Chris: I suppose I just want to start with Norwich - you're visiting Norwich again, you've
been here a few times, its a UNESCO city of literature and has been now since 2012.
What do you like about Norwich?
What do you think is special about the city?
Margaret: It's not cold.
Chris: [Laughs] It's not Toronto in Winter!
Margaret: Yes okay so, yes, that's a silly answer - there's lots of places that aren't
cold but they aren't Norwich.
Chris: That is true.
Margaret: So its very manageable as a city.
It does have a lot of books in it and it does have of course the first umm creative writing
department in England and I knew [umm] that department when we lived in Blakeney in 1984,
the year that I started The Handmaid's Tale, although I didn’t start it in Norfolk.
I was writing another novel that I threw out [laughs] But right after that.
Chris: And was that when Angela Carter was teaching at the University?
Margaret: I don't think she was teaching quite then, but I did know her, through other connections.
So, she was one of the first I think and Malcolm Bradbury I did know.
Chris: Mhmm.
Margaret: but then of course I got invited to be the UNESCO visiting, is it
Chris: UNESCO Visiting Professor Margaret: UNESCO Visiting Professor and that's
been quite successful, but its a very good place to write, because, its far enough away
from London that you don't get really distracted Chris: I think we feel that its far enough
away for Norwich to have its own centre of gravity, and its
Margaret: Yes, I think if you're too close to London, those places don't do those kind
of events because people go into London for them.
Chris: And do you get a sense of the city's heritage in your visits?
Margaret: You can't avoid it can you.
Chris: [laughs] It's quite visible in terms of the street presence of the buildings and
the- Margaret: Yes, no, everywhere you go there's
a plaque saying who got burned at the stake Chris: [laughs] Theres a lot of that happening
here Margaret: Yes, not many did [laughs]
Chris: [laughs] Margaret: Not as many as other places.
Chris: Umm what we are trying to- I think one of the reasons why Writers' Centre came
to Dragon Hall umm apart from the space, is the fact that it’s a place full of stories,
and it feels like it’s a very suitable place for writers to come and be together.
Do you think there's a value in spaces for writers even though writers do need solitary
or solitude?
Margaret: I think people like to know that there are other people doing it.
[Umm] so I think [umm] there is quite a lot of it going on now, writing, and encouragement
of writing, err but I think they also, sometimes, other beginning writers will be the first
readers, of people in that age group, but also it’s just very, it’s it’s very
good for them to know that it’s something you can do
Chris: Mhmm Margaret: And that there are umm tips that
can be err they won't make you into a writer but they will umm give you some shortcuts,
so that you don't have to learn by doing every single thing.
And I came in here [and] the other day and they were getting a class on how to read your
work out loud, and I can think of many people for whom that would have been quite useful
in the past Chris: Yeah – it’s one of those opportunities
we give to writers that we kind of think, shall we do it again?
We do it every year, when we ask they say yes, we really want to do that it’s been
incredibly useful to us, so it’s, it’s a basic thing
Margaret: Yes, of course a lot of writers are quite solitary so they have stage fright
Chris: Mmm Margaret: And, I think, in, in these days,
when you're expected to go around and present your work and things like book store launches
and events, umm, some people are not temperamentally suited to that, and it can be quite frightening
for them Chris: Yes, I think there's a real kind of
case to be made for the craft of being an author as well as being a writer
Margaret: Yeah, I mean you don't want it to get too streamlined and umm
Chris: No Margaret: And, err, cookie cutter, err but
it might, might avoid some episodes of people being sick [laughs]
Chris: [laughs] Which is never salutary for anyone.
Umm, the National Centre for Writing at Dragon Hall occupies a place which was kind of a
commercial point of exchange for hundreds of years, and one of the things we want to
do is to be able to welcome writers from all over the world and send our writers all over
the world to exchange those stories.
Is there, err, what's your view of the value of that, of the value of exchange and sharing,
particularly in our current world which seems to be particularly, sort of angst ridden,
and full of conflict at the moment?
Margaret: Well, from the point of view of which ancient God is the patron God of writing,
[laughs] Chris: [laughs]
Margaret: There are two of them [laughs], one of them is Apollo, and if you're interested
in form, structure, symmetry, beauty, err that, err, that end of writing, he's your
God.
So, maybe you might err be pouring a libation to him when you're crafting your work.
Err, but the other one is Hermes, and what is Hermes the god of?
If you're looking for an idea, he's your guy.
Err, if you're blocked, he's the one.
Hermes is the opener of doors, he's also the god of erm, communication, which is why he
used to be on the telephone books, with a coil of telephone wire wrapped modestly around
him, err he is the messenger, he is also the god of thieves and jokes, [laughs] exchanges
of all kind and travel, and err he is the conductor of souls to the underworld, and
of all of the gods, he is the one who can go and come back
Chris: Mmm Margaret: From the underworld, which is very
very useful to have, if you're a writer.
Err so it will be Hermes presiding over Dragon Hall, as the god of exchanges and communication.
Chris: And jokes, possibly.
