Essentials for the character-driven play: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

At risk of leaping on the current Bowie bandwagon, the character-driven play is all about ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. For want of a better phrase, ‘the world of the play’ at the end must be considerably different from the beginning – otherwise why should we expect an audience to commit themselves to seeing the experience through? (And we can’t all be like Brecht, deliberately frustrating the audience so they may take action in real life, driven by his characters’ inability to forge change in their lives in his plays…)

We know in the classical Western theatrical tradition we all go on a journey – the characters as well as the audience. This can be literal, but more often it is symbolic or metaphorical. There is an event, a visitor, a letter – something new, a trigger or inciting incidence which knocks the character off her usual routine and into unknown territory. In Shakespeare these are grand, life-endangering quests – a glimpse of the love object resulting in the pursuit of romance amongst warring clans; a walking phantom prompting investigation into a mysterious death and the seeking of revenge, to outline two. Contemporary plays are often smaller in scope and more contained, but the emotional territory is still as large. Something happens – a death, a change in the pecking order at work, a child entering their teens, a diagnosis, an infidelity, a crushing doubt or suspicion, etc. There is a change in our protagonist’s life and she is pushed off onto a journey of discovery.

This journey may be a physical, but usually it is emotional and psychological, rooted still in the familiar physical world. The newness of the situation she finds herself in is important, for this enables the audience to see the character dealing with challenges and obstacles, acquiring new skills. We can observe her trying and failing and potentially succeeding in the new situation, and this makes her a valid protagonist, worthy of our attention.

She is active, taking decisions, and this live decision making, usually under pressure, reveals her character as well as defining the direction the story will take. Her actions dealing with the new situation further the plot and we can see that character is plot. A different protagonist with their individual foibles and weaknesses, strengths and experiences might react differently, and so create a different outcome. This particular character, with all her wants, objectives, tactics and decision-making drives the story. A character without motivation and concrete wants in each moment is inactive and dull. A changing dynamic and a character responding, growing, learning and therefore changing is central to keep the audience engaged and alert and the plot rolling forward. The play is alive and moving and so is the character, even if this movement is internal: changing opinion, politics, allegiance, belief system; falling in or out of love.

The character at the end of the play has changed owing to the experiences she has had, the decisions she has had to make and act on (and making no decision is still a decision, with consequences). The journey she has gone through has changed not just her, but her interactions and relationships, and ultimately had a transformative effect on her world. An audience emerges at the end of this character-driven play satisfied, and perhaps changed too in their thoughts and opinions about subjects central to what they have just seen.

National Poetry Competition 2013

Deadlines and an intense work schedule have been keeping me from writing for this blog of late, but I hope news of this national competition will more than compensate for my inattention. Since I won the second Ted Hughes Award for New Works in Poetry, the Poetry Society have been sending me information about the other competitions they administer. I’m always happy to promote these opportunities and so post the press release here:

One of the most prestigious competitions of its kind, the National Poetry Competition  attracts around 13,000 entries each year, from around the UK and beyond. Judged anonymously, the competition puts established and emerging writers on a level playing field. The 2013 winners will be announced in March 2014.

Winning the competition has been an important milestone in the careers of some of today’s leading poets such as the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy , Ruth Padel , Philip Gross , Colette Bryce , Tony Harrison  and Jo Shapcott.

Last year’s competition was won by Patricia McCarthy  who acknowledges the competition’s value:

“It is a real honour to win the National Poetry Competition and it seems to open up all sorts of other opportunities for the winning poet, all helped along by the Poetry Society.”

Julia Copus, Matthew Sweeney and Jane Yeh are this year’s judges, and the prizes are £5,000 for the overall winner, £2,000 for the second, £1,000 for the third, with seven commendations of £100. The top three winners are also published in the Poetry Society’s leading international journal, Poetry Review.

The deadline is 31 October and you can enter online now or download an entry form from the Poetry Society website.

Since its launch in 1978, the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition has marked a milestone in the careers of many of today’s leading poets. Previous winners include Philip Gross, Jo Shapcott, Tony Harrison, and the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.

