, drawing for The New Yorker, considering the rich line of seminal illustrators they have featured, such as Saul Steinberg?

Oh, I was very intimidated, and it shows. If you find the first drawing I ever did for them, you can tell I was trying so hard that I ended up choking. I’m always grateful that they continued to give me work after that.

A man and a woman in separate Subway trains share a glance. A woman receiving a delivery at her front door makes eye contact with her neighbour as he enters his shop front. A young girl cranes her neck to watch New York disappear as she is driven out of the city.  Why is it that a lot of your illustrations for The New Yorker depict moments of fleeting contact?

That’s a good question! I don’t have a good answer other than maybe it’s a personal obsession or that it’s just a big part of living in a big city.

With illustration increasingly becoming a digital process, generally, how much of your work is on paper, and how much digital?

All the drawing is done by hand on paper, and the colouring is done on a computer. But even the colouring is fairly man-made…if I want a wispy cloud in the sky, I always draw it with a brush and then turn it into the appropriate colour rather than just using some of the tools in Photoshop.

You’ve said before that as far as social media goes, it’s not for you. The dialogue in your books strongly suggests you are very aware of the intricacies and minutiae of conversation. Your illustration, ‘Facebook’, depicts loads of speaking faces emanating from a woman’s computer. Is this why you dislike social media – voices fighting for attention, drowning each other out, language being stripped of subtleties?

It’s just not something I have time for anymore. Social media has already served it’s purpose for me: years ago, a friend of mine put me in touch, via Friendster, with a girl he knew in New York and now we’re married.

Do you look back on your self-publishing days with fondness?

Yes. Not because I particularly enjoyed the grunt work of stapling comics and whatnot, but because it was the last time in my life when drawing comics was a pure hobby, unencumbered by the need to make a living.

Is it correct that you used to use photos to capture facial expressions in your earlier work?

No. I’ve never used photo reference for anything other than background details like cars and architecture.

What are working on at the moment?

An illustration for The New York Times Book Review and the next issue of Optic Nerve.

Little Children, The New Yorker, 16 Oct 08

Optic Nerve: 12 is released in the US in September. A preview is available here . Many thanks to Adrian (see adrian-tomine.com) and the good people at Drawn and Quarterly.

Rob Fred Parker

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Kele Okereke

What is your earliest childhood memory?
My earliest childhood memory is of being pushed in a push chair by my mother. It was a rainy day and she had the plastic sheet up so as to keep me dry. I remember that I felt safe watching the world through the raindrops hitting the cover. I think I would have been about five years old. I’m not sure.

What makes you happy?
Lots of things, friends, sex, food, my family but these days I’m really noticing now the effect that the sun has on my mood. I realise now that I am not designed to live in cold places.

When did you decide you wanted to be a musician?
When I was about 10 I saw Kriss Kross on Top of the Pops and it blew me away. That was the first time I thought ‘I want to be a musician’.

How does your music integrate with your writing?
The creative process is similar, you make something quickly then you live with it, constantly chipping away at it until you think it is done, but in terms of the integration of music and my writing I tend to view them separately, two different disciplines: I only add lyrics to songs once the music has been arranged.

What are you reading at the moment?
This World Or Maybe Another by Barb Johnson.

What advice would you give to a first time writer?
Something I learnt from Zadie Smith, “Read your own work as a stranger would; or even better, an enemy.”

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Well right now it’s Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked Cookie Dough and Chocolate Brownie ice cream. I have eaten a 500ml tub every day this week. It’s OK though, I don’t feel bad about it at all, because I like the taste.

How do you relax?
I walk, I meditate, I listen to music, I dance.

What is your favourite book?
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche.

Which author is underrated or deserves to be better-known?
In my world James Baldwin would be a household name.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?
One summer I worked for a catering agency as a washer up, they sent me to kitchens all up and down Essex and although it wasn’t particularly fun work I didn’t really mind that aspect of it. The biggest problem was that I was I never in one place for more than three days so I didn’t really get a chance to speak to anyone and I think the people you work with is what makes work enjoyable.

What is the most important thing life has taught you?
You will never be disappointed if you do the best that you can do.

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Kusay Hussein

Kusay answers:

What is your earliest childhood memory?

As a child I lived in an old house that had been built by the British at a time when Iraq had a king. Old people were nostalgic for those times, saying they were the best, but the political slogans of the ruling Ba’ath party of my childhood said otherwise. It is this habitual duality that I remember most clearly.

What makes you happy?

To see other people happy.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

I didn’t decide. It is my destiny. I found a pencil in my hand and wrote my first poem when I was seven, as soon as I’d learnt how to read and write.

How much of your writing is drawn from life and how much from your imagination?

The soul of the story is always entirely true, but the names are changed and some details are modified to make them more accessible or to make them work as a stories.

What are you reading at the moment?

I am reading various books about the current chaos in the Middle East. I’m also reading about its recent history. This is part of my research for a novel about events that have been prophesied, some of which have already come true.

