Authors on Adaptations by Gillian Hamer

With this issue’s theme of Adaptation, we look back to some of the Words with JAM interviewees whose work has been adapted for stage or screen. We’ve talked about writing computer games; discussed scriptwriting with producers faced with the challenge of adapting a novel into movie format, and delved into the minds of authors who have had to be cajoled to release the rights to their books.

Here is a selection of replies from both sides of the fence

MICHAEL MORPURGO (AUTHOR OF WAR HORSE, ADAPTED INTO FILM & THEATRE)

How were you first approached about the theatre and cinema adaptations of War Horse? Which idea came first and what were your initial thoughts/fears?

I was first approached via my agent by the National Theatre. It was the director Tom Morris’ mother who originally discovered my book and urged him to read War Horse. I was sceptical at first. I wondered how on earth a convincing drama of the First World War could be made using life-size puppets of horses? For the film, it was Kathleen Kennedy’s producer of films such as ET and Schindler’s List who came to see the National Theatre production of War Horse with her daughter on a visit to London. She was so entranced by the play that she immediately called Spielberg and suggested that War Horse might be worth a read for his next film and that he should come over and see the play too.

Did you ever have any concerns about how Joey’s story could effectively be told via confines of the theatre stage?

I did have fears initially, but I trusted Tom Morris and Marianne Elliott implicitly. They work-shopped the story with Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler from Handspring and the rest of the team – designers, musicians, writers, to explore how it could be done. They came down to Devon where I live to see the landscape of the story, to watch horses working the land. There were some tense moments during the Previews when it was obvious that the play was too long, even clumsy in places, but in the end they got it together somehow. Press night was a triumph.

MARK BILLINGHAM (AUTHOR OF THE DI TOM THORNE BOOKS, ADAPTED FOR TV.)

How much of yourself did you write into your lead character, and is it therefore odd watching the role on television?

I never really believe writers who deny that there is anything of themselves in their characters. There is a lot of me in Thorne, but by the time that was reflected through the prism of the script and David’s performance it did not feel at all like I was seeing aspects of myself. Thorne probably has characteristics that I WISH I had...

With SKY recently showing the first Tom Thorne series, and a second series underway, how much involvement do you have in the actual TV production? Would your choice be for more or less?

I was always of the “keep a wide berth” school, until we made Thorne and having been so closely involved, that is the way I would want to carry on. I enjoyed being involved in casting, seeing scripts at every stage, watching rushes every day and visiting the set. There’s a point at which the writer needs to back off, obviously, but I certainly want to be as involved on any future productions.

You’re quoted as saying there has to be changes in bringing the books to screen. How do you feel TV as a medium handles complex plots and storylines in crime fiction such as yours, and what do you consider the pluses and minuses in this regard?

Where we were lucky with Thorne is that we were given three episodes per novel. That’s more than two hours of screen time to tell the story. I think trying to adapt a crime novel in less time than that inevitably involves an over-condensation of the plot. Sometimes it’s necessary for the central character to make almost superhuman leaps of deduction because there simply isn’t time to show the basic detective work. Obviously there are sub-plots and minor characters that have to go, but I want to see the work that goes into it. I’m not interested in a simple series of set-pieces interspersed with the detective brooding at home and coming up with the solution supernaturally.


DAVID HEWSON (AUTHOR OF THE KILLING NOVEL, ADAPTED FROM THE DANISH TV SERIES)

You’re already a successful author in your own right, so how were you first approached about writing the novel version of the screen story of The Killing?
There was a huge international auction for the book rights. My publisher Pan Macmillan wanted to win and came beforehand to ask me if I’d write. They’d had an internal discussion about who to approach and I was top of the list on the back of experience in foreign locations and writing strong female leads.

How do you go about translating over twenty hours of small screen drama into a normal length novel?

In a very organized way. I went to Copenhagen, talked to Søren Sveistrup the series creator, visited locations, got to know a little of the city. Then I wrote a synopsis of every scene – more than 600 of them – as a kind of massive treatment. That came to 260K words. I then tried to understand the story structure. After that I worked on a prose style. When all those things were in place I could start writing.

How much of a free rein were you given in writing the novel? And how much involvement was there with Soren Sveistrup (the mastermind behind the television series)?

Completely free rein within reason. That was one of the conditions of the deal. I knew there would have to be changes in an adaptation and said so from the outset. Fortunately Søren was incredibly supportive and said very vocally, ‘I want this to be your book.’ He was great help in explaining some ideas and answering some questions but he wasn’t involved in the writing or publishing. He’s been tied up producing the third series of The Killing throughout the whole time I’ve written both Killing books – which shows how different TV is to literature.


JOANNE HARRIS (AUTHOR OF CHOCOLAT, ADAPTED INTO FILM.)

I read that you didn’t like all of the changes made in the film version of the story, what in particular did you feel strongly about?

I tried to persuade Miramax that it wasn’t necessary to change my lead character from a priest to a mayor: it alters the dynamic of the story and dilutes the meaning. But I guess they thought Middle America wasn’t ready for a priest to be the bad guy…

Is it true when writing the novel you’d always dreamed of Juliette Binoche in the lead role? How did you feel when you heard that had become a reality?