JUDGES

Julia Copus is a poet and radio dramatist. Her latest collection The World’s Two Smallest Humans (Faber) was shortlisted for both the 2012 T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa poetry prize. Her previous collections, The Shuttered Eye and In Defence of Adultery, were PBS Recommendations. She won First Prize in the National Poetry Competition (2002) and the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2010). In 2011, her sequence of poems about IVF, Ghost, was adapted as a BBC Radio 3 play entitled Ghost Lines. She is a Lector for the Royal Literary Fund, and in 2008 was made an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter.

Matthew Sweeney was born in Donegal in 1952 and is currently based in Cork, having previously been resident in Berlin, Timisoara and, for a long time, London. His collections include Black Moon (2007), Sanctuary (2004) and Selected Poems (2002). A retrospective selection, The Night Post, was published by Salt in 2010. His new collection, Horse Music, was published by Bloodaxe in 2013. A satirical thriller, set in the world of contemporary poetry, co-written with the English poet, John Hartley Williams, was published in November 2012 by the Muswell Press under the title Death Comes for the Poets.

Jane Yeh was born in America and educated at Harvard University. She holds master’s degrees from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Manchester Metropolitan University. Her first collection of poems, Marabou (Carcanet, 2005), was shortlisted for the Whitbread, Forward, and Aldeburgh Festival poetry prizes. Her latest collection, The Ninjas, was published by Carcanet in 2012, and her poems appear in anthologies including The Best British Poetry 2012. Currently Senior Researcher in Creative Writing at Kingston University, she also teaches courses for the Arvon Foundation, and writes on books, theatre, fashion, and sport for publications such as the TLS and The Village Voice. She lives in London.

THE NATIONAL POETRY COMPETITION

The National Poetry Competition was founded in 1978. The judges select ten top winners and the prize money this year totals £8,700 (first prize: £5,000; second prize: £2,000; third prize: £1,000, plus seven commendations, each £100). The top three prize winners’ poems will be published in Poetry Review, Britain’s leading poetry magazine. Previous winning and commended poems can be read on the Poetry Society website, http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk. The Ledbury Poetry Festival features an event with National Poetry Competition winners and judges every year. To enter the National Poetry Competition visit www.poetrysociety.org.uk

THE POETRY SOCIETY

The Poetry Society was founded in 1909 to promote a “more general recognition and appreciation of poetry”. Since then, it has grown into one of Britain’s most dynamic arts organisations, representing British poetry both nationally and internationally. Today it has nearly 4,000 members worldwide and publishes the leading poetry magazine, Poetry Review. With innovative education and commissioning programmes and a packed calendar of performances, readings and competitions, the Poetry Society champions poetry for all ages. The Poetry Society also runs the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and awards for young people, including SLAMbassadors

Lightship International Literary Prizes 2013

I’m always excited to come upon new opportunities and competitions for writers of many disciplines, so here, with an approaching deadline of 30th June 2013 are the Lightship International Literary Prizes. I’m not familiar with the competitions, but am impressed by the patron, Hilary Mantel, and some of the judges, who include Tessa Hadley and M.J. Hyland, two personal favourites. The competitions are across a wide spectrum of form, from the first act of a theatre script, to poetry, flash fiction, memoir and short story, amongst others.

Lightship International Short Story Prize

Prize: £1,000
10 short-listed stories will be published in Lightship Anthology 3 (Nov 2013)

Judge: Tessa Hadley

Word limit: 5000

Deadline: Midnight GMT 30/6/13

Entry Fee: £12

Lightship International First Chapter Prize

Prize: Professional Mentoring / Possible Publication

Judges: M.J. Hyland, David Miller (RCW), Alessandro Gallenzi (Alma Books)

Word limit: 5400 (including one page synopsis)

Deadline: Midnight GMT 30/6/13

Entry Fee: £16

Lightship International Flash Fiction Prize

Prize: £500
10 short-listed flash fictions will be published in Lightship Anthology 3 (Nov 2013)

Judge: Etgar Keret

Word limit: 1500

Deadline: Midnight GMT 30/6/13

Entry Fee: £10

Lightship International Poetry Prize

Prize: £1000
10 short-listed poems will be published in Lightship Anthology 3 (Nov 2013)

Judge: David Wheatley

Word limit: 200

Deadline: Midnight GMT 30/6/13

Entry Fee: £8

Lightship International One Page Story Prize

Prize: £250
10 short-listed flash fictions will be published in Lightship Anthology 3 (Nov 2013)

