The Light and Darkness Inside Us

No-nonsense Scottish author Laura Hird talks about her writing and her forthcoming visit to Malta to read a paper and short story at the Re-Visions Symposium on Literature in an Enlarged Europe on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 November at St. James Cavalier. Text by Adrian Grima. Interview by Clare Azzopardi.

When her first short story collection Nail and Other Stories appeared in 1997, Laura Hird was described as one of the hottest literary talents on the Scottish scene and she has lived up to expectations. The novel Born Free (1999), a series of monologues in which the author, who loves writing in the first person, explores how the same event, or conversation was conceived by different people, was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread First Novel Award. Her short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies internationally and her new collection of short stories is due to be published by Canongate Books in 2006.

She runs and edits her own loosely arts-related website at www.laurahird.com on which she seeks out and publishes new poetry, short stories, reviews, interviews etc. One of her pages focuses on Maltese contemporary literature.

“I first became aware of the diverse and vibrant literary scene in Malta through my friend, Maria Grech Ganado and her translations of the work of many of the writers who I’ve subsequently been lucky enough to feature on the site. As I edit the website, I only feature writing that really stands out for me. The fiction and poetry of Maria herself, Clare Azzopardi, Adrian Grima, Immanuel Mifsud, Stanley Borg and Norbert Bujega has done this and made me keen to read more work by Maltese writers in translation.”

No Greater Pleasure

Laura Hird was born in 1966 in Edinburgh where she still lives. She studied Contemporary Writing at Middlesex Polytechnic. In 1997 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary to allow her to write full-time.

“I’ve been writing for most of my life. I had my first poem published in the local paper when I was 5. This was mainly due to having two extremely creative and encouraging parents. When I was still at nursery school, my mother would lavish me with the tales of Robert Louis Stevenson and the poetry of Burns. As a budding actress, she could really bring everything she read to me alive and help my imagination soar. At school I would patch together photos from magazines and newspapers, draw my own cartoons and write my own articles for my own imaginary magazine. My friends and I would also write books together about boys we had crushes on at the time. Then in my teens, when a lot of my friends were moving away from Edinburgh to study or live, I became an avid letter writer.

As far as fiction and poetry are concerned, I first started to send work off to the small presses at the end of the 1980’s when I was studying in London and living with a poet. Initially I’d type up and submit his work for him, then thought I’d give it a go myself. As far as being published properly and being able to (attempt to) make a living as a writer though, my proper breakthrough was probably in about 1995 when I sent a story off to Kevin Williamson, the then editor of Rebel Inc magazine (later the Canongate Books imprint) after being inspired by an event he’d organised. He was extremely enthusiastic about the story, subsequently published my work in the magazine, then through the imprint when he became editor in 1996 (in Children of Albion Rovers). I have been lucky enough to continue to be published by Canongate Books since then.”

Clare asks Laura whether she finds writing painful or exhausting. “When I manage to apply myself, and really get involved in what I’m writing, there’s probably nothing that gives me greater pleasure. The problem is applying myself in the first place. I think, since being published, I sometimes get too self-conscious about what I’m writing, worrying about what people will think of it, if it will be good enough. It sort of kills the creative urge, since, initially, the whole pleasure in writing was just to feel free to write whatever I wished with no sense that I’d ever have to show it to anyone else. An emotional outlet so to speak.

Also, through the writing, I’ve become very involved with running workshops, the website and working with other writers which I really love, but this tends to be a massive distraction for someone who is easily distracted in the first place. When I first started writing properly in 1996 it was through a compulsion to express my perception of what my own and other people’s lives were really like. The things that people prefer not to talk, write about or admit to.”

