Reviews, Interviews, etc

OK, yes, I admit it. I love the sound - and sight - of my own words. Let's face it, I am a writer after all.

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Albion Interview, July 27th 2007

I was interviewed by Chelsey Flood from Albion Online Magazine - "A biannual, web-based public service magazine dedicated to exploring modern English identity and culture from a liberal and inclusive perspective." The interview covers The Dying of Delight, Novel II, BloggersWithBookDeals and the whole blogging/writing thing. So, pretty much everything really.

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Another Interview with Richard Fair on BBC Radio Manchester, 13th Apr '07

I was interviewed again by Richard Fair on BBC Radio Manchester, after I'd blogged about my recent miscarriage in some detail. Details here.

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Interview with Richard Fair on BBC Radio Manchester, 13th Dec '06

I was interviewed by Richard Fair on BBC Radio Manchester, mainly about blogging. Details here.

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Nerds Gone Wild Interview, November 2006

I was interviewed about my rather peculiar Scrabble habits by a Nice Lady who has now published an article called "Scrabble Geeks and Gramasters" which is partly about me, in Nerds Gone Wild magazine. I'm chuffed about this. It is now official. I AM a nerd.

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Woman's Hour Interview, 1st July 2004

An interview on Woman's Hour with Jenni Murray ("a cross between Valerie Singleton and God" - Chloe Poems) can be heard online here.

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Interview on the Big Chill website

There's a lovely interview here on the Big Chill website - the longest yet!

There's also a copy at the bottom of this page, because I like it and don't want to lose it.

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Review and Interview on the Rainbow Network, June 17th 2004

Charlotte Cooper interviewed me for the Rainbow Network website.

She also wrote a great review of the book, which you can find here.

Clare Sudbery's debut novel The Dying of Delight is not your average run-of-the-mill lesbian potboiler. Instead, the book is a psychedelic, genre-busting read, full of word-play and strangeness. In an exclusive interview with RainbowNetwork the author of this exciting new work talks about the appeal of Nine Ladies, hallucinogenics, and adding up numbers.

In one sentence: what is The Dying of Delight about? Two shady women run headlong towards, and away from, the solar eclipse of 1999 - a momentous collision of Levenshulme, lesbians and LSD.

I love the way you describe yourself as: "a Scrabble fanatic, a trapeze artist, a lesbian, a bisexual, a maths and philosophy graduate, a cleaner, a revolutionary socialist, a gibbering wreck, a vegetarian women-only workers’ co-op member and a meat-eating heterosexual computer programmer." Which one are you today? I'm a revolutionary meat-eating bisexual computer programming Scrabble artist, of course!

Parts of The Dying of Delight are very trippy - what exactly is your relationship with hallucinogenics? It's quite a poignant one. My best ever experiences were on acid and mushrooms; my all-time favourite drugs. Unfortunately they also fuelled (and possibly caused) the worst times in my life, so I haven't touched them for several years now. I probably never will again.

Why did you choose to include the Nine Ladies protest in your book? I wanted somewhere a character could go to hide; where she wouldn't be found. I originally used the runway protest at Manchester Airport, but then I stumbled across Nine Ladies when walking one day in the Peak District. The surrounding countryside is an area I know from my childhood, and the protest itself was so much more peaceful than the airport (because of the lack of planes). The people welcomed me with open arms, and I quickly realised it was the perfect choice.

What's your favourite part of the novel? Can I have two? The part where Silver and her friends are tripping by the sea, and the part where Silver dreams she is bitten by a lion, and then freaks out.

What's next for you? Funnily enough I've just been working today on Novel II, after a few weeks of Dying of Delight promotion. I'm still in the design stage, but I'm very much looking forward to really getting my teeth into it over the coming weeks and months.

Is there anything else you'd like to add? Numbers. I like adding numbers. No really, I do! I also love to add comments to comments to comments when I'm talking, but Sod's law has left me empty-headed when faced with this question. Get me drunk and ask me over a pint of bitter - you'll find you struggle to shut me up.

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Interview for WriteWords.org, June 11th 2004

Interview on the NuPoetics website

NuPoetics are the lovely people who organised the campfire storytelling, which I took part in at the Big Chill's Eastnor festival, '04. They also interviewed me on their website, but I think it's gone now.