Judge: Calum Kerr

Word limit: 300

Deadline: Midnight GMT 30/6/13

Entry Fee: £8

Lightship International Short Memoir Prize

Prize: £1000
10 short-listed short memoirs will be published in Lightship Anthology 3 (Nov 2013)

Judge: Rachel Cusk

Word limit: 5000

Deadline: Midnight GMT 30/6/13

Entry Fee: £12

Lightship International First Act Prize

Prize: Professional Mentoring / Possible Production of Full Length Play at The Cockpit Theatre, London

Judges: Anthony McCarten, Micheline Steinberg, David Whybrow (Cockpit
 Theatre Director)

Word limit: 6000 (including one page synopsis)

Deadline: Midnight GMT 30/9/13

Entry Fee: £18

For full details of all competitions please go to: www.lightshippublishing.co.uk

If you have any queries please email Lightship Publishing at: admin@lightshippublishing.co.uk

Insight, process, opportunities, competitions, TanzKongress

I originally started this blog to write about process from the inside, making three projects and bringing them to production in 2012. Since those furiously creative days, I’m relieved to say my work has been different (I would easily have burned out otherwise!) and I’ve been engaged in several other writing projects, all at different stages in development, more of which, below.

This blog initially was about documenting various processes for a playwright/dramaturg/co-creator, working towards production  (these posts are still available in this blog’s archive). This is still a focus, for I’m interested in exploring the breadth and diversity of the skills a writer may need within any creative process – and it is something I will document again, when in production.

I think there is a myth that we do just one thing – write – (as though that weren’t demanding and challenging enough!). I’m curious about the other elements required for a writing life – the other tools we may need to survive, which include everything from accountancy skills and being able to write outstanding grant applications, to the social skills required for collaboration in the rehearsal room. This is an area I intend to blog about in the future. But I am even more curious with how other artists do it – how do we survive a bad review, little success, disappointing sales, and that doubting dark night of the soul..? This is one reason why I started ’20 Questions…’ to learn from other artists, writers, actors, sculptors and those engaged professionally with creativity how and why we continue to do this. And to be reminded of the inherent value – even necessity – of this compulsion.

And so this blog has continued to evolve, bringing in other voices and opinions rather than being focused solely on my own process when in the doing (although I will for sure do this again, when the opportunity arises). I also have been using it to highlight certain political debates (‘cripping up’, the use of black face in German theatres, ageism and sexism within the profession, etc), and also highlighting certain opportunities and competitions for writers within the UK as well as internationally. When I began this blog, I always wanted to create something that would be useful – and hope this will be the experience for those who trouble to read it.

In the spirit of this, I want to draw attention to the approaching deadline on 31st May 2013 of The Bridport Prize, whose mission is ‘to encourage emerging writers and promote literary excellence through its competition structure.’ Well established, it offers £15,000 in prizes for poetry, short stories, and flash fiction, with judges including Wendy Cope and Michele Roberts. For details of the competitions, please go to: http://www.bridportprize.org.uk

As to me…. so far 2013 has been primarily about completing one large long-standing prose project, delivering the first draft of a theatre commission and initiating new projects in media drama and live performance. Some are my own projects as a solo writer, but others are international collaborations with the Llanarth Group: an Irish/Welsh/Singapore-Chinese/American/South Korean co-creation in the Summer and the other a cultural exchange in Japan late in the year. Meanwhile I will be continuing my fellowship at Freie Universitat’s international research centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ in Berlin, reflecting on the relationship between ‘mainstream’ and disability cultures.

As part of this, I will be presenting at dance conference  TanzKongress in Dusseldorf on Saturday 8th June: ‘Border Control: Framing the Atypical Body. “You say radical, I say conservative, you say inclusive, I say subversive.”’

The schedule is overwhelming and looks incredibly exciting. For further details go to:

http://www.tanzkongress.de/en/programme/congress-programme.html?date=2013-06-08#event-76-0

20 Questions… Gabriel Gbadamosi

Continuing my 20 Questions… series, this time with poet, playwright and debut novelist Gabriel Gbadamosi. Gabriel and I first met in Belfast many years ago, and walked the city at night, endlessly talking. Since then. we have collaborated with Jonathan Meth, Peter Arnott, and Sarah Dickenson with writernet and The Fence, an international network of playwrights and dramaturgs we co-founded. Gabriel’s first novel, Vauxhall, has recently been published and is proving to be one of the must-reads of 2013.