Laura then talks about her writing process and why she chooses to set her work in Edinburgh. “The plot and setting usually become apparent as I develop the characters and become more familiar with their pasts and the situations they are in. I enjoy setting my work in Edinburgh, where I live, and thinking of ideas as I walk through the city. Like Scotland itself, and everywhere I guess, it’s a place full of extremes, contradictions, beauty, ugliness, character, history etc. It’s streets, closes, tenements, shops, pubs, open spaces are ingrained in my mind and are a constant source of inspiration. People often ask why I write stories set in Edinburgh. I wonder why they don’t ask writers from London, Paris, Los Angeles, Moscow, Prague... the same question. Edinburgh is part of my character, I live it and breathe it, love it and hate it and ultimately feel so close to it it is often like my dearest friend. As people from all over the world travel here all the year round, I don’t feel I’m alone in this fascination.

With plot I will generally have some idea at the start where I think the story should go but often the characters lead me off somewhere else. Sometimes you need to reign them in. Sometimes they take you somewhere far more interesting than you were planning to go. I don’t like to begin a story of book with the ending and plot too firmly set in stone. Straying from the path is part of the fun.”

What about style? “It’s not something I think about. I just write the way I write. A way that keeps me engaged and reasonably entertained myself. I love editing my work and will redraft endlessly, so it’s good to write something I can bear to read over and over. Guess that is my only criteria for style.”

Clare asks Laura whether she writes for anyone in particular. Is it important for you to have a reader… even if it is an imaginary one? “Ultimately I write for myself (or did, as having work commissioned, as flattering and welcomed as it is, can’t help but create a kind of creative block that you are now ultimately writing for other people who you don’t know and who have their own agendas – and the subsequent fear that the next thing you write will bring about your ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ moment). Or, with my early stories, I wrote to amuse my friends, spinning yarns in which people (based on people we knew who upset or annoyed us) got their just deserts.”

A Dark and Disturbing World

People tend to think that a short story is simply a “short novel,” that the dynamics involved in writing novels and short stories are the same. Laura Hird has written both. What is the difference between the two?

“For me, a short story captures a moment in time. Like a photograph, although the image is set, it is for the viewer or reader to interpret what they see. Like meeting someone you find engaging or fascinating (for good or bad reasons) briefly, then never seeing them again, although often wondering what happened to them, or what the rest of their story was. Your lasting opinion of them is based on your interpretation of what happened in the time you spent with them.

In a novel, you get to spend time with the person, find out about their past, their aspirations, meet their family, friends, enemies, see them react in many different situations, travel part of the journey with them, sometimes find out what happens to their children and grandchildren. You also have the influence of how other people react to each other over the course of the novel, how people change. A short story you’re usually just there for that one, often traumatic, moment. When I look back it is the characters I remember in novels, and the things that have happened to them in short stories.

I love both forms but perhaps have a greater fondness for the short story as you can fit reading more by different writers into a lifetime. And get beautifully personal insights into how all sorts of people live (not just those lucky enough to finish, or get novels published.)”

The publisher’s blurb for Nail and other stories says: “Laura Hird turns over seemingly innocuous-looking stones to reveal a dark and disturbing world below the surface.” Is this just another publisher's blurb? If so, why the fascination with the dark and disturbing? Is the light and innocent uninteresting or too bland?

“Not sure if it’s the ‘Jeckyll and Hyde’ of my Scottish psyche, or I’m just too cynical, but I’ve always been fascinated with the black and the white and the grey. I think it is part of the human condition that, just as in the darkest of times, something unexpected can bring hope, humour and light, humanity and nature are also brutal, self-serving and perverse.”

Clare points out that the setting and language in Laura Hird’s work is at times violent. This seems to be the condition we live in. She asks whether Laura feels that she has to write like this. “I just like to try and express life as I see it. Even in times of happiness and joy, there is always some undercurrent of worry, danger, unpredictability, fear, guilt plugging away in the background, whatever your situation. We live in a time where we are highly conscious and ultimately feel indirectly complicit in warfare, terrorism, murder, the horrific repercussions of global warming, exploitation, famine throughout the world. Violence has been around since the beginning of time and will never go away. But it does evolve and I think I have a morbid and paranoid fascination with the ways in which it does.”

