Blog by Hazel McHaffie
Some people seem to have a kind of
superhuman capacity to be creative: AL Kennedy is one of them. A stand-up comedian, as well as a teacher of creative writing, as
well as a writer, she's recently recovered from an illness ('that made my bone marrow disappear'),
but still managed to bring out an award-winning novel last year - The Blue Book - and to pen a series of funny but perceptive essays on the challenges
facing authors today. An exhausting schedule by any standard.
She has a reputation for writing
dark, intense, melancholic stories; she 'doesn't really do happiness', and she 'despises Hollywood endings'. But listening
to her, it's hard to reconcile ALK as performer, with ALK as writer. Indeed her
answers to the audience border on the superficial and frivolous at times, and
don't always do justice to the erudition behind some of the questions. I read
some of her essays, 'AL Kennedy on Writing' in the Guardian
and marvelled at the brilliant way she has of teasing out the humbug from the
reality of life as a writer, and I liked her gritty honesty. Those insights
were missing for me in her verbal presentation, the comedian eclipsing the
thoughtful analyst.
Today she was talking about her
current personal homelessness and emotional vulnerability. She's decided to
move south from her native Scotland to be closer to her mother, but has fallen
foul of the English conveyancing system. But being a 'sofa-surfer' isn't that
different from her usual nomadic existence, according to her, as she spends 70%
of her life elsewhere. For her 'home' is 'being
with people who care about you', and 'where I have enough peace to be able to
do what I love to do - write.' The chairperson, Sue MacGregor, previously host of Radio 4's Woman's Hour, probed what constituted
Scottishness, and how Scottish a Scottish writer would feel out of Scotland.
Kennedy's reply was unexpectedly serious: though she fees a certain sense of
sadness at leaving her native country, the most important thing is to be
herself wherever she is - 'a human being
reaching out and speaking to her fellow human beings'. And the recent
Olympics have underlined our commonality rather than our separateness.
As she read one of her essays about
spending months in a wooden summer house belonging to a millionairess patron in
the US, contending with woodpeckers and armed border guards, trying not to
break priceless artefacts, it was easy to see why she's so much in demand as a
speaker. She is robustly self-mocking but an undisputed master wordsmith. Sometimes the desire to
raise a laugh rather got in the way of her message, but the kernel of her
presentation was that being a writer is a fantastic life: 'It's a
really, really lovely job', and hugely satisfying. 'You are trying to make something as beautiful as possible for people
that you don't even know.'
The audience were curious about the
day-to-day experience of being a writer. Underneath the flippant asides, Kennedy
described it as essentially lonely, confusing, flexible, and potentially toxic.
There is danger in the sense of being in charge of your (albeit fictional)
universe, in being alone for long periods of time, of being seen as a expert, a
voice, when quite possibly your opinions are no more valuable than anyone else's.
She firmly refutes the notion that writers are more sensitive 'than plumbers', but they do need to be
very motivated, comfortable with the performance side of the job, and able to survive
the self-doubt associated with creativity.
Her respect for her readers came
through clearly - she 'loves' them -
but she says it's important to be true to oneself and not be afraid of the
reactions your writing might engender. The response of friends offering her accommodation
while she is homeless has underlined for her the importance of kindness. It's
the 'glue that keeps us together'.
That kindness she tries to extend to her readers.
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