Looking Back on 2009

This year has been so packed that when I got the Christmas decorations out on December 23rd (after putting the whole house back together, the front room floor having been pulled up the day before, and its characteristic sag, with which we have lived for many years, finally straightened out!) I really could not believe it was a whole year since I was last doing it: it seemed like only a month or so ago. First there was my virtual book tour, Around the Edges of the World, which took up ten weeks from January to March, and I have to say didn't leave me much in the way of writing time, or perhaps more accurately focus, but was a wonderful way to promote my story collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World. I'm so grateful to those great bloggers who hosted it: they were wise and inspired and often fun interviewers. Meanwhile I buzzed about a lot physically, too, shooting off to London to various launches and readings - including the launch of fellow Salt author Alex Keegan's story collection Ballistics - enjoying myself enormously (and spending a fortune on train fares), and doing a couple of readings of my own, at Huddersfield Literature Festival and Ride the Word.

My most exciting Christmas present last year was Salt's offer to publish my novel, Too Many Magpies, in the autumn, and so after Easter I was psychologically gearing up for production on that. Meanwhile, at the request of editor Vanessa Gebbie, I wrote a chapter for Short Circuit, the Salt guide to the art of the short story. But then of course there was a crisis, when it looked as if Salt would not be able to continue, followed by Chris's inspired 'Just One Book' campaign, which brought such an amazing response and resulted in several Salt books, including Balancing, bobbing about in the Amazon short-story bestseller lists - another thing I can't thank people enough for. As soon as it was clear that the day had been saved, work on the production of Magpies started in earnest, with relays of proof readings. This was a relatively quiet period, though, through May-July: I did a couple more readings, and was already involved in arrangements for the first of my autumn readings (for Didsbury Arts Festival), but mostly I was able to get to my desk and I managed to write some new short stories - though how good they are (and how well I managed to get inside my own head, rather than just to my desk, after so many distractions) remains to be seen.

As soon as September arrived, it seems, looking back, I hit the ground running and have only just come to a standstill (grounded, in fact, by a horrendous fortnight-long cold!). The time has been taken up entirely with promotion, with a series of seven readings, including the London launch of Magpies, an event for which I had sole responsibility for publicity, conducted from 200 miles off, but fabulously worth it (though The Calder Bookshop's Alex put it up on their website - thank you, Alex!). No writing done at all since the summer, and a bit of stress now and then, but I have had a really great time, and in this era when it's harder and harder to publish literary fiction, I just feel so lucky to have been in that situation, to have had a book to promote, and the time to promote it, and so grateful to Salt's Chris and Jen. And thank you so much to all of those who came to the readings, and to those who have bought the book and put it on Salt's top 20 list!

As for 2010 and on: well, the most exciting thing is that Salt offered, out of the blue, to reprint the revised edition of my first novel The Birth Machine. February is filling up rather, with library readings and school visits etc and, on the 1st, a reading at the Globe Cafe in Prague which I'm really looking forward to (the flights only go between Manc and Prague at the weekends at the mo, so I'm going to make a holiday of it!). And I'm already booked for the Oxfam Book Festival in July... But January is nice and free, and I should get down to some writing once this damn cold is over. And in any case, as I said on Saturday, I'm hoping to carve some more writing time, will nilly...

The dribble interview! Final leg of my book tour

Well, my book tour finally comes to an end today on the blog of Tania Hershman, whose own amazing collection stories, The White Road is also published by Salt, a book of stories inspired by scientific ideas and taking off into the most inventive realms of the imagination. Tania conducted her own riveting book tour at the end of last year - hers was a pilot tour for the Cyclone book tour scheme which Salt recently introduced. She knew therefore how much hard work book tours can be - I have spent most weekends for the last ten weeks thinking so hard about my own writing and writing in general that I think my brain's about to implode - and how distracting from writing. Tania therefore decided to give me a break with a 'dribble' interview, that is, an interview in which each of the answers must be no longer than 50 words! It was a great relief, and great fun - and yet the interview is incisive, I think: no surprise, as Tania is a whizz flash fiction writer. Some of the flash stories in her collection are the best and the most resonant I have ever read; John says that too, and as a poet he has very high standards for flash fiction.

Today's interview is here, and don't forget that all of the Cyclone tours remain on the Salt website, and you can click back and read all the interviews where I bare my writing soul!

New leg of my book tour: prose v drama and adaptation.

The penultimate leg of my virtual book tour, Around the Edges of the World, is now up on the amazing blog of novelist Debi Alper - after endless technical glitches, apparently, so I'm even more grateful than I already was due to the fact that in order to host me she is stopping out from her amazing account of the Grenada revolution and invasion. (I wrote about this last yesterday, and about Debi's very striking and unusual crime thrillers).