So here is what survives from the original email:

Q You've described yourself as "a trapeze artist, a lesbian, a bisexual, a math's and philosophy graduate, a cleaner, a revolutionary socialist, a raver, a shop steward, a gibbering wreck, a vegetarian women-only workers' co-op member and a meat-eating heterosexual computer programmer." You sound like a lady who loves to live! Would your description of your writing match your adventures in life?

I do love to think of life as an adventure, and although I'm less of a rampant hedonist than I used to be, some of my main aims in life are to be happy, not to get bored and to be true to myself. To be honest I rarely get bored, because I'm nearly always juggling several projects at once.

As for whether my description of my writing would match this, I guess it depends what you mean. If you mean my writing style... it is, apparently, energetic. It's astonishing how often the word "energy" or "energetic" has cropped up in reviews of my book - it's in nearly every one. I don't consciously try and write "energetically" though, in fact I'm not entirely sure what people mean by it. But I do tend to zip about quite a bit as a person!

Or if you mean the lives of my characters... In The Dying of Delight they have plenty of adventures, and as I wanted to write about what I know, they are very much the kind of adventures that I have had, or would like to have, or am afraid of having.

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Interview in New Woman magazine, August '04 issue

This interview appeared in the August 2004 issue of New Woman. It was part of a feature on bisexuality. Reprinted here with the kind permission of New Woman magazine.

Clare Sudbery, 34, a novelist from Manchester, has slept with 30 men and 30 women. She had a three-month relationship with Emma Collin, who’s now single, before meeting Ally Fogg, 37.

‘I was 16 when I first kissed a girl. She was a 19-year-old student who I’d met through a political group. She dumped me halfway through our first date and I was heartbroken. When you fall in love with a woman it feels exactly the same as falling for a man. You have butterflies, you want to be with them all the time, and you ring them ten times a day. But some things are different. Women have really nice soft lips, so kissing them’s much gentler – there’s no stubble to deal with! And sex with a woman tends to be softer, gentler and slower. There are downsides to dating women, though. Sometimes you don’t want to dissect every emotion, you just want to slam a door and get on with things.

‘When I was younger I found sex with men very painful. I had vaginismus – my muscles would tighten so much that penetrative sex was either impossible or really hurt. I think that was probably one of the things that pushed me into exploring sex with women – I thought there had to be something better out there. I had my first sexual relationship with a woman at university and it lasted for two years. But although I loved sleeping with her, afterwards I ended up dating a lovely man who helped me get over my problems with penetrative sex.

‘Men can find it a turn-on that I’m into women. But it’s annoying when blokes think I do it just to titillate them. I also used to worry that straight women felt awkward around me. Once I was getting changed in the same room as a friend and, to lighten the atmosphere, I joked she had nice boobs. It didn’t go down well! She thought I was coming on to her and it ruined our friendship.

‘Years ago I went out with Emma for three months, but it was just a fling – we were better as friends. Soon after, I met Ally, my current boyfriend, who I’m totally in love with. Being bisexual makes you stop dividing people into males and females – you just judge them as individuals. As far as I’m concerned I’m going out with a person, not a gender. I have no intention of being unfaithful. Anyone in a settled relationship makes the choice to give up being intimate with other people – men or women.’

The boyfriend: Ally

‘I love Clare for everything she is, including her sexuality. If I’m honest it’s probably easier to deal with her having crushes on women, rather than on other men. That’s the alpha-male coming out in me – I’m the man in her life. But it’s great fun to be able to walk down the street with your partner and say: “Wow, did you see the boobs on her?” and get an enthusiastic response!’

The ex girlfriend: Emma

‘When I dated Clare she was great, really fun and inspiring. I don’t believe in monogamous relationships, but when she met Ally our relationship fizzled out. We’re great friends now, though – all of us – and I think they’re fantastic together.’

What’s sexy in a woman?
‘Pert little boobs – with big nipples.’
What’s sexy in a man?
‘A firm bum on a lean frame.’
Best thing about women?
‘Women are more wiling to share their feelings.’
Best thing about men?
‘Sometimes it’s nice to be held by someone and feel protected.’
Why are women good in bed?
‘They’re usually slower, and have a softer touch.’
Why are men good in bed?
‘The feel of strong arms around you is sexy.’
Does being bi make you better in bed?
‘Possibly. It makes you more open-minded and eager to experiment.’

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Interview in the Metro, 7th July 2004

This appeared in all the regional editions of the paper.

WORD ASSOCIATION
Writers on Writing

The many-threaded lives of the post-rave generation are the subject of Clare Sudbery(pictured)’s debut, The Dying of Delight.