I’d tried to suggest her before they started casting, because I thought she was a perfect fit, both physically and temperamentally. For a long time Miramax ignored me, and then Juliette, who had read the book, heard they were casting and asked for the part. It was great to hear that they’d chosen her (though I doubt I had much influence over their decision); it gave the film a much more European flavour, and shaped it into something much closer to the original book (two of the other actresses they’d considered were Whoopi Goldberg and Gwyneth Paltrow).

It’s probably a writer’s dream to have a cast that includes not only Binoche, but Judi Dench and Johnny Depp! What did you think when you saw the characters on screen?
It was a terrific cast. Not everyone was as I’d imagined them - everyone needs to make the part their own in a movie – but there were so many wonderful actors in CHOCOLAT. I was so moved to see Judi Dench playing Armande (a character based on my great-grandmother); and Alfred Molina really managed to make Reynaud come to life…


TESS GERRITSEN (AUTHOR OF RIZZOLI & ISLES, ADAPTED INTO US TV SERIES)

How were you first approached about the television adaptation of Rizzoli & Isles for the TNT Network in the US?

I got an option offer from a producer named Bill Haber, who had been reading the books for years and had loved the characters of Jane and Maura. As he told me over the phone "I love your girls and I think they belong on television." He focused straight away on character, not on the crime stories themselves. He thought the concept of female crime-fighting partners was something no one else on TV was doing. Not since "Cagney and Lacey" 30-some years ago have we seen female partners.

What were your initial thoughts? Or fears?

I was pretty pessimistic about the project ever coming to fruition. I've had a number of books either optioned or sold outright, and nothing ever came of it; I assumed this deal would hit a dead end, like all the others. I signed the option contract, cashed the check, and forgot about it. It's the only way to stay sane when you deal with Hollywood. Don't ever get your hopes up.


ANN CLEEVES ( AUTHOR OF NOVELS VERA & SHETLAND, BOTH ADAPTED FOR TV )

Setting plays a huge part in your books, Northumberland in particular in Vera. How do you think the sense of place comes across on TV compared to your books?

I think that’s one of the things that the adaptation does brilliantly. Each of the films had a different director, but they’ve all captured the space and the variety of the landscapes in North East England. So of course we have the hills and the coast, but they also show the post-industrial areas along the Tyne and in South East Northumberland and they look stunning too.

The brilliant Brenda Blethyn plays the lead character in the TV series, how do you feel her portrayal mirrors the character in your head?

Brenda doesn’t look like the Vera I created. My Vera is bigger and even scruffier. But Brenda absolutely captures Vera’s spirit – her wit and defiance and commitment. And when I’m writing dialogue I hear Brenda’s voice in my head.

With ITV currently filming the second series of Vera, how much involvement do you have in the actual TV production? Would your choice be for more or less?

I’ve been very fortunate and feel very much a part of the team. It’s become a tradition that we bring scriptwriters up to the region to give them a sense of the landscape, its stories and its possibilities. I get invited to the read-throughs, see the scripts in advance and I’m made welcome when I go on set. I have no contractual influence though, and I wouldn’t want that. It’s a different medium and I’m happy to leave it to the experts.


CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS ( AUTHOR OF THE SLAP)

Changing your work for another medium intrigues me. Can you explain how you worked with the screenwriters on the television adaptation of The Slap?

The model we took was from HBO. As someone who grew up with cinema, it’s actually television which has been the most out there in the last 10-15 years. I’m talking about the Anglophone world, of course; Mad Men, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos. We got as many people as possible involved in the creative writing process to discuss how the story worked, how narrative works, how characters work and I found that collaborative process really exciting. As a novelist, you work often in isolation. We worked Monday to Friday for a fortnight, separated for a three-week period and came back together.

Some writers find the process of collaboration more frustrating than exciting, because you’re not in full control of the decisions made.
But I’d done it before when working in theatre. Although I’d been going to the cinema two, three times a week since I was this high (indicates his knee), I came to theatre later in life. So getting involved in writing for the stage, I really had to think hard about the writing process. I learnt a lot from rehearsals and working with actors. I’m not scared of that process, but I can’t imagine a collaborative novel. Working that way, I would bite someone’s head off. But in other media, I enjoy it. You’ve got more freedom for collaboration in television. It’s not bound to the auteur, in the way that film is. At least in Australia. There the auteur still rules.


HELEN FITZGERALD, AUTHOR

You’ve had your work adapted for screen. What do you see as the positive parts of the experience and which bits piss you off?

I’m getting better and that is a result of learning from adaptations. How to pare things down, how to think things through. The downside is creativity by committee. It takes years to develop a script and each new person who comes aboard has a new take. I’m not precious, far from it. My problem was being far too much of a yes-woman. I was easily persuaded into changes by people I saw as experts.

And I’m guessing the writer has very little influence.

Absolutely the bottom of the pile. That’s why I prefer to write novels. But the process has helped me to think about my books more as a film. This is Act One, and this is Act Two and so on.