What advice would you give to a first time writer?

Believe in yourself.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

As a student I used to read novels when I was supposed to be studying engineering. I don’t need guilty pleasures now.

How do you relax?

Cycling in Pollok Park, near my house.

What is your favourite book?

Anything at all by Naguib Mahfouz

Which author is underrated or deserves to be better-known?

There are many good Iraqi writers who were not able to write or have their work published because of the situation under Saddam Hussein. However this is still the case in many ways, but now because of the limited religious views of some of those in power.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?

Mandatory army service. It made me feel less than human.

What is the most important thing life has taught you?

To keep going in hard times. Not to disappoint the people around me by collapsing.

Sue and Kusay answer:

How did you meet?

Sue: Through the Scottish Book Trust and Scottish PEN. Kusay wanted to write in English and was looking for help. We used to meet in the glasshouse in our local park.

Kusay: For me it was like a dream to be able to go back to writing.

Sue, what’s your writing background?

Sue: My novel, Mavis’s Shoe, was published by Waverley Books this year and is about the bombing of Clydebank during WW2 as seen from the eyes of a young girl. Like Kusay’s work, it is fiction based on fact and has been meticulously researched. I have other novels I’m working on. I also write poetry, short fiction and drama, including a dramatization of the opening chapters of Mavis’s Shoe.

What made you decide to work together?

Kusay: It was great to be listened to and heard. I also feel I have a duty to record what happened in Iraq and what has happened there since I left.

Sue: For me, this work feels vital, fascinating and enriching. It is interesting to be close to another writer’s writing process and to forge collaborations of different kinds, especially across two cultures.

How do you collaborate on Kusay’s stories?

Both: They are written in English by Kusay then Sue sorts the language problems, a process she calls ‘transmogrification’ because it also sometimes involves making the words run more smoothly.

What’s the hardest thing about writing “in translation”?

Kusay: Sometimes I struggle to find the right word or phrase in English.

Sue: Equally, I sometimes finds it hard to keep Kusay’s imagery and style and at the same time convey his meaning and make the stories accessible to an English-speaking audience.

What’s the best thing?

Kusay: Knowing that people are reading my work.

Sue: It’s enriching on many levels, linguistically, culturally and personally.

What happens next (or what do you want to happen next)?

Both: We are working on several other projects. In particular we are co-writing a novel about an Iraqi in the UK and the family of a British soldier who dies in Iraq. Our other projects include more short stories, a non-fiction book about popular Iraqi sayings and some poetry. Kusay also has several novellas planned and another full-length novel. We would love all of these to be published.

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Naomi Wood

What’s happened since the extract of The Godless Boys was published in Litro last December?

Well, after proofs, second proofs and a cover design, the book has finally come out! It was published on the first of April of this year (best April Fool’s Day ever) and I had a lovely interview piece published in the Metro, and reviews in Stylist, on Radio 5 Live, and have upcoming ones in the Guardian, the Independent and Vogue.

What does it feel like to have a novel published?

Just splendid. It feels even better than when it was first acquired, because I knew, back then, there would still be a significant edit to do. I keep on having to pinch myself that there really are no more drafts to be written. Other than that, I spend my days in dreadful excitement: glued to the Amazon rankings; glued to Google Alerts to tell me someone, somewhere, has published something about the book. I’ve promised myself a month of this (rather repulsive, I know) self-obsession, and then I will switch off. Hopefully.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

At the end of a relationship, when I didn’t know what to do with my career / life.

What are you reading at the moment?

Drown, by Junot Diaz –  an excellent collection of short stories.

What advice would you give to a first time writer?

Make up quotes from newspapers or an author you love for a boost in morale; insert your name here – “X’s writing is a tour-de-force” or “X is the most important stylist of the twentieth century”.

What is your earliest childhood memory?

Being in my garden in York. The pond at the bottom of the garden was frozen over and my sister and I decided to make an ice-rink on the grass next to it. We picked out the ice with our bare hands, naturally.

What makes you happy?

Finishing work that I had previously thought was a lost cause.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

American breakfasts.

How do you relax?

Doing the charity shops in Golder’s Green on a Sunday afternoon, and then a walk up to the pergola in Golder’s Park. Lovely.

What is your favourite book?

Perhaps Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, or The Sea by John Banville, or Nabokov’s Lolita.

Which author is underrated or deserves to be better-known?

Flannery O’Connor – I think people have heard of her but not many people have read her. Southern Gothic at its Catholic best.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?

Graduating from university and then handing out flyers back at my old halls of residence. Someone said “Wow, is this what I have to look forward to?”

What is the most important thing life has taught you?

Don’t overwork.

What does the future hold?

I’m writing my second novel about the relationship Ernest Hemingway had with his four wives. There’s so much research, so it’s taking a while, but it’s very refreshing to be working on something so different. In September I’m hopefully going to be teaching undergraduate Creative Writing at UEA as an Associate Tutor. If they’ll have me.

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