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This interview with Liz Williams was conducted by Kevin
Patrick Mahoney for authortrek in Spring 2001.
KPM: According
to your website, you only started writing fiction four years ago. What
was the catalyst for this sudden burst of creativity?
Liz Williams: Towards the end of my PhD, I became increasingly
aware that I wanted to write fiction, and to return to the creative writing
that I'd done in my teenage years. However, the need to earn a living also
became a bit pressing, and I accepted a full time job in education. There's
nothing like frustration for impelling a person to write! - and I also came
across a quote that had a particular impact upon me, from Nicolette Devas
(Dylan Thomas's sister in law). As long as you're finding excuses not to write,
she says, you never will. So I started writing the novel that would become
Ghost Sister (which had been in my head ever since my early teens). After
several years, I left the job and went out to live in Kazakhstan with my
partner, who was running an English language school. I basically became a post
Soviet housewife, and since I had so much time on my hands, it gave me the
space not only to write, but also to think about what I wanted to do with the
rest of my life - which was to write SF and fantasy.
KPM: In your bio, you mention that your mother's a Gothic
novelist. This intrigued me, because I couldn't think who she might be.
What influence has she had on your writing?
Liz Williams: Her name is Veronica Williams, and she wrote
about 12 Gothic romances for Hale's in the 1970s. She now writes SF, but she
doesn't, alas, get published - though she does have a short story in our
collection 'Fabulous Brighton'! She's currently writing a story about a
stripper who gets abducted by aliens, which is the kind of thing I hope I'll be
doing when I reach my 70s...She's influenced me in several ways - first of all,
by giving me the impression throughout my childhood that it was a normal thing
for women to sit down and write for several hours a day, and also by getting
interested in SF when I was approaching my teens.
Our writing styles are surprisingly similar, and when we were doing Fab B'ton,
she and I wrote separate stories based on the same idea (a "What the
butler saw" machine). So I changed mine!
KPM: Once piece of advice I've heard being given to
fledgling writers is that they should travel. To what extent have your
own travels sparked story ideas?
Liz Williams: A great deal. It opens you to new experiences,
obviously, but it also puts you in limbo for a while - you become removed from
your everyday context, and this frees you up to think new ideas and new thoughts.
For a time, you can become someone other than yourself. Places are important to
me; I am very affected by geography.
KPM: On your old webpage, you quoted from Yeats' The Song
of the Happy Shepherd. What does this poem and Arcadia mean for you?
Liz Williams: I love Yeats, who is one of my favourite poets -
I'm a terrible 'Celtic twilight' Romantic, though I try vainly to hide this
trait beneath a stern layer of cynicism. The quote was actually chosen by
Charles, also a Yeats fan, who did most of the website. Less romantically, we
needed a site name and Arcady sounded good.
KPM: Your academic career as a philosopher seems
most evident in 'The Unthinkables', a story published in Interzone. Why
did you study philosophy, and what do you think is the most exciting thing
happening in philosophy today?
Liz Williams: 'The Unthinkables' is really where the
epistemologist in me starts coming out of the closet. I went into philosophy
because it seemed to be the basis of every other subject, and from quite a
young age I was interested in the occult and in esoteric knowledge generally.
Philosophy was a way to approach questions about the world and our place in it
in a more rigorous way. Also, if I'm honest, it was a kind of default, because
I always wanted to be a scientist but am a mathematical idiot, so I got kicked
out of science classes at school. So I went into the philosophy of science
instead, and became more and more interested in it - I still think it's one of
the most interesting areas of philosophy, because the constantly changing
nature of science throws up so many new technologies, and I have a rather low
opinion of scientists' capacity to evaluate the consequences of what they do.
That is now the philosopher's role - to put the brakes on a headlong scientific
advance, to apply reason to reason.
KPM: I'm
writing these questions on World Book day. Even although I work for a big
internet bookseller for my day job, this seems to have passed me by this year.
