an interview with… amanda smyth
Amanda Smyth is a phenomenal Irish-Trinidadian writer. I WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO GET TO KNOW AMANDA THROUGH HER TIME teachING creative writing at Arvon, WRITING WEST MIDLANDS, AND COVENTRY UNIVERSITY, and IN 2018, i pestered her BY ASKing IF SHE’D BE INTERESTED In a interview… I guess she must have said yes.
1.) What is your greatest source of inspiration?
Great writing inspires me. I remember years ago, when I lived in London, opening a copy of The English Patient in Waterstones on Notting Hill Gate and gasping at the first page. I was astonished by the beauty of the language, and it made me want to write well, to write beautifully.
That's when I really started writing more seriously. Trinidad moves me as a place, [as] a landscape. It affects me deeply - childhood memories, the colour of the sea, the hills; these take me to my notebook and make me want to write about them. Then there are the human stories that move me - a moment, something happens, and I write a short story about it.
2.) Who are your favourite writers and authors?
I am a big fan of Jean Rhys and return to her work often. Also, I love Raymond Carver [and] Richard Ford. I'm re-reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez at the moment, and I'd forgotten how rich and powerful his novels are. Love in the Time of Cholera - incredible.
3.) Why do you find yourself so drawn to their work?
I am drawn to different writers at different times. It depends on what I'm working on. When I wrote short stories I was always reading other short stories - and I loved Carver's stripped back prose [and] economical sentences. I'm reading Marquez right now because I am trying to write a big novel [with] not-so stripped back sentences.
4.) You seem to have lived a wonderfully colourful life. How do you find your cultural background has influenced your writing?
Trinidad has played a big part in my life and my writing life. The feeling of displacement I've always had - my family living so far away means I'm straddling the Atlantic most of the time.and never quite feeling I belong anywhere. That creates a void, and perhaps, writing has helped me to feel less of that void. I envy people who've lived in an area all their lives, with all their family nearby. But I guess having my family scattered means I get to experience this other rich world. It is so very different to life here. There's a sweet pain in living this colourful life.
5.) Your books Black Rock and The Blessing of Charlie Sands share similar backdrops, but the target ages of these books vary considerably. Do you find yourself drawn to writing for a specific audience?
No, I really don't think too much about that. And Charlie Sand came out of a project I was working on many years ago - a collection of stories for children. The first one happened to be set in Trinida
6.) Everybody's writing process is different. Can you give us some insight into yours?
I'm slow. I take a long time. The idea for a novel comes as a sort of question, then I start thinking of how I can answer that question. So with Black Rock, I wanted to write about the murder of my great grandfather in Trinidad in the 1950s. We still don't know who killed him, so the novel was initially about that and Celia, my protagonist started out as the murderer. As I wrote more of her, I realised she could never have murdered anyone, so it changed. But the question started the novel: "Who killed my great grandfather?"
7.) You've written an array of both short stories and novels in your career so far, are there any differences in your approach to writing them, and if so, what are they?
I think the process is similar, though a short story arrives and leaves much more quickly than a novel.
8.) Out of your back catalogue, which piece of work did you find the most enjoyable to write?
The novel I'm writing now. I've really let myself freewheel with this novel - writing from different points of view and not worrying about where it's going. That's been hugely liberating. Now I'm in the process of sorting it all out, which is really challenging, but it is worth it.
9.) With your experiences teaching on the Arvon Writing Courses and Writing West Midlands workshops, what programs or courses would you suggest to new, emerging writers?
Arvon runs some fantastic courses with great tutors. It's always worth finding out about grants, as they can be quite pricey. Also, join a writing group where you can workshop your stuff. I'm part of a writing group in Birmingham and we meet fortnightly. I always workshop my writing there before sending it to my agent.
Amanda’s first novel, Black Rock, won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger, was nominated for an NAACP award, shortlisted for McKitterick Prize, and selected as an Oprah Winfrey Summer Read. Her second novel, A Kind of Eden, set in contemporary Trinidad, was published in 2013 and optioned as a TV series.
Her fiction and poetry have appeared in New Writing, London Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, and Harvard Review, and was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Fortune, her third novel, is based on the tragic Dome fire in Trinidad in 1928.