Debi asks me about the differences between writing prose fiction and drama, and about the special problems of adapting one's own work from the first of these forms to the second.

Debi Alper

Tomorrow the penultimate leg of my virtual book tour, Around the Edges of the World, goes to the stand-out blog of Debi Alper. For those of you who don't already know, Debi is currently blogging about her experience of being in Grenada in the early eighties, after the revolution and then during the coup and the US invasion. It's an eye-opening read, a brave project which explodes myths which have grown up about the period, and was prompted largely when Debi was contacted by a documentary filmmaker who is delving into the truth of the revolution and invasion. Debi is one of those bloggers who have become real-life friends, and I am not at all surprised to read her brave part in this history, since I know her as hugely warm-hearted and staunchly committed to whatever she decides matters. I am extremely honoured that she will break from her account to host my little ol' tour.

Debi is also of course the author of striking crime thrillers distinguished by a very original angle: the amateur sleuths of Nirvana Bites and Trading Tatiana belong to the alternative sub-cultures more often seen as 'other' in crime thrillers. The vivid occupants of the Nirvana Housing Co-op include a drugs counsellor as well as an ex-drug addict, a New Ager and a refugee from the S & M scene, and as they tackle head-on the fascist elements of our society, Debi exposes from inside the harsh realities of subjects such as sex trafficking and child abuse - all with the trademark verbal fireworks which also characterize her blog.

Will I catch up?

Spring already, and the period I set aside for my series of short stories is rapidly running away. Not much time for it lately, or for blogging. I did finish a story the week before last, but I haven't had time to give it a final look over, so it's still languishing on my desk. I spent last week writing a chapter which I was thrilled that Vanessa Gebbie invited for an exciting book she is editing for Salt on writing short stories, based on one of the answers I gave when she hosted my virtual book tour. At the same time of course there was the usual distracting task of keeping up with the latest leg of the tour (and the pretty head-stretching questions Charles Lambert asked me about my writing). The weekend was taken up in answering the questions for this week's upcoming leg (Wednesday) on Debi Alper's blog (more probing questions which I've had to think about really hard - mainly about the difference between writing prose and drama, and about adaptation) and reading scripts for the 24:7 Theatre Festival. I've read quite a lot of scripts for the festival this year, and I've come across some I'm sure are absolute winners, but of course I'll have to wait to see if other readers feel the same...

I feel as though it's all work and no play, but I did get out for a walk along the river on Sunday afternoon and into Fletcher Moss Gardens to photograph the crocuses (above). And I did go out twice in the week, once to hear Jackie Kay and Joe Pemberton read at Manchester University, and the second time to MMU to hear David Edgar talk most interestingly about translating Brecht. A really interesting thing about that last event was that it was attended not only by theatre folks but also by people I normally only see at poetry readings - usually, I find, these are separate constituencies. And afterwards a group of us went out for an extremely enjoyable meal and catch-up on all fronts - so really, what am I complaining about?

There's more excitement this week - and travel, that real thrill for the desk-bound writer! I'm off to Liverpool on Friday to take part in the workshop of a play by Ian Moore - something I love doing, and which is such a great break from the desk work. And on Sunday I'm off to Huddersfield to take part in a reading at the literature festival with fellow Salt authors short-story writer Carys Davies and poet Mike Barlow. (Details here.) Then next week it's the final stop of the virtual book tour (18th March) on Tania Hershman's blog, which is bound to be interesting, since she is the editor of The Short Review.

And then maybe I'll get a chance to put the writing cap back on...

Politics and audiences - new leg of my virtual book tour

Today my virtual tour of Balancing on the Edge of the World goes to Italy and the blog of novelist and short-story writer Charles Lambert. This is something of a reciprocal thing, as last year I hosted Charles on his own Cyclone tour of his wonderful collection of stories, A Scent of Cinnamon. I am a great admirer of Charles's work, and I wrote about his sophisticated (in literary terms) yet utterly moving and accessible novel, Little Monsters, here.

The intelligence behind his writing and which he brought to his own book tour would, I knew, guarantee that the questions he asked me this week would be thoughtful and searching, and indeed they get right to the heart of some of my main concerns as a writer. He asks me about my political consciousness (with a small p) as a writer, the differences between writing for a radio and a short story audience, and the reasons for the variety of the stories in my collection (and in the process I spill a few more beans about my past).

Writing jumpers, literary lenses and a Prize Draw: my virtual book tour

A prize draw today on my virtual tour book tour! A copy of Balancing on the Edge of the World for each of three lucky readers who leave their names in the comments section of the interview on dovegreyreader scribbles, this week's stop-off. Dovegrey gets me talking about my writing jumper (below), would you believe, as well as other accoutrements of my writing life.