Gabriel Gbadamosi

Gabriel Gbadamosi is a poet, playwright and essayist.  His London novel, Vauxhall, won the 2011 Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize.  He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow in European and African performance at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, and a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University.  Book collaborations with visual artists include Coffee Incognito with Rod Hill, Sun-Shine, Moonshine with Conroy/Sanderson, and The Second Life of Shells with Mandy Bonnell.  Plays include Shango (DNA, Amsterdam), Hotel Orpheu (Schaubühne, Berlin) and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of ’76 (BBC Radio 3) which won the first Richard Imison Award.  A sample essay on African art, An Informal History of the Male Nude, can be found online at BBC Radio 3.

What first drew you to your particular practice (art/acting/writing, etc)?

I became a writer in primary school.  My ‘daily diary’ became a way to speak out to my parents and be heard among my brothers and sisters.  They often spoke of it.  But I became a poet as a teenager.  And a playwright in my twenties.  An essayist in my thirties.  And yes, a novelist in my forties.  Now I’m in my fifties, I no longer keep a diary.

What was your big breakthrough?

 That hasn’t happened.  But I once wrote a poem at the speed in which I could speak it.  That felt like a breakthrough.

 What is the most challenging aspect of your work/process?

 Loneliness.  Self-censorship.  Loss of confidence.  The un-hinging of my social self.

 Is there a piece of art, or a book, or a play, which changed you?

 No.  Love has changed me; death on the road (it took me 10 years to recover from that).  But Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra changed the way I feel, and King Lear the way I think.

 What’s more important: form or content?

 I was always told they were the same thing.

 How do you know when a project is finished?

 When it won’t let you back in.

Do you read your reviews?

 I had a friend who started with writing a review, and then wrote the play, and then directed it, and then published the review (under another pseudonym). How good is that?

 What advice would you give a young writer/practitioner?

 Do something else.  And if you can’t, do your best.

 What work of art would you most like to own?

 Apart from one I could sell for a lot of money, something from my son or daughter.

 What’s the biggest myth about writing/the creative process?

 That only talented or specialized or professional people can do it.

 What are you working on now?

 An online walking tour of Vauxhall, where I grew up, where my novel is set, where the pleasure gardens were from the 17^th to the 19^th century and the security state is now (MI6, etc).

 What is the piece of art/novel/collection/ you wish you’d created?

 Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater.

 What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out?

 That life is short and love is mortal.

 What’s your greatest ambition?

 To write a great poem.

 How do you tackle lack of confidence, doubt, or insecurity?

 I don’t so much tackle these things as sustain myself despite them.

 What is the worst thing anyone said/wrote about your work?

 Stop writing.

And the best thing?

 Carry on writing, but you’ll never write anything which could be better than this.

 If you were to create a conceit or metaphor about the creative process, what would it be?

 Banging a nail in the tooth of death.

 What is your philosophy or life motto?

 I don’t have one.

 What is the single most important thing you’ve learned about the creative life?

You can hand it on.

 What is the answer to the question I should have – but didn’t – ask?

Mine’s a pint of cider.

Vauxhall by Gabriel Gbadamosi. Published by Telegram

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Only a poet could have written Vauxhall … clean, swift yet with flashes of lightning 
- Bonnie Greer

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Gabriel Gbadamosi reads an extract from, and talks about his novel Vauxhall

http://vimeo.com/63403887

Further information on Gabriel and his novel can be found at:

http://gabrielgbadamosi.com/about-vauxhall/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vauxhall-Gabriel-Gbadamosi/dp/1846591465/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368027668&sr=1-1

Reviews for the book:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2325487/DEBUT-FICTION.html

Playwright vs performance writer

There’s an interesting discussion going on National Theatre Wales’s on-line community in the writers’ group re- the difference between ‘plays’ and ‘live performance’, ‘playwrights’ and ‘artists/performance writers’, and the opportunities available to each. This has prompted me to engage on that site, and now here, with what is a very old chestnut indeed…