JANE GOLDMAN, SCREENWRITER, PRODUCER, AUTHOR

Do you have a system when writing an adaptation of a book? Where do you start with something like The Woman In Black?
First, you have to make it movie-shaped. The form of a book is so different, so you have to find the spirit of the story and find a cinematic structure to suit. That probably takes me around three weeks to develop. Then you have to look at how to bring out character on screen. In books, a character can have a whole internal monologue, but on screen, that has to come across by putting them in different positions to reveal themselves.


DANIEL MARTIN ECKHART, SCREEN WRITER

Where do start when adapting a novel?

By reading it as a reader. Then read it again and find those instant connections. If those strong connections aren’t there, I’m the wrong writer for the project. I was once asked to adapt a crime story about a missing body, but the thing that jumped out at me was a minor character, a child kept in chains. That was the story I wanted to write.


NAOMI ALDERMAN, AUTHOR, PRESENTER, GAME WRITER

How did you get into writing for games?

It's a long story, which boils down to "I mentioned the right thing to the right person at the right time". A friend had heard about a game that was going to be "the modern-day Masquerade". I mentioned to this friend that I was obsessed with the book Masquerade. He put us in touch, it all came from there.

Why do you think interactive games receive so little media coverage, unless it's negative?

I think we suffer from neophobia, the fear of the new. When videogames are older, we'll all feel less frightened of them and more understanding of their place in culture.


DAVID MITCHELL (AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS)

What about your relationship with (producers) the Wachowskis and Tykwer? How much involvement did you have?
Almost none. The desire for my approval for an early form of the script I do believe was genuine. We met in Cork, and that’s when they discussed foregrounding the reincarnational theme by having the same actor play different ethnicities and genders at points in time. Which you can only do in film. You can’t have actors’ faces in books.

You were happy with that?

Absolutely. John le Carré, speaking about the film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, said what I wanted to say. The biggest compliment you can pay is to take the book and interpret it your way. What’s the point in making an audiobook with moving pictures? I want it to be disassembled and reassembled. And they’ve altered some plot lines, to make the Tom Hanks/Halle Berry relationship evolve over time, and that’s fine. It has its own, pure internal logic. It was very hard for the Wachowskis and Tykwer, but my first Hollywood experience has been unusually lucky. They really are artists. With people like that, it’s an honour to be adapted.


Extracts from interviews by Gillian Hamer and JJ Marsh

SCRIPTS: The Art of Adapting by Ola Zaltin

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… A young student at the University of Lund, Sweden, was browsing for course literature - history of ideas, if you must know - when he kind of maybe perhaps possibly just by chance stumbled into the film section of the academic bookstore.

The book that caught his eye was a paperback by a chap called Syd Field and the title was “Screenplay”. In my defence, I did buy the study literature as well, but to be honest I didn’t really read it. What I read was Field’s how-to-write a screenplay guide, laid out in easy beats. I was hooked. It didn’t take long before Field’s “The screenwriter’s workbook” and “Selling a screenplay: The Screenwriter’s guide to Hollywood” (seductive title, that) and Linda Seger’s “The Art of Adaptation” began easing out the works of Heidegger, Spinoza and Arndt on my bookshelf. Academic studies went to shit, nights were spent reading about how to tell a story for the screen.

Film had always been there via my father who was a professor in sciences but a true romantic and arts lover, who took us kids to exhibitions of Monet (okay shit), Operas (Carmen being my fav) and Kurosawa films (yay!). It was The Seven Samurai that had me at hello - where I lost it at the movies, as it were. I saw it in a dingy “arthouse” (read: shithouse) cinema in Copenhagen in or about circa 1982. It was - of course - all in Japanese, and the subtitles in Danish; a language I did not well master in those days. But looking back now, I realize I got the whole damn story blow by blow. Because it’s so extremely well-acted and told dramatically in a visual way that you cannot but get the gist of the story.

Inspired by Seger’s book about adaptation, I set to work adapting my favourite novel of the time (and to this day, on my top five list) Martin Amis’ “Money - a suicide note”. I had already read it twice in Swedish, and then thrice in English. Now I set about the task of notating - with three different coloured marker pens - the pieces that I wanted to visually tell in a screenplay: the descriptive parts, the dialogue parts and the - I-don’t-know-what-parts. This was 25 years ago. I just remember marking up the novel with three different coloured markers. It’s still standing here beside me on the bookshelf. I’ve read it at least three times since.

Short of the long: I ended up with a big fat pile of pages; I believe something like 350 pages thick, with what amounted to a chronological telling of events and dialogue lifted pretty much verbatim from the novel (choice cuts, naturally) and then adding a few words here and there at the beginning and the end. I was way too much in awe of Mr. Amis’ text at the time (still am) to dare really work it, knead it, challenge it.

However, I was on my path to becoming a screenwriter - or so I thought. In the end, all those readings and re-readings and late nights hacking away at a prehistoric laptop where I had to do all the darn formatting myself (as opposed to today when MovieMagicScreenwriter formats it as I go along) kind of maybe pretty much paid off.

When applying for the Danish Film School, I used the script (amongst other texts) to fake myself into their prestigious screenwriting programme, then headed by the inestimable Mogens Rukov of later fame. 