And we discuss the issue of literary lenses: am I holding a microscope to the minute details of life in my short stories, or am doing something rather different which requires a different kind of lens?

Exposed good and proper: my virtual book tour

Today on my virtual book tour Vanessa Gebbie performs the amazing feat of getting me to abandon my long-held principle of not talking about which bits of a story are from my own life. As readers of my blogs will know, I believe that in general such discussions about fiction are reductive and even damaging, since fiction is greater than the sum of its parts - and anyway, 'fact' and imagination are so blended in fiction that it is often difficult for the author to remember which bits are which. Worst of all, such discussions tend to encourage biographical readings of a work of fiction as a whole. However, Vanessa's questions concern the process of writing, and I have ended up dissecting the process from real-life trigger to fiction in two of the stories.

Is there anything you'd like to ask me?

Or, to put it another way: next Wednesday my virtual book tour goes to the blog of short story writer Vanessa Gebbie, and she's given me carte blanche as to what we should discuss about Balancing. And it occurred to me, since I've got this chance, and so as not to go and overlook anything, maybe I should ask my blog readers if there is anything you'd like her to ask me...

Reading for 24:7

This is what I was doing on Sunday afternoon: reading scripts in the Midland Hotel for the 24:7 Theatre Festival. My reading partner was Cherylee Houston, and in the foreground on the left is actress Sue Twist, who directed me in my monologue Drinks With Natalie for 24:7 2005. Cherylee and I gave full marks to two plays we read!

For the second year running I haven't put a play in myself: I decided that with my virtual book tour for the stories, the forthcoming novel Too Many Magpies to promote, and the new collection of stories to work on, it just wasn't possible to give up 4 months of the summer to producing a play - which is more or less what it takes if, like me, you don't have a ready-formed company and have to look for a director and cast from scratch.

Festival co-founder Amanda Hennessy took the photo.

Review: Leading the Dance by Sarah Salway

Tomorrow my virtual book tour goes to the blog of Sarah Salway. Sarah is a wonderful writer: her work is inventive; it's also witty yet deeply serious; it's informed by an odd-ball, quirky imagination and yet utterly grounded in the psychological reality of contemporary lives. Her collection of stories, Leading the Dance (bluechrome), gives us narrators often tipped towards what seems like madness - the bulimic woman who has a portrait painter paint the inside of her fridge, the wife who traps another woman in her cellar, the cleaner who strips naked to clean in the presence of her blind employer - but the light yet scrupulously precise prose allows us to identify closely, and thus demonstrates that such 'madness' is but the kernel of our contemporary psyche. And light as these stories seem - sometimes laugh-out-loud - there is a vein of menace, too, running through them, as the people in them steal and lie and hide their hurt secret selves, as lovers in hotels and husbands and wives negotiate their alienation from each other. Perhaps my favourite in the collection is 'The Fabulous Button Sisters' for its sly and clever yet affectionate satire. It's narrated by a teenage girl who has made friends with a new girl, Michelle, who has had to come to live with her aunt. Here's an extract:

Michelle said it was important we kept up to date with diets. Two weeks ago, she decided that we were only going to eat one colour of food a every meal. She'd got the idea from one of her aunt's magazines. Apparently everybody was doing it. Mum and Dad stopped talking when I came into the kitchen watching as I carefully cut the brown crust off the bread and spread the white inside with butter and cream cheese.
"How about a nice bit of ham with that?" Mum asked.
I shook my head. When I'd first tried to explain about the mono-colour diet, Mum had looked at me with the kind of expression which meant she was storing it up to giggle about with Dad later.
"Or some pickle." Dad was already moving towards the store cupboard but I could see his shoulders moving up and down...
...Michelle thought my parents had a problem with repressed anger. This was why they laughed so much and spent so much time together in such an unhealthy way.

Sarah's two novels are both very inventive. I've started with her second, Tell Me Everything, which bears all the same hallmarks as the short stories and concerns a narrator who reinvents herself by telling stories. I'm finding it hard to put down. Sarah's first novel, Something Beginning With, the story of put-upon secretary Verity Bell, takes the form of a dictionary full of cross references, and is excitingly innovative. It's sitting on my bedside table waiting for me to finish Tell Me Everything - but I have to admit I couldn't resist reading the beginning, and it's so engaging I had to force myself to stop!

And taking all of the above into consideration, I think it's no surprise that in our interview tomorrow, Sarah gets me to confess which of the stories in Balancing in stolen!

My virtual book tour: snails, kids, acting and porridge

Today my Cyclone virtual book tour for Balancing on the Edge of the World comes nearer home, just up the motorway to Keeper of the Snails, the amazing blog of novelist Clare Dudman (whose great books I wrote about yesterday). (Currently she's blogging about the silk worms she's keeping!)