For years I’ve been contesting the separation of ‘playwrights’ and plays from ‘performance writers/makers/artists’ and texts. At various gatherings and symposia I’ve attended over the past decade and more (usually around that other unnecessarily loaded term ‘dramaturgy’), I’ve  almost come to blows when denying and descrying what I see as an odd and artificial schism. On one memorable occasion about eight years ago, I was denied kinship with the cool crowd of live performance makers because I’d written a three act play for the Birmingham Rep’ in 2000 and was therefore a ‘playwright’ and into realism and naturalism and the fourth wall and other forms of conservatism… When I challenged this with reference to my other work deemed by critics and academics as ‘experimental’ and ‘post-dramatic’, they didn’t know where I should belong, for it seemed never the two should meet….

It seems to me definitions have generally been:

Playwright = one often working alone, primary or solo voice/vision, usually (but not always) in more established classical Western theatrical forms (naturalism/ three act structure)

Performance writer = one working perhaps collaboratively, usually in more ‘experimental’ or less conventional forms (ie, not our three act structure with the 4th wall, etc).

It seems to have been useful for some in the past to create this division, and going by the NTW site, it still is causing disruption and discord, as well as engaging and interesting debate.

It reminds me again of the debates I was involved with last year at West Yorkshire Playhouse over ‘the end of new writing’ with Lyn Gardner, David Eldridge, Suzanne Bell, Dawn Watson and Fin Kennedy. Worth having a look again, if you’re interested, and Alex Chisholm’s original essay (links, below).

As to me… I just reiterate what I wrote on the NTW site: a writer is a writer is a writer and if we can be flexible in our approach and the forms we write in, so (in my experience, at least) can the funders and commissioners….

I’m sure I’ll come back again to this subject, but meanwhile leave you with those links past and present:

http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/group/writers  (but you need to join the community before you can comment)

http://kaiteoreilly.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/the-end-of-new-writing/

http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/the-end-of-new-writing/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/may/18/new-writing-all-black-play

A New Writer Doesn’t Mean A Young Writer….

Octagenarian PLaywrights wanted: Photo from The Independent newspaper

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I’m grateful to my friend the writer Sandra Bendelow for bringing my attention to this…. The wonderful news that the Royal Court Theatre in London is seeking out ‘bright octogenarian writers.’ For a theatre so often associated with youth (I, amongst many, have benefitted from the development process attached to its well established  young writers programme), this is a major turning point indeed.

“The question was: ‘Why aren’t we giving those people a voice?’ ‘Vicky Featherstone says in an interview with the Independent, the link for which is below. ”What if you want to be a playwright in your 80′s, why can’t you be?”

Frankly, if this is what Vicky Featherstone has in store for the Court under her new directorship, things are looking up indeed…

For years I worked with Jonathan Meth and Sarah Dickenson of (now, sadly defunct) writernet - and we constantly challenged the notion that new = young. Although pretty youthful myself at the time, I was still painfully aware of the disparity in opportunity offered to the beginner performance writer, which revolved around how many years (or, rather how few) any scribbler had been on the planet. It seemed for a while that those who were rich in elastin but poor in life experience had a monopoly on any call for script development, when the hungry, eager 25 year olds (and god help the 45 plus year olds) were consigned to the scrapheap. New writing meant young in age writers. No wonder we began to introduce those clunky, worthy terms ‘young in career’, ‘emerging writers’ and so on, to try and counter the endemic ageism within the profession.

For years everyone wanted ‘the new’, which meant ‘the young’, which also seemed to mean ‘the first’.  I was in my mid-20′s when I co-won The Peggy Ramsay Award for my first London production, Yard, at the Bush. I’d been writing for many years, with several BBC radio plays broadcast, two international productions, a handful of scripts produced for young audiences, and a solo presented at the Royal Court Upstairs as part of the Young Writers Festival. Despite all this hard work and experience, in the press I was still described  as ‘new, young writer wins award with her first play.’ It was clear that my long apprenticeship and years of self-sufficiency didn’t live up to the myth, the story so often paraded in our media: the overnight success; the ‘discovery’; the untutored ingenue, the young ‘natural’…

I’m sure these stories will continue – and some of them may indeed be true. I have no problem with precocious talent, and I celebrate creativity and success whatever the age. What became so wearing, especially having been one of those ‘prodigies’ bandied about myself, was it seemed to be the only story. Young in age practitioners seemed to be the only ones wanted.

