Acknowledgements
Inttroduction
Al Alvarez
Michael Bond
Raymond Briggs
Tracy Chevalier
Julia Donaldson
Margaret Drabble
U.A. Fanthorpe
Julian Fellowes
Sara Maitland
Harry Mathews
Michael Morpurgo
Joyce Carol Oates
Don Paterson
Willy Russell
Graham Swift
Eleanor Updale
Naomi Wallace
Benjamin Zephaniah
Index
This book is a unique collection of interviews with award-winning writers. Each writer discusses their process: why they write, whom they write for, where and how often they write, recurring themes, problems and achievements. The interviews are intimate, honest, informative and often humorous. Together they offer a fascinating insight into the experience and hard work behind successful writers. This engaging collection is sure to appeal to anyone who loves reading or has ever wanted to be a writer.
Barbara Baker worked in stage management before becoming a full-time writer. Her previous books include The Way We Write, Chinese Ink, Western Pen: Stories of China, Let the Credits Roll: Interviews with Film Crew and Why We Garden: Stories of a British Obsession.
'There are of course wonderful insights into particular novels,
poems and plays, but what is most important about these interviews
is the proximity they give us to the writing process. There really
is no better way to understand the author's art and craft than by
listening to him or her reflect on the imagination's journey to the
page: the starting points, the struggles, decisions and revisions.
And the tremendous variety of accounts within this particular book
is important in itself, making clear that there are many paths to
success. Barbara Baker is to be congratulated on eliciting these
telling contributions from so many of our best-known authors.' -
Paul Munden, Director of the National Association of Writers in
Education
'"Writing" says the American novelist Joyce Carol Oates in her
contribution to this collection"is a kind of dreaming". By which
she means that for her writing is, like dreaming, a real necessity.
We need to dream to sort out our thoughts; we can't choose not to
dream, just as good writers can't choose not to write. In this
fascinating collection eighteen good writers - they have all won
awards - share with us, some with astonishing frankness, not just
their working methods and how and when they find they write best,
but what they see as their own strengths and weaknesses. They tell
us about the hard graft of correction and re-writing and whose
opinions they value, and they share with us the pleasure of knowing
finally that they've got it right. It is as Al Alvarez and
children's writer Eleanor Updale admit, often a desperately
solitary occupation. In the end it is all about something
disarmingly simple, as the poet U.A. Fanthorpe points out - trying
to get the words right. From each of these writers we learn a great
deal, and in eighteen different ways we are, in their company,
thoroughly entertained.
'This book will serve as an inspiration to anyone interested in
writing.' The Good Book Guide
'In The Way We Write, not only do the 18 novelists, dramatists and
poets Barbara Baker interviews on how and why they write come
across as fully functioning people - the type who could do another
job perfectly well if they chose - but you find yourself wondering
which of the authors, and not which of their books, you would most
like to take on holiday with you.' 'What comes across from The Way
We Write is not the sense each writer has of being a "winner", but
his or her awareness of the meaninglessness of that title and the
fragility of their reputations.' Frances Wilson, The Daily
Telegraph
'Anyone who aspires to producing some published story, poem, novel,
or screenplay will find interest and encouragement here.' Roy
Johnson, 2007, Mantex.co.uk
'Ask eighteen authors about the secrets of the craft of writing,
and you will get eighteen different answers. And that is
exactly what Barbara Baker has done... She has selected
award-winning authors and has included writers across the range:
children's writers, playwrights, novelists, short story writers,
even poets... ...the whole book has something to say about every
aspect of writing'. Writing Magazine, 1 Jan 2008 issue
'I really enjoyed this collection of interviews and know that I
will return to it again and again...There is plenty of meat in this
collection as well as humour, and those writers who are looking for
that elusive elixir to transform their own writing would do well to
have a read.' Annette Ecuyeré Lee, Writing in Education Magazine
(NAWE)
"Barbara Baker has taken care to assemble a mix
of practitioners who will offer something for almost every
variety of novice writer, and it has to be said that even
established writers would learn something from her book ... The Way
We Write is arguably one of the most successful and accessible
volumes of writer interviews we have seen, with just the right
balance of analysis and sheer individual and absorbing explanations
of the craft of writing. It should be read and used in creative
writing courses across the country and beyond." Reviewed by
Stephen Wade in Contemporary Review, 2008
'thoughtful, probing, reassuring at times, startling and generously
provocative at others. There is much warmth and humour...it also
tackles those big questions that fascinate so many people - what is
inspiration and where does it come from; to what extent is writing
autobiographical, and so forth.' - Nigel Jenkins, University of
Swansea
*Blurb from reviewer*
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