Genomics Forum blogging team at the
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012
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.