I wrote about the people I knew.
The post-chemical generation I’d known from raving and club culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
I didn’t dare hope the book was funny – comedy is incredibly hard to write. But I’m pleased when people say it is.
I wanted to write about people who weren’t heterosexual, but for it not to be big deal.
There’s a lot less prejudice these days but if you write about characters that aren’t straight it becomes an issue, and that’s not real life. Most of my friends, and I, are bisexual or gay.
The protest camp is completely real. Nine Ladies is in the Peak District and developers want to quarry the hillside.
I’m intrigued by people who remove themselves from society.
And the fact it’s possible for them to do it, and that there are micro-societies where people can opt out.
The legacy of the rave generation? A tendency to be into New Age stuff, liberalism and idealism. And a reluctance to put up with the daily grind.

Interview by Tina Jackson

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Review / Interview From City Life magazine (Manchester's answer to Time Out), 26th May - 1st June 2004

The Acid House

Sarah Tierney talks to Clare Sudbery about her drugged-up novel The Dying of Delight.

What's it about?
Levenshulme, lesbians and LSD. Silver leaves her office job to become an artist. Troubled by her mum's suicide and surrounded by drug-guzzling mates, she falls in and out of bed with women and men, and in and out of sanity. Her mum was mad. She thinks she might be too. And with a daily top-up of acid racing around her system, it's not surprising that the cat can talk and that her edgy housemate Andy is her best friend one minute, then out to get her the next. Surely downing hallucinatory chemicals isn't the best way to cope with impending insanity? Sudbery sums up her character's reasoning: "Silver has always been scared that she's going mad and I think she does let herself go to it. She decides that there's no point in trying to be in control. But that's really because she's losing control anyway, and she knows she is. She wants to take ownership of it." In contrast to Silver's frantic life, the story is interspersed with chapters about mysterious, withdrawn Edna who is adopted by eco-protestors at the real-life protest camp at Stanton Moor in Derbyshire. Developers want to deforest the hillside to make room for a quarry and with eviction looming, Sudbery's novel is timely publicity for their campaign.

What about the author?
Sudbery wrote her debut after wrangling a four-day week from her computer firm employers. She says elements of Silver are based on herself, adding: "There must be thousands of 30-somethings in Britain who spent their 20s raving and taking far more drugs than were good for them. Of course we've all settled down and had kids now, and we all work in IT."

Is it any good?
Silver and her mates are larger than life and the story is powered by their funny, vivacious personalities. Like all extroverts, there are times when you want them to sit still and be quiet for a moment, so the calmer eco-camp sections are sometimes a welcome break. Drawn-out trippy scenes occasionally slow the building tension and cliff-hanger plot (who is Edna and what's her link to Silver?). But on the whole this is an original, vivid and energetic novel.

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Interview in Diva magazine, June 2004

An edited version of the following interview appeared in Diva magazine.

Name: Clare Sudbery

Age: 34

Town: Manchester

Sexual orientation: Bisexual

Describe your book in one sentence:
"A fucked up woman and her fucked up friends get, er, fucked."
Or if you'd prefer it less profane...
"A stroppy woman loses control, leaves her job, gains control, struggles with her identity, loses control and wears some silly hats."

Why do you write?
Because I'm a word junkie and a raging egomaniac.

Where did this book come from? / Why this book?
I think at first I was trying to write myself a cautionary tale: "Look, this could have been you!" But then I got sick of the moralism and decided to poke fun instead.

Where did the characters come from?
I steal them when people aren't looking, and keep them in a cardboard box under the bed. Then I cut them into little bits, shuffle them and stick them back together again.

What do you hope readers will get from it?
A hunger for more. Or a strange craving for hallucinogenic drugs.

How does your view of life inform your fiction?
Oh blimey. I've tried several answers to this question, and each was more pretentious than the last. I'm a hedonist and a control freak, an optimist and a cynic. I think I know all the answers, but I know deep down that I haven't a clue. Life's an adventure, people are surprising, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Was it a difficult book to write?
It became very easy once I learnt to stop fearing failure. Ironically this happened when I decided it was bound to end up in a dark and dusty drawer, so it stopped mattering what I wrote. At that point I just let go and enjoyed myself.

How do you feel about the book now?
It's my baby! It and I suffer from all the usual contradictions of parenthood. I'm intensely proud and perversely critical from one minute to the next. It'll probably end up throwing tantrums in public places because I praised it too much / not enough.