So adaptation is where I began, but that’s not the topic of this particular sermon. I’d like to try and share with you some of my experiences of screenwriting, which is a very collaborative process, and in the end, the true art of adapting.

See, all stories start in some odd place of your brain. A fragment, an image, a smell; whatchamacallit - something, somewhere tickles your story-telling nerve and sets in process a story told by you and no one else could tell that particular story. That’s the beauty of it: if you latch on to a story of your own design, it’s yours and yours alone.

Until the moment you share it with someone else. From that moment on, you go down a beautiful, lovely, inspiring and horrendous nightmarish path to hell. Because from then on, your story is not your own - you share it, with producers, directors, money men, TV-station bosses, wives, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, town car drivers and their brood. 

As the “originator” (as Richard Price once beautifully termed it) you are, to some extent the king of control, the master of your domain. That is until you show your text to someone else in the TV/film business.

Now, there are, to my mind, two things about this: one good, one bad. One inspiring, one tough. The first one (let’s start with the good news) is that someone, some place out there, likes your text. Yay! The second one is, this person (company, agent, person of interest, devil spawn,  gremlin) will after that first back-slapping session of camaraderie, closeness, friendship and brotherhood - say something along the lines of: HOWEVER.

When the sentence begins with HOWEVER, or BUT, or something similar - you know this is when the dance begins in earnest. This is merde creek sans les paddles.

This is where the art of adaptation begins. Not adaptation from one media to the other - but the art of adapting to other people. You have proven yourself a pages person, now you have to jump in and become a people person.

There really aren’t many how-to books about this part of the process. (If there were, they’d be called something like “Run to the hills” if that title wasn’t already taken by Iron Maiden.) Because now, after having dreamt your beautiful little dream and typed it out, printed it and shared it with the world at large - now comes an army of very well informed, very wise, very full of talk and very powerful people that want to tell you just exactly is WRONG with your text. To name but a few, there’ll be the director and his agent, the directors’ girlfriend or boyfriend (most often both), your agent, the producer, his pooch and the team of story editors he’s brought along, the DP and his little kingdom of serfs. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when the town car driver starts commenting on the latest draft.

When you step out of same said car, take the elevator up to hell and enter an “informal meeting” you realize - much to your disbelief - that there are product placement people, franchise agents, TV-station underbosses, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, story editors, storyliners, in-house scriptwriters and men in dark shades and black suits standing against the wall with their hands clasped in front of them and you really don’t want to know who they are. Seriously.

This is when you know you’re about to be right royally done over. Because these people, or the people they are associated with (don’t ask) have bought your text. So now you’re just a little pilot fish hanging on the great white that was formerly known as your screenplay. And you’re not going to be able to hang on for long.

This bastard - this thing of your creation - has suddenly attained a life of its own. It’s ALIVE! And it’s out to kill you.

*

Yeah okay so I got a bit carried away there. I’ve experienced the above, but I’ve also experienced great rides of inspiring collaboration and fun adapting. Some of them have developed into life-long friendships.  It’s a struggle bringing stories to the screen, but you have to trust your collaborators, their enthusiasm, their drive and their passion. I once wrote down three basic collaborative rules (and strange enough - they have now become framed at Norwegian state TV).

They are, as follows:

1. Every morning, come with a story to the table. It doesn’t have to be funny, or good, or dramatic or whatever. Just come with a story. A little anecdote; an observation. Story-telling is a muscle that needs exercise. Train that muscle. Come with a positive to the table every day.

2. Never say no. This is harder than it sounds. It means: if you’re listening to someone else saying something really off or silly or down right stupid: your gut reaction will be to say: No. Stop it. That’s just not funny, smart, sad, good, (take your pick). BUT - here comes the but - but instead say, ‘Hrm. Interesting. But what if…” The what if is key here. Because what you’re doing is not putting up a big red light of non-communication: you’re actually keeping the ball in play. “Hrm, cool. But what if…” and you keep the conversation, the process of developing, in motion.

3. Never shut your mouth. This is an old one, but it can’t be stressed enough. Think out loud. Embarrass yourself, embarrass people around you, quack away. For short: don’t be afraid. It’s all about keeping the creative juices flowing, of laughing, of crying, of telling and thinking of what matters the most to you in your life - the most painful and the most humorous, preferably mixed up in one great joke (see nr 1).

So, yeah. The art of adapting is not really taught at film schools or in books. You have to jump in there and swim. Some people are better at this than others. I think, in the end, we all take a toll. Because you go in there and smile and you’re wide open and you want to be liked, you want your text to swim, to get along with the others - and you go home drained and tired and there’s Jack on the kitchen sink and such.

You come home and you have a buzz because people like your text and they want to pay you money for it, but then you’re alone and spent and there’s a notebook full of panicky scribbles written whilst keeping a calm face on the 32nd floor with those goombas lined up along the wall (jeepers creepers who are these guys!?) and there’s pills and there’s Jack and good night and good luck.

The art of adapting is a great challenge, if you have the mettle. I dream of a world where I am a novelist and only have to interact with a sexy agent or a lovely editor about two times a year over lunch. This, however, is just a fantasy. I actually love the grind: the immense seclusion and insane interaction of screenwriting.