I think the monopoly of youth-orientated workshops, opportunities, and development programmes may be weakening. We have had an explosion in fee-paying courses (and not just those in higher and further education and the original writers centres like Arvon and Ty Newydd, but now the Faber Academy, and the Guardian masterclasses, etc….) and it is often those who have been around a while who can afford to develop themselves. At some workshops I gave in the South West recently, the 50 plus writer was as evident as the under 25 – which personally, I think is fabulous. For years I’ve seen new plays which sparkle with potential but are sometimes thin on content. On more than a few occasions I’ve gone away thinking ‘that playwright will be really interesting in about ten years when they’ve got something to write about.’

So what might octogenarian first time playwrights write – and in what form? I hope it’s edgy and experimental – which are not exclusive to youth (our own Caryl Churchill is, after all, 74 years young). I can’t wait.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/bright-octogenarian-playwrights-wanted-royal-court-seeks-new-talent-among-over-80s-8580738.html

Mslexia’s Women’s Poetry Competition 2013

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The competition is for unpublished poems of any length and in any style by women poets.

1st Prize: £2,000

Plus two optional extras: A week’s writing retreat at Cove Park* and a mentoring session with the editor of Poetry Review*

2nd Prize: £400 


3rd Prize: £200

17 runners up win £25 each. All winning poems will be published in issue 59 of Mslexia, published in September 2013.

Closing date: 17 June 2013

JUDGE: KATHLEEN JAMIE

‘I’ll be looking for a poem that has energy (which is not the same as noise). I’ll be seeking a poem which shows the tug and pull of language, written by a poet who has listened to what the poem wants to be.’

For further information and to enter, go to:

http://www.mslexia.co.uk/shop/pcomp_enter.php

20 questions…. Philip Casey

Continuing my series of interviews with artists, writers, dancers, creatives… I first met Irish poet and novelist Philip Casey at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan, Ireland, more years ago than I care to remember. But what I do remember is his fantastic storytelling, and the verve and power of his poetry and novels, which I have been reading ever since. It’s a great delight to have him respond to my questionnaire.

20 Questions…. Philip Casey.

Philip Casey. Photo by Karina Casey

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Philip Casey has published four collections of poetry, including Dialogue in Fading Light (New Island Books, 2005), and three novels, The Fabulists (Lilliput 1994), The Water Star (Picador, 1999) and The Fisher Child (Picador, 2001). He’s a member of Aosdána and lives in Dublin.

http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/

What first drew you to writing?

I  told stories from a young age – mostly to my brothers on the higher branches of macrocarpa trees in Wexford. When I was in hospital in my teens, my father gave me a guitar, so I started writing songs to the three chord trick.

Growing up in rural Ireland in the sixties, I hadn’t come across any poetry other than ballads, but one night I heard a poetry programme on radio and said to myself: I can do that. Then a few years later an arts centre – probably the first in Ireland – opened in my local town Gorey, thanks to the artist Paul Funge. We had a magazine called The Gorey Detail, edited with fun as the prime criterion by James Liddy.

The Fabulists

When I came back from Spain in 1977, I was a round peg in a square hole, so about two years later I decided to do what I’d always wanted to do, which was to write poems. I’ve  never abandoned verse, but after trying plays, I turned to novels when a couple of characters came to me and I stopped to listen. That was The Fabulists.

What was your big breakthrough?

I can hear the sceptical laughter! No big breakthroughs, I think.  Let’s see. Finishing my second, long novel The Water Star felt like a breakthrough, and when it was accepted by Picador that felt like a breakthrough. I’d always loved Picador books, and it had been a vague daydream which I’d never taken seriously. Then for some reason I said out loud what my daydream was,  and thanks to my agent Lisa Eveleigh, it happened.

What is the most challenging aspect of your work/process?

In prose, it’s summoning up the mental and physical energy to keep myself at the heart of the story.