Despite the violence of the acts and emotions in her characters, and they are various, the driving force of their creator is compassion. Why? “Because I believe that many of the violent acts and emotions in life are due in many respects to lack of compassion, feeling of helplessness on the parts of others, anger at how human beings treat each other. There is a light and a darkness within everybody. In order to create three-dimensional, balanced characters I always feel this duality has to be addressed.”

Does Laura think that her writing reflects the society she lives in? “I think it reflects my perception of it. That’s all I want it to do. Just to say, I am here, now, and this is how I see it. Everyone has a different perception of the society they live in. I’m just lucky enough to be able to write mine down and perhaps have a few other people read it.”

What’s next for Laura Hird? “My publisher, Canongate Books have agreed to publish a book of my mother’s letters to me when I was a student in London in the late 1980’s that I’ve been working on, which I’m delighted about. My mother was a brilliant letter-writer who didn’t have the chance or confidence to be properly published in her lifetime so this is a really exciting and personal project. I’m also writing a new novel for Canongate and my next short story collection will be published by them in August 2006.”

Laura Hird has been invited to Malta to take part in a Literature Across Frontiers international symposium on Re-Visions - Literary Exchange in an Enlarged Europe organized by Inizjamed with the support of the Ministry of Education, Employment and Youth, the British Council and St. James Cavalier. Literature Across Frontiers is a three-year international literature project part-funded by the EU’s Culture 2000 programme. 40 writers, translators, festival organizers, journalists, and publishers from all over Europe, including Malta, will take part in this unique event.

The full programme, abstracts and biographical notes of the speakers are available at www.inizjamed.org. The symposium and readings are open to the general public. Entrance to all events is free.

Published by The Sunday Times (Malta), 30.10.05

• Born Free is a series of monologues; Vic’s, Angie’s, Jake’s and Joni’s. Why did you choose this particular style for your first novel? Do you feel everyone simply lives on their own, detached from the rest of the world?

I think firstly, I wanted to push myself to really think about the real effect Angie  (the alcoholic mother’s) drinking had on the rest of the family.  How it added to the problems they already had.  And to take the sides of all 4 members of the family and try to feel and express the pain they were going through.  I also really enjoyed when chapters overlapped and I was able to show how the same event, or conversation was conceived by different people. And I wanted to express that although the book was about a family unit of 4 people, they were, as you suggest, detached by, and in other ways grudgingly reliant on each other.  Also, as I’d never written a novel before, I thought it would be a good way to keep my own attention going, being able to speak in different voices as see things from different points of view.  Plus, I love writing in the first person.

• Have you ever thought of writing scripts for theatre?

I would love to.  Used to love going to the theatre and reading plays and screenplays when I was younger.  I have a bit of an aversion to actually going to the theatre these days though, mainly due to the audiences, who, particularly in a place like Edinburgh, appear as if they go to be seen rather than to see.  I prefer to go to the Saturday matinees with all the elderly ladies.  I also have a problem, with theatre, in that I am too conscious that the people on the stage are actors acting.  Getting paid to pretend to be something they are not.  I guess most work is like that though.

• Have any writers influenced your style or approach?

With regards style and approach, I think any influence is sub-conscious, but in terms of inspiring me to write, or giving me confidence to think that my take on things would be worth writing down, the writers that write about ordinary people and give them their own unique voice.  Raymond Carver, Zola, James M. Cain, Alasdair Gray’s ‘1982 Janine’ was an enormous influence.  Patricia Highsmith, whose work I adore, wrote a wonderful book called ‘Writing and Plotting Suspense Fiction’ which when I first started experimenting with writing short stories, was an invaluable insight from a master of her craft.  I’m also very influenced by film-makers – Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Neil LaBute and a lot of the great television drama produced by Channel 4 and the BBC in the UK.