Beats working.

On Watching a Re-run of Taggart, a poem by Jane Seabourne

…no, no, no: the killer was the dark-haired man,

the one with shifty eyes and massive hands,

who came back from the oil-rigs where he worked

and found out that his wife was knocking off

the hypnotherapist we first saw in Part One –

the one who kept a parrot in his lounge,

and somehow knew the drummer with the limp.

And it was him – the one with shifty eyes –

and not the parrot-loving hypnotherapist –

who killed the drummer in the nightclub’s loo

because the woman from the butcher’s shop

had given his description to Blythe Duff

(a very young PC when this was made)

and the po-lis made a photo-fit which

the drummer knew would give the game away

because she must have seen him – not Blythe Duff,

the gormless woman from the butcher’s shop

– when she went round to the haggis-boiler’s house –

the one she met at work and took a fancy to.

We saw him in the opening scene, sawing up

the missing teacher in a bath

before distributing the body parts round Glasgow.

And it was she – the missing teacher not

the love-struck woman from the butcher’s shop –

who sold the drugs that killed the daughter of

the dark-haired, shifty, oil-rig man, whose wife

was knocking off the hypnotherapist

we first saw in Part One.

I might have skipped a bit,

but I think that’s about the gist of it,

now, whose turn is it to put the kettle on…

Flash 500 Humour Verse Winning Poem Fourth Quarter 2013

For information on Flash 500 competitions, visit the Flash 500 website: www.flash500.com 

Pauline's Peculiar Predicament, a short story by Anthony Farmer

Pauline, perched primly at a table in Pandora’s Pantry perusing the menu with her secret paramour Peregrine Pargetter. She didn’t love him though she liked the odd glass of Pinot but she was no potomaniac. Pauline loved presents of pearls and put up with the well-practiced performance in the back seat of Peregrine’s pretentious Peugeot parked in a puddled parking place somewhere in Peckham. He pursued her in private and was particularly persuasive. She, in public particularly prudish, but in private a passionate Pussycat with a propensity for peculiar. Peregrine prattled on about his parents plan for a pre-retirement party at their pretentious pad in Portugal.

‘Please place your order, madam,’ proposed a waiter like a policeman on point duty, pen poised, pad in palm.

‘Perhaps the pate, then,’ she paused, ‘pullet or pork? No, partridge please,’ adding, ‘perhaps a Pinot Grigio and Perrier with my partridge?’

Peregrine, a partner in pensions, was more positive. ‘Mine’s prawns,’ he pronounced, ‘in the parcel of pastry, then pork and Provencal Palette.’

He passed the menu to the patient waiter.

Peregrine placed his palm on her pale wrist. She pursed her perfect lips and blew him a kiss. He wasn’t in love with her. Peregrine, too parsimonious to pursue a permanent partnership, played his part with prudence.

She had a husbandly partner with a pad in Putney. Pauline, with a pretty face and penetrating eyes, had a penchant for pearls. She dressed in pencil thin skirts, tailored pastel or paisley jackets and patent leather heels from Prada; all put together properly. She preferred the possibility of a more permanent prospect and at present played hard to get. After all, her partner Peter Piper is a prospective Parliamentary prospect for Pease Pottage.

The waiter appeared and placed the prawn and the pate in position on the placemats. Pauline pecked at her pate while Peregrine pursued his prey around his plate and was near to finishing when he noticed his paramour’s paralysis and unusually pale complexion. Following her piercing gaze, he picked up her peculiar predicament.

Pandering to a pair of pensioners, the waiter noticed Peregrine’s precipitous pitch. Peregrine had begun to slide down his chair with the precise actions of someone plunging down a precipice until he disappeared under the table. Pauline was unperturbed and continued to peck her partridge like a pigeon. In a pair of purposeful paces the puzzled waiter was at her table.

‘Please, madam, permit me to point out that your husband has plunged from his perch and now lies prone beneath the table.’

She looked up and pronounced: ‘Young man, I applaud your perspicacity and professional propriety. This is not my husband,’ she pauses and points under the table and pauses again. ‘My husband has just walked in.’

Flash 500 Winning Story Fourth Quarter 2013

For information on Flash 500 competitions, visit the Flash 500 website: www.flash500.com 

Damee Kim. Red Pig Flower and the Art of Maturing Gracefully

Walls. They’re everywhere. China has one you can see from space; Germany has one that’s largely symbolic now, and the Romans built one that stretched from coast to coast across northern Britain to keep the Scots out. Israel is building one five hundred miles long even as I write this. Walls are ancient and modern. If you look out of your window, the chances are that you’ll see a wall, or maybe several. We’re grateful for them, they keep the enemy at bay, they define our territory and make us feel safe, secure.

But at the same time, walls limit us; they trap, prevent, imprison, incarcerate. They stop us from seeing things; they rein in our imaginations by blocking the view. In the end, our imaginations come full circle and the walls are there for us to draw on, thereby setting off a dichotomy of meaning. Walls hem us in, like Dante’s circles of Hell, but at the same time they provide us with blank surfaces on which to vent our imagination, our longing and our dreams.