Clare asks me in depth about my use of a child's perspective in my fiction and in fiction in general, about how much I use people and settings from life and how acting relates to writing. Other things, too, including getting me to reveal my recipe for porridge!

This book tour is turning out to be fascinating. As Barbara Smith comments on today's leg, it's really interesting to be presented with the different responses and angles on the book from the different hosts, and I must say it's also a wonderful opportunity to be able to talk about the book and what I'm trying to do in it in such depth.

For instance, it's a great surprise to me that Clare finds similarities in my stories to those of Chekhov: the last writer I'd have thought I was like was Chekhov, simply because I think of Chekhov as a tradition, and I see many of my own stories as innovative. Stupid, of course, because Chekhov was enough of an innovator in his own time, and Clare is right, I do, like Chekhov, often use the minutiae of life as a telescopic window onto our wider place in the universe. Interesting how we need others sometimes to remind us of our influences...

An even bigger surprise to me today was that Clare took all of the stories in Balancing as being set in the north, whereas in fact some of the settings I had in mind were Welsh! Part of the reason for this is that I tend not to specify geography as I'm looking for universality (there's just one story in the book in which I do): I want readers to sink into the situations in my stories (and not be alientated, as I think readers can be, by the names of places they don't know or don't know well). But Clare also says she feels the voice and tone of the stories are northern, which I must say makes me feel quite weird. I know my fictive (and real-life) voice is pretty ironic, but I always thought I got that from my dad, and not from having lived in the north for admittedly many years now...

And Clare sees an edge of anger in the stories. You see, you just can't fox some people...

You can read the interview here:

Around the Edges of the World virtual book tour: pushing the boundaries and pleasing the punters

Back to England this week on my virtual book tour, to land on Me and My Big Mouth, the blog of Scott Pack, publisher and former chief fiction buyer for Waterstones, for a grilling about saleability! Well, actually, it's mostly me who goes on about saleability and the pressures of the market, after Scott surprises and pleases me by saying he likes the unorthodox stories in the book best, and about the effect such pressures have had on my writing.

Scott Pack reviews Balancing

I'm pretty chuffed by a review by Scott Pack of Balancing on the Edge of the World. He says:

Most of the stories in this impressive collection are firmly rooted in reality. Domestic situations. Families. Marriage. The relationships between friends and neighbours. I often think that these are risky subject areas as they are ones that every reader will be familiar with and therefore more likely to pick up on elements that ring false.
They'd struggle to do that here as Baines perfectly captures the tone and cadence of everyday life. She finds and plucks out important and remarkable moments from the otherwise ordinary. It is quite a skill.

He goes on to say that he likes the more experimental stories best, and could have done with more, which is interesting to me, as when I was putting the collection together I left out some of my experimental stories, as my impression was that realist stories are more popular (and would sell better!).
On Wednesday Scott will be generously hosting the next leg of my virtual tour with the book, Around the Edges of the World. I don't yet know what he's going to ask me...!

My virtual book tour: milk-fed snails and some deep questions about my writing process

Isn't the internet an amazing place? Today, due to my virtual book tour for Balancing on the Edge of the World, I'm in two places and two time zones at once: I'm in present-day Ireland on the blog of poet Barbara Smith, and at the same time in Ancient Rome, due to the fact that she has laid on a virtual Roman feast...

Course, there I am reclining with my wine cup and she comes in with the killer questions about my writing process...

Gotta be on my toes - and work up an appetite!

Tomorrow my virtual book tour 'Around the Edges of the World' kicks off in Ireland, on Barbara's Bleeuugh!, the blog of poet Barbara Smith. Barbara's blog is a great homey place, where you can settle down all unawares and next thing you know you're engaged in the deepest, most probing thoughts! And you know what, she is going to be softening me up with a Roman banquet...!

Barbara's own poetry is like this: it has such an easy clear surface, with a vividness of often domestic detail, and yet touches on the widest and most profound issues, reaching simultaneously back into the past and forward into the future. Here's the ending to the (not so domestic) 'Trench Monument' from her collection, Kairos, from Doghouse Books:

But now, in spring, white maggots blindly creep

From thawing flesh remnants,writhing, vying
for their own stale warmth, feeding the biomass,

reducing the remains to a future fossil.
Particles of dust, carbon atoms:

emissions in a shell-shocked future.

I'm thinking roast pig stuffed with live birds...

Goodness me - I have been invited to a Roman feast, albeit a virtual and literary one!

On course

Salt's Chris Hamilton-Emery has designed the logo for Around the Edges of the World, my Cyclone tour of Balancing on the Edge of the World. Isn't it great? (Although, in reality the colours are reversed: for some reason they change when I load it up!). You can now read all about my tour on the Salt Cyclone site.