Margaret: And stories, of course, travel.
Chris: Yes.
Margaret: Stories travel all around the world - if you look at the history of the thousand
and one nights in one night, some of those stories are very very very very very old,
and they come from many different places.
So, stories are always moving.
If they don't move, and if they don't change, like every other living thing, they will die.
Chris: And that's one of the things that we can provide a space for, I hope here, some
of that kind of exchange, the smuggling across the borders of stories
Margaret: Jokes and thievery, by the way Chris: Jokes and thievery mainly, and also
messages from the other worlds [laughs].
Umm, it’s,we've been really delighted that you've acted as a patron for the National
Centre for Writing, umm, can you tell us, sort of, how you hope we might be able to
benefit writers?
Margaret: Everybody's life as a writer is a magpie life, so, you can spread all of these
goodies out in front of them, but only this thing will be useful to that particular writer.
So, I think your job is to have a range of offerings, and some people will benefit from
umm some of them, and others from others, depending on what stage they are, err, in
their writing life, and, and who they are as an individual writer.
And not everybody is gregarious as a writer, some people don't want to come and sit in
a group, they want to go and live in a garret and drink absynth
Chris: Umm, for, for you and for your writing career, it’s been an amazing sort of few
years in terms of the, how the stories that you've brought back and sent out into the
world have travelled across TV and film and graphic novels and other forms.
What's your next sort of project you think?
Margaret: My next project?
Chris: Which, which message are you shooting off next?
Margaret: Well I would never tell you, would I?
Yes, yes, yes yes I'm working on a book, but of course what does that mean?
It means exactly what everybody else means when they say that
Chris: Yeah Margaret: Which is, who knows?
Chris: Mmm Margaret: Umm, so will it work out, will it
not?
We never actually know until it’s done Chris: Like the book that you didn't writer
in Blakeney Margaret: I wrote enough of it to know that
this was not gonna happen [laughs] Chris: Yeah, and do you, do you keep or do
you destroy?
Margaret: Umm, if there's something that can be salvaged, I think I got a couple of short
stories out of that one Chris: Mhmm
Margaret: Umm, but another, an earlier one that I was writing away at, err I think I
salvaged one sentence.
Chris:That's an equation to be reckoned with Margaret: Yes, sometimes things just don't
work.
Chris: Yeah.
And with what's happened with kind of, The Handmaid's Tale, and Alias Grace how has it
felt to see your work go across those different platforms?
Margaret: Well it’s been a very strange series of coincidences, because, umm, people
were looking at making, umm, Handmaid's Tale earlier but they couldn't figure out who actually
owned the rights Chris: Mmm
Margaret: So that, when it all came together it was before Trump was even in the running,
so none of that was on the map, but umm, a team assembled that, umm, made it work
Chris: Mhmm Margaret: So similarly, Alias Grace had been
in the works for quite some time, but had got delayed for various reasons.
It was originally gonna be a feature film, and then Sarah Polley decided no, it should
be a TV miniseries.
The, the new platform that has come into existence which is this, series webstreaming
Chris: Yeah Margaret: Has made it possible for a lot of
novels that otherwise would not be filmed, to have a way of being that is long enough
for them Chris: Mmm
Margaret: Often with a novel you get the feeling that its just been squished.
So if you go look at old films, and for instance Great Expectations, you're just getting references,
you're getting references for people who have actually read the book
Chris: Yeah Margaret: Umm, but something that is a number
of episodes is long enough for a complex novel.
So that's been very, and, and that just happened.
Chris: Mhmm Margaret: You know, it just, it just happened
in the past five years?
So it wouldn't have been Chris: It wouldn't have even been here
Margaret: It wouldn't have been possible before.
Chris: No.
How has it changed, do you think, your relationship to the, your readers, and the wider world,
that platform?
Margaret: Oh, no doubt.
Umm, but with a book and also with a television series, the primary relationship is to the
book or the television series.
Chris: Mhmm Margaret: So the author is just a kind of
a, kind of a husk [laughs] Chris: [laughs]
Margaret: You know, you're the person who did that once and here you still are, isn't
it amazing you're still alive!
Umm, so, so, yes, but they're not looking to me as the primary thing.
It's the book, or the, or their involvement with the series, or both.
Chris: And does that help you, do you think, remembering that when you have to deal with
the kind of, the world outside having an opinion about the book or the TV series?
Does it give you a bit of distance?
Margaret: Umm, in a way it doesn't.
Once you've written and published a book it isn't yours anymore
Chris: Mhmm Margaret: It belongs to the readers, and in
the case of the television series, they're, they've created a new thing, so a lot of people
are going to be asking the actors, which they have, you know, what was it like to play so
and so?
There's been a lot of that kind of publicity, umm, but, but the writer is not anymore the
primary focus once it, once it goes out there, umm, I get a certain amount of how did you
know?
But of course, I didn't.
Chris: Thank you very much indeed.
It's a real pleasure to welcome you again, and thank you for making time to come and
talk to us.
Margaret: Always a pleasure.
Chris: Thank you.