Damee Kim builds walls on canvas, and when she took such a huge, multi-layered subject for her first UK

show it was a sign of great courage. It proves she has an old head on young shoulders, a contemporary understanding of the age-old duality of walls. Taking inspiration from such diverse wellsprings as ancient history and Disney movies, Damee shows us the playful, the symbolic and the decorative aspect of walls, all rolled into one and painted red, the colour of life, of blood, of danger. Her art emerges from the early notions of surrealism, to make limitless dreamscapes become real. “Choose plastic flowers,” Damee says, “they are eternal and infinite”. These eternal and infinite spaces, the ones that can be constrained and enclosed by no wall, seem to force her to construct her own claustrophobic world, reflecting her background and familial influence.

Born in Seoul, she says “I grew up with my grandmother until I was seven. She gave me the space to dream in.” This early contrasting sense of limitless protection still influences her work today. Her interests originally lay in communication, and she completed a BA in Mass Communication at Chung-Ang University in Seoul in 2009 before moving to Japan. “In Tokyo I felt reborn. What I felt for the country of my birth had become something approaching phobia.” Taking inspiration from Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese installation artist and avant garde graduate of Warhol’s sixties Factory, Damee soon came to realize her talents for expression and communication belonged in the artistic world. Re-awakened to the schools of art that inspired Yoko Ono, she is now nearing the end of a degree in fine art at Central St Martins in London, where she will graduate at the end of the 2013/14 academic year. At the same time, under the pseudonym of Red Pig Flower, she is a DJ of growing stature, taking remixes in tribal beats from Tokyo, London and Berlin, where she has performed as DJ at the Golden Gate club. Damee also had a summer residency at the Überraschung Gallery in Berlin

In January this year, her Red Wall exhibition featured at London’s Hackney Picture House. The faces, cartoon-like and innocent, give way to crenellations, battlements almost, that loomed above them, the red spreading to provoke a blood-like, womb-like reaction in the viewer. The womb is a wall, too, a piece of symbolism that isn’t lost on Damee. “Black is different to dark. Dark contains light within it, as abstract contains concrete imagery.” The faces blend to walls, as if symbolising the act of growing up, the act of maturing into the comprehension that life has limits, self imposed or superimposed by other outside forces. Here is claustrophobia personified, the faces that merge to abstract, becoming blurred and lost, losing themselves in the colours of blood and danger as they grow into the castles we all construct within the soul.

The Red Wall exhibition was a success. It helped raise Damee’s profile on the local art scene, and her pictures are now fetching higher and higher prices. Her reputation as DJ is growing along with a maturing artistic outlook which, inspired as it is by Japan and the Warhol Factory, will never grow too old. After her residency in Berlin has ended, Damee intends to return to London for more exhibitions and live events. Her profile, her art and her interests and inspirations can be seen on her website at www.redpigflower.com which details the Hackney Red Wall exhibition as well as many other projects and links to her other interests and the websites of her contemporaries.

In choosing Red Pig Flower as her alias, Damee explores symbolic meanings. “Red means reality; blood, sunsets, cherries, danger. The pig stands for desire; an animal known for its greed and ugliness — an animal which nonetheless possesses more intelligence than a dog, a fact that is often overlooked simply because the pig is good to eat. And flowers are a dream of idealistic beauty.” These three symbols clash and mix in equal measure, meaning that any resulting work will be a vivid and unforgettable experience. Her website lists all her projects, and includes her biography. Take a look. Damee Kim, Red Pig Flower; whatever she chooses to call herself, she’ll lead you into pastures new and leave you marveling at the world viewed through her eyes, a place where Kasuma Yayoi meets Alice in Wonderland, where Dante meets Disney; a place where anything can happen…

Perry Iles, March 2014

60 Seconds with Francis Guenette

Francis Guenette has spent most of her life on the west coast of British Columbia. She lives with her husband and finds inspiration for writing in the beauty and drama of their lakeshore cabin and garden. She has a graduate degree in Counselling Psychology from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She has worked as an educator, trauma counsellor and researcher. The Light Never Lies is her second novel. 
Francis blogs over at  http://disappearinginplainsight.com and maintains a Facebook author page. Please stop by and say hello.

Which work most influenced you when growing up?

What influenced me the most was being encouraged to read widely across multiple genres and age-appropriate levels. Of course that resulted in more than few unpleasant experiences – the cover of A Night to Remember, the sinking of the Titanic, still makes me shiver. By and large, my imagination was set free and I learned early what constituted a good read – well-developed characters who manage to learn something of value by the end of the book.

Where do you write?

I used to write exclusively at the kitchen table. I loved to spread out my laptop, notes, timelines and sketches, all within easy reach. Due to household unrest about the struggle to clear a spot to eat at the table, I have recently moved to a converted office space open to the living room. I have two desks that sit kitty-corner to one another and I never have to move or clear away my stuff. It’s nice to be able to eat at the kitchen table again but, I must say, I still long for the days of writing there.

Who or what had the biggest impact on your creative life?