In poetry the challenge is to forget myself, everything,  for that fleeting moment when the poem happens – Keat’s  Negative Capability, I suppose.  I usually fail that one miserably. The last batch of poems came when I was ill a few years back. 

Is there a piece of art, or a book, or a play, which changed you?

When I was in the aforementioned hospital, aged sixteen, I voraciously read Agatha Christie. Then the boy in the bed next to me contemptuously handed me Sean O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy (Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars). Here were real characters and I was changed, utterly. I haven’t been able to read horror, detective or science fiction since – not that I look down on such, and I like the latter two genres on film, but that really did change me. Then about a year after I’d read O’Casey I read Ulysses… Boom!

What’s more important: form or content?

I don’t like to think about these things.   I think form happens as the story or poem reveals itself, and is polished later.

How do you know when a project is finished?

Do you ever? Wasn’t it Leonardo da Vinci who said that art is never finished, only abandoned? Of course he was a genius.  I think there is a sense of closure. It falls quiet.

Do you read your reviews?

Yes. If it’s a reviewer’s ego trip, and there’s a lot of it about, I just shrug  – it says more about the reviewer than the work. But  I can always learn from good criticism and I always hope for it.  The best I ever got was from the poet and novelist Brian Lynch http://www.brianlynch.org  when he reviewed my first book of verse. It’s a long time ago now but from memory: ‘Casey places too much emphasis on Kavanagh’s dictum of a true note on a slack string.’

The Water Star

What advice would you give a young writer?

I feel a bewildered tenderness towards young writers. To get a book published is an enormous achievement, but then out of the thousands of books published every year, only a  few come to the surface. Apart from read, read, read, which I presume is obvious, I would say learn the difference between the good critic and the windbag, and listen to the good critic.  Be wary of your darling sentences. On the other hand, if you have a formula and a business plan then congratulations, it’s probably a breeze, nine to five.

What work of art would you most like to own?

I can’t get enough of art, as it happens. If pressed, Goya  is a particular favourite, somehow. Anything by him, but I’ve no desire to possess art other than the few works by friends which I already possess and love.

What’s the biggest myth about writing/the creative process?

I haven’t a clue what the biggest myth about it is. I’ve noticed that some people, including scientists, believe it’s an Aha! moment. An idea. As in ‘where do you get your idea for a new novel?’ That’s probably one of the myths.

What are you working on now?

I’ve been working for some years on a history of Ireland. Seeing as I’m not a trained historian, that’s pretty mad and possibly quixotic but I love it. Or rather I love it when immersed in the characters, or I’m telling the stories to friends, who in a most gratifying way, love the stories too. I don’t love it when I spend the day hunting a reference I forgot to list.

What is the piece of art/novel/collection/ you wish you’d created?

Beckett’s Come and Go,  Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Very different, I know. Or maybe not. I could go on. When I read or see or listen to something transcendent, of course I wish I’d created it. Then I’d be immortal!

What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out?

That time really does go by in the blink of an eye.  These days my email signature includes a consoling quote from Thomas Mann: ‘A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.’ Of course I still love it, despite everything, and wouldn’t consider doing anything else.

What’s your greatest ambition?

To survive long enough to finish the current work and take a long rest, preferably in the sun. Though it’s doubtful if writers ever rest. I have the gleam of a new novel in my eye.

How do you tackle lack of confidence, doubt, or insecurity?

There have been some black days and nights, that’s for sure – many, in fact. I don’t fight it anymore. I let it do its thing as it’s probably part of the creative process for people like me. And then of course there’s love. Love of the work, love of family and friends, love of women. It all comes down to love in the end. It gives me the necessary patience.

What is the worst thing anyone said/wrote about your work?

That my novel, The Fisher Child, was racist. It was in a major newspaper, to boot. The Fisher Child has race as a major theme,

The Fisher Child

and some of the characters are racist,  but I’m certain the novel isn’t. Of course I’ve forgiven the reviewer – I couldn’t move on otherwise – but  I was stunned by the injustice of it at the time.

And the best thing?

‘How does a white Irishman know my black family’s history?’ That was the opening line from an appreciative email about The Fisher Child, around the same time as the ‘racist’ review.   Also:  a wonderful note about The Fabulists from Martha Gelhorn, about three years before she died.

