Each month we feature one writer, both as a headlining act for the show and on our online writer’s page. This online feature aims to provide a quirky and informative snapshot of the writer’s biography and work via a series of links, photos, an exclusive interview and an extract from the story to be read. In interview, writers reflect upon their own internal processes in the production of fiction and on the short story form itself. Individual writers will benefit from this archival perspective on their work and may use it to link to their own websites and to promote any upcoming events / publications.
20.10.09 October /Tales From The Crypt
NICHOLAS HOGG
Nicholas Hogg won the inaugural New Writing Ventures prize for fiction. His novel, Show Me the Sky – “An assured and gripping début,” BBC Radio 3 – is published by Canongate. His most recent writing features in Notes From the Underground, Riptide and Litro, as well as winner of the 2009 ‘Editor’s Choice’ award in the Raymond Carver Short Story contest. More of his work can be read and listened to at:
Scroll down for an exclusive interview with Nicholas where he shares his thoughts about short fiction, …
Polly: When and why do you write short fiction, and what do you like about it?
Nicholas: One reason I write short fiction is that I read a lot of it, most recently Tobias Wolff, Tim Winton and James Salter – Arthur Miller and National Short Story winner Claire Wigfall are next on the list. I think talented writers excel in this form by reacting to its demands of brevity. Each sentence must move the reader toward the denouement, often creating that poetry of short fiction which can achieve more in a few pages than an entire novel. I have never read a perfect novel, though Cormac McCarthy’s The Road comes close, but have read a few perfect short stories – Raymond Carver’s Viewfinder or Wolff’s Bullet in the brain come to mind as immaculate examples of the short form.
Polly: Your short stories are very theatrical, almost performance pieces. They feature lots of quick-fire dialogue. Both of the stories you’ve read at Short Fuse so far have involved you both narrating and getting into character alongside another actor. Do you write short fiction with performance in mind? And do you think that performing the stories brings them more vividly alive for an audience than a straight reading would?
Nicholas: I certainly don’t write short stories thinking ‘How will this sound before an audience,’ but am aware that some work performs better than others. A page of intricate description won’t engage the listener as much as two characters in conversation, or a dynamic scene of action. When a writer stands up to orate their work I do think it’s important to consider it a different experience to reading from a page by oneself. And to enjoy doing it. For the Halloween night I have a talented actress playing the part of a drunken teenager, bringing her own interpretation to a voice in print. And I hope I do have a talent for theatrical writing (!) as I have just completed a screenplay, Danny Love, the tale of two parents turned bank robbers to fund their son’s medical treatment.
Polly: There’s a kind of grittiness in your stories – lots of sex + drugs + booze + Punk – but also comedy. There’s a strong sense of place in both the Punk story, Gimme Danger and in Ever After, the Halloween one you’ll be reading this month. The regional dialect is strong and there’s an obvious affection for the characters you write about which suggests that, if it’s true that writers should write what they know, then you are very much a Leicester writer. Do you see yourself that way?
Nicholas: Does this mean I write what I know!? Perhaps it does (or at least ‘did’) but I wouldn’t want to simply be a Bukowski champion of booze, sex and being skint. Through travelling and having various jobs I’ve ended up living a few different lives, and this reflects in the oeuvre of my collection with tales of imprisonment in Japan, border jumping in Mexico and men on the run in India – I’ve recently finished stories set in Sarajevo and Jerusalem.
And yet, despite these exotic locations, I love returning to my roots in writing fiction. I find writing in a Leicester dialect – though Ever After is set just North of London – a natural voice, and hope that I capture where I came from and, in turn, a way of speaking that is more distinctive than we often think.