It's prompted some debate in the media as to whether we can afford
time for reading in our modern hectic lifestyles, especially when TV is so much
more convenient. You've also written fan fiction, so where do you stand
on what seems to have been reduced to a reading Vs. TV debate?
Liz Williams: I like fanfic because it takes the passivity out
of media experience. I'm not too happy about fanfic based on books, because
reading is - to me - more of an active experience than watching something. In
reading, you are a participant rather than a consumer. There is little role for
the imagination when you're watching TV, because it's all done for you, and I
think a lot of viewers get frustrated with this - so they write fanfic, and
turn the content of the media into something where imagination must be
deployed. The 'Guardian' newspaper carried an article a couple of weeks ago
about reading groups, which are apparently blossoming throughout Britain. I
suspect that as the media becomes less intelligent, people will turn more and
more to books. England (as distinct from the rest of the UK) is often
depressingly anti-intellectual - amazing when you consider that this is the
land of Shakespeare and Keats - and the media reflects this, but I do believe
that there is a move away from that.
I'm one of those annoying people who read and watch TV at the same time, so I
suppose I have a foot in both camps! Seriously, though, I'd much rather read
than watch television.
KPM: You've a novel coming out in the U.S. this
year, and quite a few of your short stories have received favourable reviews.
What's been the highlight of your fiction writing thus far?
Liz Williams: The highlight is actually the writing itself - I
love the whole process, and I love having the time to write and think (which
I'm lucky enough to be able to do these days). The highlight of my actual
career was having Ghost Sister accepted, because that world and I go back such
a long way. And I am looking forward (not without quite a bit of trepidation)
to seeing what other people make of that world.
KPM: You've also got a travel book being published this
year. You must have written a lot as an academic. What's your
favourite form of writing?
Liz Williams: Fiction. And science fiction and fantasy at that
- I can't write 'straight' stories; somethinng weird always starts happening. I
like the rigor of academic writing, but I got a bit burned out with it. I think
that you can carry that into regular fiction, though, so that you try to make
every sentence matter. I enjoy the travel writing, too - I love descriptions of
places.
KPM: One element of your writing which interests me is
your use of mythology, say in 'The Blood Thieves'. How important is
mythology for you?
Liz Williams: Very important indeed - it's the wellspring of
everything I write. I was brought up on all sorts of mythology (it pretty much
replaced religion in our household), especially the Welsh Mabinogion. I find it
fascinating. I think that the imagination is the heart of a culture. I'm doing
a SF (not fantasy!) novel at the moment based on Russian and Central Asian
folklore, so I'm becoming immersed in that world now, and another fantasy book
set in a 'Victorian' England where paganism has replaced Christianity.
KPM: How did a stint as a tarot reader come about?
I know Douglas Adams once worked as a body guard, and Terry Pratchett was
BNFL's press officer for a while - do you recommend that all fiction writers
should take on at least one distinctive job on their CV before considering
publication?
Liz Williams: I did it basically because it was offered
to me, and it sounded like fun - which it was. I didn't do it all the time, and
I got to sit in a little pavilion on the pier with leopardskin seats, and look
mysterious. Weird jobs certainly don't do the literary CV any harm...
KPM: How does your average writing day proceed?
Liz Williams: I do mornings badly, so if I'm left
to my own devices (I work at a local charity for some of the week to pay
the bills) I get up about 10 am, potter about, make endless cups of tea and read my
email, do some work about 11.30, cook lunch about 1 and then work until 4, when
I usually go to the gym (being sedentary for most of the time, I do a lot
of things to compensate - weights, yoga, swimming, tai chii). Then I cook
dinner, watch the box for a bit (6.45 is usually SF time on the BBC, with
Star Trek of some description and Buffy), then work in the evening, which
is my favourite time to write. In summer we usually go down to the beach
in the evening.
I stop about ten, and either
read or go to the pub. If uninterrupted, I probably write about 4-5 hours
a day.
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Visit our Liz Williams page,
for a Liz Williams biography, bibliography, Liz Williams short stories, and
interviews |
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