My mother. She set an ongoing example, early in my life, by being a woman who wrote stories and she introduced all her children to the joys of reading. I have quite wonderful memories of myself and my siblings tucked into our bunk beds while my mom sat on a chair in the middle of the room, reading. These bedtime stories spanned everything from Tarzan of the Apes, to The Jungle Book, to the short stories by Edgar Allen Poe.

How far are you influenced by other media, such as music or fine art?

I am influenced by the way music can elicit emotion. Some of the characters in my books are young adults. By listening to music that was popular when I was young, I tap into how I used to feel about love and loss and life. I also play today’s popular music so I can relate that emotion to present day realities in young people’s lives.

Do you have a phrase that you most overuse?

I drastically overuse certain words that start out phrases, especially in dialogue. Words like well, so, and just are sprinkled far too liberally into my characters’ speech. My editor has been instrumental in helping me find the balance between how I hear a character’s voice and what flows best on the written page.

Which writers do you enjoy?

Being Canadian, I am a huge fan of Canadian novelists who manage to write about this vast country in ways that makes the geographical settings come alive. Alistair MacLeod for his weep-worthy descriptions of Cape Breton, Wayne Johnston for bringing the landscape of Newfoundland to life, Jane Urquhart for her vivid portrayal of rural Ontario, Elizabeth Hay for writing the northern regions of Canada with haunting beauty, Eden Robinson for her mysterious depiction of the Pacific west coast, and Joseph Boyden for heartbreaking prose that juxtaposes wild lands with bitter realities.

Why do you write?

A story worked its way out of me and it had to be told. Once the door was open, more stories came.

What makes you laugh?

My two preschool granddaughters make me laugh on a daily basis. I find the way they approach their world to be both fascinating and endlessly hilarious.

Do you have a guilty reading pleasure?

DragonLance books – the original ones by Weiss and Hickman. I have them all and could go back and read them again and again.

Which book do you wish you’d written?

I wish I had written some of Phillipa Gregory’s books. I am in awe of authors who write historical novels. To do the research necessary to bring another era to life is quite daunting. It’s enough work to set a novel in the here and now. Gregory’s take on women’s history is highly readable and endlessly intriguing.

Which book has impressed you most this year?

Linden MacIntyre’s recent book – Why Men Lie. The book stayed with me long after I had put it away on the shelf. MacIntyre is a journalist on the award-winning CBC show, The Fifth Estate. His investigative skills serve him well as a novelist – his stories make for compelling reading.

Would you share what you’re working on next?

A book of short stories that combine my own work with stories I have edited from my mother’s vast collection of unpublished work and the third novel in the Crater Lake Series – Chasing Down the Night.



Which cocktail best represents your personality?

A lime Margarita. A little bit tangy and sharp, salty but also sweet, intoxicating if you drink too many of them and then stand up suddenly.


By JJ Marsh – author, reader, Triskelite, journalist, Nuancer, reviewer and blogger. Likes: pugs, Werner Herzog and anchovies. Dislikes: meat, chocolate and first drafts. 

In Perspective - London Author Fair 2014

by Catriona Troth

The first time I attended the London Book Fair, in 2011, I sat literally at the feet of Gareth Howard of Authoright, in the tiny space designated as an Author Lounge. His audience far exceeded the handful of cuboid pouffes that furnished the Lounge and the rest of us sat cross-legged, gazing up at him like kiddies at story time.

The following year, the Author Lounge was a little bigger, but demand was growing faster than space. By the first day of LBF 2013, every talk was packed to bursting and eager authors were crowding the aisles of the Fair’s Digital Zone, trying to catch the words of wisdom as they fell. By Day Two, the Fair’s organisers had called security to ensure the walkways were kept clear and the cry was going up from every corner:

Little Luxuries

“We’re going to need a considerably bigger lounge!”

Well, Authoright tried, but when it became clear that the Author Lounge (which they sponsor) was not going to be allocated any additional space in 2014, they took matters into their own hands. The result was the first ever London Author Fair, which took place on 28th February 2014 in Covent Garden’s Hospital Club. On a cold, wet, windy day it was a delight to be able to check coats on arrival rather than having to lug them around for the rest of the day. Goody bags included tokens for two free coffees. Lunch, provided in elegant black cardboard boxes, included a potato salad with quails eggs and a lemon panacotta.

I suspect some of those attending would have foregone a few of these luxuries for the sake of a cheaper entry price. But what none of us would have foregone was first of all the space we were allotted and secondly the flexibility and responsiveness of the organisation.

The lecture room where the seminars were held comfortably seated at least 200. There always seemed to be somewhere to sit down when your feet grew weary. And when, after the first hour, it became apparent that the space for the workshops was oversubscribed and the groups were competing with each other to be heard, matters were smoothly and efficiently rearranged.

Space that put authors at the centre of things

The variety of talks and workshops was impressive too. They ranged from Dan Holloway running a workshop on performance poetry and artistic collaboration to a panel entitled: ‘Agents of Change: the evolution of the literary agent.’ Many of the speakers hung around for a good proportion of the day, mingling and chatting with the attendees, which contributed to the feeling that the audience were being treated on equal terms.