If you were to create a conceit or metaphor about the creative process, what would it be?

Blank.

What is your philosophy or life motto?

Rothar Mór an tSaoil. The Great Wheel of Life. I interpret that as what you give, you get back manyfold if you give without counting the cost.

That goes for life as well as the work.  Alternatively,  ‘The Trick is to Live Long Enough.’ I coined that one when gifted friends died far too early.

What is the single most important thing you’ve learned about the creative life?

To be open and vulnerable. I know it sounds earnest, and it can be a pain in the fundament at times,  but I don’t know any other way.

What is the answer to the question I should have – but didn’t – ask?

Designer

Websites

http://www.philipcasey.com

http://www.irishwriters-online.com

http://www.irishculture.ie

The Water Star and The Fisher Child are now in the kindle and iBook stores.

http://www.philipcasey.com/about-philip-casey/

A new writer doesn’t mean a young one…..

Octagenarian PLaywrights wanted: Photo from The Independent newspaper

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I’m grateful to my friend the writer Sandra Bendelow for bringing my attention to this…. The wonderful news that the Royal Court Theatre in London is seeking out ‘bright octogenarian writers.’ For a theatre so often associated with youth (I, amongst many, have benefitted from the development process attached to its well established  young writers programme), this is a major turning point indeed.

“The question was: ‘Why aren’t we giving those people a voice?’ ‘Vicky Featherstone says in an interview with the Independent, the link for which is below. ”What if you want to be a playwright in your 80′s, why can’t you be?”

Frankly, if this is what Vicky Featherstone has in store for the Court under her new directorship, things are looking up indeed…

For years I worked with Jonathan Meth and Sarah Dickenson of (now, sadly defunct) writernet - and we constantly challenged the notion that new = young. Although pretty youthful myself at the time, I was still painfully aware of the disparity in opportunity offered to the beginner performance writer, which revolved around how many years (or, rather how few) any scribbler had been on the planet. It seemed for a while that those who were rich in elastin but poor in life experience had a monopoly on any call for script development, when the hungry, eager 25 year olds (and god help the 45 plus year olds) were consigned to the scrapheap. New writing meant young in age writers. No wonder we began to introduce those clunky, worthy terms ‘young in career’, ‘emerging writers’ and so on, to try and counter the endemic ageism within the profession.

For years everyone wanted ‘the new’, which meant ‘the young’, which also seemed to mean ‘the first’.  I was in my mid-20′s when I co-won The Peggy Ramsay Award for my first London production, Yard, at the Bush. I’d been writing for many years, with several BBC radio plays broadcast, two international productions, a handful of scripts produced for young audiences, and a solo presented at the Royal Court Upstairs as part of the Young Writers Festival. Despite all this hard work and experience, in the press I was still described  as ‘new, young writer wins award with her first play.’ It was clear that my long apprenticeship and years of self-sufficiency didn’t live up to the myth, the story so often paraded in our media: the overnight success; the ‘discovery’; the untutored ingenue, the young ‘natural’…

I’m sure these stories will continue – and some of them may indeed be true. I have no problem with precocious talent, and I celebrate creativity and success whatever the age. What became so wearing, especially having been one of those ‘prodigies’ bandied about myself, was it seemed to be the only story. Young in age practitioners seemed to be the only ones wanted.

I think the monopoly of youth-orientated workshops, opportunities, and development programmes may be weakening. We have had an explosion in fee-paying courses (and not just those in higher and further education and the original writers centres like Arvon and Ty Newydd, but now the Faber Academy, and the Guardian masterclasses, etc….) and it is often those who have been around a while who can afford to develop themselves. At some workshops I gave in the South West recently, the 50 plus writer was as evident as the under 25 – which personally, I think is fabulous. For years I’ve seen new plays which sparkle with potential but are sometimes thin on content. On more than a few occasions I’ve gone away thinking ‘that playwright will be really interesting in about ten years when they’ve got something to write about.’

So what might octogenarian first time playwrights write – and in what form? I hope it’s edgy and experimental – which are not exclusive to youth (our own Caryl Churchill is, after all, 74 years young). I can’t wait.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/bright-octogenarian-playwrights-wanted-royal-court-seeks-new-talent-among-over-80s-8580738.html