Author Q and A

We are delighted to introduce you to Daisy Johnson. See below for some more thoughts on ‘Fen’, some questions that Daisy kindly answered for us and a few book recommendations from this author that you are sure to hear an awful lot about...

Have you seen your book in a bookshop yet? How does that feel?

I was in Oxford Blackwell’s this morning. I stood at the till and signed, perhaps, 30 copies. In the photos a friend took I look a little manic. It is intensely strange. I feel as if it is someone else’s book I am scrawling in. It is also the best thing ever: seeing it on the table in the shop I used to work in and love.

Is ‘Fen’ a novel?

On the jacket of the book it calls itself ‘a piece of modern fiction’. I like this. It is neither a novel nor a short story collection. It is whatever you want it to be.

Ernest Hemingway said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” A fair appraisal?

I think the trick is in convincing yourself, as Hemingway says, that there is nothing to it. What’s worse than bleeding all over a page is simply sitting and staring at it, trying to find that perfect sentence. Murakami describes writing as a physical effort, like running a marathon. There is something to be said for that; the first thing you have to do is forget how hard it is.

Perhaps it isn’t, anyway, the writer who is bleeding. Writing is, in the end, a sort of blood sport, a thievery. Writers are vampires and anything anyone says is fair game. There aren’t safe-spaces or private conversations when it comes to a writer.

“Writing is, in the end, a sort of blood sport, a thievery”

- Daisy Johnson

Having worked in a (mighty fine!) bookshop did you learn anything that helped you in the publishing process?

Yes. Booksellers are like elephants; if they liked your book they’ll remember and recommend it forever.

What are you currently enjoying reading?

I’ve been re-reading a lot of books recently for research. Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum is great. I love Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey which is written like a letter and is based on the Leonard Cohen song Famous Blue Raincoat.

And I read The Dig which was like a large spade to the face; but in a very beautiful way.

Is there a book or an author who you feel is criminally under appreciated?

I feel like a lot of short story writers can slide by unnoticed. Collections like Knockemstiff (Donald Ray Pollock), Battleborn (Claire Vaye Watkins), The Beautiful Indifference (Sarah Hall) and both of Karen Russell’s collections - St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and Vampires in the Lemon Grove are often overlooked.

I also keep finding my favourite book in the world in charity shops and I can’t believe people are giving it away. I rehome Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg every time I find one.

What next?

The walls of my room are currently covered in spider diagrams, possible lines, angry reminders to myself about tone and dips and flows. I’m working on a novel which I’ve had the idea of for a while but which I’m rewriting entirely from scratch at the moment. Oxford is there; a mostly night time version viewed from bars and kebab shops. There is also a crocodile.

More praise for ‘Fen’

“Within the magical, ingenious stories lies all the angst, horror and beauty of adolescence. A brilliant achievement.”

Evie Wyld - author of After the Fire, a Small, Still Voice

“Reading these stories brought the sense of being trapped in a room slowly, but very surely, filling up with water. You think: this can’t be happening. Meanwhile, hold your breath against the certainty it surely is.”

Cynan Jones - author of The Dig

Thanks Daisy. Considering how proud we at Blackwell’s feel about ‘Fen’ you must be fit to burst. Please don’t...