One end of the gallery, where the coffee bar was located, was decked out as a Bedouin tent. Here, authors who had booked their places in advance could pitch their books to one of a selection of literary agents via the offices of LitFactor. My sample of those who were making the pitch was small. However, it’s interesting that, on the one hand, all three had previously self-published – but on the other, only one was now actively seeking representation.

Jane Davis, author of Funeral for an Owl and the soon-to-be published, An Unchoreographed Life, felt that the opportunity to pitch it to an agent face-to-face was too good to pass up.

"The experience wasn’t quite as expected. I had nailed my ten-word pitch. I had been told to bring two sets of submissions (letter of enquiry, synopsis and first three chapters), one for the agent and one for myself. The suggestion was that the agent would critique the work there and then. In fact, I was asked to use the full 15 minutes to describe my book. The agent really wanted to see how I would sell the concept and my passion for the subject-matter.”

So did she feel it was worthwhile? “Absolutely. To have an agent wanting to jump to the end and asking with real concern, 'But what happens to Belinda?' made it worthwhile. She also assured me that the concept for my novel was commercially viable, which is great news.”

Rheagan Greene had crafted every aspect of her Samurai Revival Trilogy, teaching herself everything from file formatting and type setting to cover design. But having proved to herself she could do it, she now wanted to get back to focusing on the writing.

“Agents make themselves so inaccessible it seemed like an opportunity which should not be missed. I had the impression my agent was not in 'buying' mode for the sort of books I was pitching – a risk given one had to pitch to whoever one was allocated. Also, the agents were probably exhausted after seeing so many people that day (for just 15 minutes each). But even though I didn’t feel I got anywhere, all such experiences are beneficial.”

Rohan Quine was actually using the London Author Fair to launch his novel, The Imagination Thief and a collection of novellas, The Platinum Raven. He admitted that he had chosen to pitch to an agent here, “On a whim, because it was easily available.”

“It was all very straightforward and informal, sitting on a pouffe in a Bedouin tent -- and sometimes sitting on a pouffe in a Bedouin tent is simply the best way forward, literarily. Just a chat between two parties from different contexts, and we'll see if those contexts happen to want to mesh. Either way, an intelligent conversation was had, among many intelligent conversations at the Hospital Club that day.”

The best of the day’s seminars was saved till last. This was ‘The Big Publishing Brainstorm: How can we get to where we want to be in 2020?’ - chaired by the formidable Porter Anderson.

To begin with, each panellist was given exactly 30 seconds to say where they thought the publishing industry would be in 2020, and it was fascinating how diverse opinions were.

Patrick Brown of Goodreads anticipated a rise in ‘social reading.’ Gareth Thomas envisaged a future where there would be “as many authors as readers and authors will be at heart of the industry.” Eileen Gittins from Blurb believes that images are the new lingua franca and that in the future all books will be illustrated.

Andrew Lownie, a literary agent, foresaw yet more consolidation at the top of the industry, that perhaps 20% of authors will be handled by agents and as much as 75% will be self-published. Fellow agent Piers Blofeld didn’t anticipate a massive sea change, but said that what Amazon chose to do would affect everything.

Self-published author, Polly Courtney, made an appeal that readers should be at the heart of the industry. “New developments should be all about connecting us with readers.”

Trade Published author, Adele Parks found much of this vision ‘grim.’ “I worry that we will end up with a lot of short, pretty, crappy books. I hope there will still be a place for great literature.” She was also concerned that, as self-publishing involves an up-front investment, being published could become “a plaything of the rich.”

Courtney countered that authors were “sick of the ‘sink or swim’ mentality from publishers” that had driven so many mid-list authors into self-publishing. There was an agreement that everyone in the industry – authors as much as publishers – were in need of more and better data about how books sell. And there was discussion about different models of selling – such as the Chinese model of buying a chapter at a time on mobile devices.

After much intense debate, there was a sigh of relief when Gareth Howard declared it was ‘drink o’clock’ and we repaired upstairs for a very welcome glass of wine.

So what were my overall impressions of the inaugural London Author Fair?

Here, at last was a space where authors were made to feel welcome and at the centre of things – not like children being told to play quietly while the grown-ups discuss business. The entry price was steep and perhaps some of the luxuries could be trimmed in future to make the event more affordable, but on the whole what was on offer probably represented value for money.

Nevertheless, there were significant disappointments. Although several speakers – Roz Morris, Dan Holloway, Ben Galley – were members of the Alliance of Independent Authors, there was no official representation, which seems a shame when this could have been a perfect opportunity to talk about, say, the Open Up To Indies campaign, or their evaluation of self-publishing service providers.

It was disappointing, too, when the talk on Distribution degenerated into a sales pitch for the likes of Ingram and KDP. Where were the booksellers and the librarians to talk about how books get onto their shelves and how authors can build relationships with them?

Overall, though, this was an immensely positive experience. I hope that whose who attended will give Authoright plenty of feedback that will make the London Author Fair 2015 an even better event.

Catriona Troth is a freelance journalist.  She is the author of the novella, Gift of the Raven, and the novel, Ghost Town and a member of the Triskele Books author collective.