Welcome to This Writing Life, Folding Rock’s new interview series where we take a peek into the lives and habits of our favourite writers – and ask them some questions submitted by you!
What was the first thing you did this morning?
Cycled down to the beach at Portobello with my son. It’s one of my favourite places in Edinburgh, where I live – you can see all the way down the coast to North Berwick and across the Firth of Forth to the mountains in Fife.
Where are you right now? What can you see?
In my study. I can see the books lining the wall in front of my desk, a print of a New Yorker cover satirising the US invasion of Afghanistan, a painting of a street in Venice by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon which was a present from my friend Roger, and a black and white photograph of William Gladstone, who was one my husband’s heroes. There’s a big window to my right through which I can see the tenement flats opposite, and in the distance, Calton Hill.
What are you working on at the moment?
A new novel.
What are you reading at the moment?
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
Tell us about a book that changed the course of your writing life
When I was living in the US in the 1990s I came across an old Modern Library edition of the Selected Stories of Eudora Welty in a Chicago bookshop. I’d never thought of writing a short story, but the comedy and the pain, the precision and the lightness of touch in Welty’s stories made me want to try.
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