How do you think lesbian and bisexual readers will react to it?
I honestly haven't a clue. As soon as I try and answer that queston, I realise I'm making gross generalisations and give up. The sexuality of the characters is unambiguously queer, but that's not the point of the book. I hope that reactions will depend on the book as a whole, rather than just the sexuality of the reader.

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Interview from Out Northwest magazine, June 2004

Annie Emery speaks to author Clare Sudbery about her debut novel 'The Dying of Delight'.

What's the inspiration behind your debut?
I'd love to claim some high ideal, but to be perfectly honest I'm just a word junkie and a raging egomaniac. I think maybe I originally wanted to write myself a cautionary tale: "Look, this could have been you!" But then I got sick of the moralism and decided to poke fun instead. Drugs, madness, sex and death are essentially lighthearted topics, after all. Apart from that I felt a real urge to do something creative, and create something I could relate to. For that reason I was quite keen to write about people with fluid sexualities, because that's what I know. But rather than attach a big label saying These Characters Are Queer, I wanted sexuality to be something that is simply accepted; part of the backdrop of the story, just as it is in real life.

How long did it take to write the book?
It would have been three and a half years, if it weren't for my body playing tricks on me and forcing me to take a year off for pregnancy and childbirth.

Have you got the writing bug now? Are there other stories in your head you would like to tell?
Yes, I can't stop writing! I end up carrying a notebook everywhere I go, and feeling ludicrously pretentious. I've already started Novel II.

Who do you think this book will appeal to?
Anyone that likes something edgy and fast-paced, and anyone that's ever over-indulged on the weekend! Or has a strange craving for hallucinogenic drugs.

Are any of the characters or situations based on personal experience?
Originally there were a lot of autobiographical anecdotes, and then I realised the imaginary stuff was far more entertaining. I pruned away 40,000 words of autobiography, and the book was massively improved as a result. The main character is still based on me, but we differ in lots of ways. As for the other characters, I stole them when people weren't looking, and kept them in a cardboard box under the bed. Then I cut them into little bits, shuffled them and stuck them back together again.

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Interview for WriteWords.org, June 11th 2004

There's an interview at the online writers' resource, www.writewords.org.uk. It was the longest interview I've done so far. I think their website is aimed mainly at aspiring writers, so there was a lot of stuff about how I got published and what advice I would give to others. It was loads of fun, and reminded me I'd love to teach creative writing or do workshops.

Full interview here.

Here is a copy:

Tell us something about your background.

My first novel, The Dying of Delight, has just been published by Diva Books Ltd. It’s the first serious piece of writing I’ve ever attempted, so I’m absolutely over the moon about it being published! But I’ve always loved words, and prior to writing The Dying of Delight I wrote and performed performance poetry around the poetry circuit in Manchester. My partner and I also had a band, for which I was a singer/songwriter. Apart from that, my mother (Rodie Sudbery) is a published children’s author. During my childhood she produced full-length mid-range children’s novels at the rate of about one a year. Several other members of my family are also published authors, so as a child I assumed that I too would be an author when I grew up. But then I grew up.

How did you start writing?

Apart from the poetry, song lyrics and some very small pieces of prose, I first attempted a full length novel in 1999. I had several friends who were artistic in one way or another – painters, musicians, performance artists – and to be honest I was jealous. I had a full time job in IT, and I felt insecure about my perceived lack of creativity. I was whingeing about this to a friend one day, when she suggested that I could afford to work shorter hours, and that if it really bothered me I should do something about it. On New Year’s Eve 1998, I made a spur of the moment decision to cut my hours down and write a novel. I thought I was probably being ridiculous, but I’m quite bloody-minded and I very quickly decided that this was a decision worth sticking to. It was surprisingly easy to convince my employers to give me a four day week. From June 1999, I devoted the fifth day each week to writing a novel. The 20% cut in income was a good incentive. Without that financial commitment, I suspect it may have been just another craze that was abandoned when I tired of it. I had started two novels when I was younger, and neither of them had got any further than a handful of pages.

Who are your favourite writers and why?

Oh dear, as soon as I start thinking of authors the list just grows and grows… but off the top of my head: Margaret Attwood, Toni Morrison, Iain Banks, Martin Millar, Geoff Dyer, Arundhati Roy, Yann Martell, Mil Millington, Angela Carter, Harper Lee. I like lyrical writers, and rhythmic writers (Toni Morrison). Words are such beautiful artistic building blocks – I enjoy writers who make the most of this. I also enjoy down-to-earth writers Martin Millar, and I love comedy (Mil Millington). I like it when writers are subtle, and I like to be drawn into an engrossing story. I also love suspense, and used to be a big fan of crime thrillers. I don’t like things to be spelled out, and I think it is a real talent to show, not tell. Martin Millar is a good example of a writer who is both down-to-earth and subtle. I love it when writers have something important to say (Harper Lee), but let the story do the talking, rather than clumsily shoving it down your throat. I’m also very impressed by good television drama. My favourites in recent times have been Six Feet Under, Queer As Folk and Shameless. What really struck me about all of these was the combination of humour and darkness, and the incredibly rich characterisation. I dream of having characters as good as these.

How did you get your agent/commission/publisher?

Before I had finished writing The Dying of Delight, I sent out the first three chapters to fifteen publishers and twenty agents. I chose them by poring through the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and the internet, looking for publishers/agents who would accept unsolicited submissions and had a list of publications/clients that were compatible with my writing style. There was a strange duality of ego at work here. On the one hand I was impatient for results, which is why I sent out submissions before I had finished writing. On the other hand I never for one moment believed it would be published. But surely I must have done, or else why did I send out submissions… I’m still puzzling over that one. Six months’ later I had been rejected by all the agents, and all but two of the publishers (Diva Books and Canongate). I had given up on ever being published, but wanted to finish writing the novel, for my own sake. This was 2003, four years after I started writing it. I gave myself four months to finish it, and I was successful. I was still dissatisfied, but I had done so many rewrites that I resolved to call a halt and put it to one side. I had decided to go back to writing music, and was even rather looking forward to it. That weekend I went away on holiday. When I came back, there was a message on the answering machine… it was from Diva Books (who are now my publisher). I did later discover that Canongate were also seriously interested in me, but in the end they decided against publication. As soon as I had a publishing deal I decided I needed an agent. I finally found someone through a recommendation from a friend. She didn’t represent me with Diva Books, because she said that I had done most of the work myself and it wouldn’t be fair. We’re collaborating together on my next novel. She is with Sheil Land literary agents.

What was your breakthrough moment?

I think I had two. The first came when I decided that my novel would never be published. I had received about thirty rejections, and I was demoralised. My writing pace had slowed right down as a result. But once I gave up on the possibility of publication, I was free to write what I liked without worrying about acceptance. I became very committed to finishing the novel. I set myself a deadline of August 2003, and I achieved it. I’d never reached any of my earlier self-imposed targets. I think the reason this was effective is that I’d removed the fear of failure. I’d decided that failure was inevitable and therefore I was no longer afraid of it. My writing flowed much better as a result. The second breakthrough (and I’m afraid this won’t be very helpful to aspiring writers) was the phonecall from the publisher. Once I had confirmation that someone believed in my writing, my confidence increased and my motivation did too. I collaborated with my editor on one final rewrite, and the whole process was so much more enjoyable and less painful than previous rewrites had been. I was also motivated to work harder than I had ever done before.

What's the worst thing about writing?

The fear of failure. Sitting there at the computer doing anything but writing, because you don’t believe you are any good at it.

And the best?

When the words flow. Throughout the last five years there have been periods when the words just flowed. They felt right. And then you edit them and perfect them and give them to others to read… and they give you positive feedback. And then you feel even better. Of course the downside to this is the occasions when you read the words back and decide that they stink…

What kind of response do you get from your readers?

The most common praise I’ve received for The Dying of Delight has been with respect to the twists and turns of the plot. I keep the reader guessing until the end. This was a difficult trick to pull, because it’s hard to know how much the reader can or will guess, seeing as it’s impossible to put yourself into the position of not knowing how things end. But apparently I’ve managed to pull it off, which is quite a relief. I’ve also been told that my novel is easy to read, which was intentional, and so for me it is a compliment. Also that it is gripping, and that people identify with the main protagonist. All of this makes all the hard work and the rewrites worthwhile! I had an interesting criticism the other day though, which was that my characters are too extrovert, and that the reader found it a bit relentless. I think this leads us back to subtlety. I admire subtlety so much in other writers, but it’s something I have to work at quite hard in my own writing.

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Interview on the Big Chill website

There's a lovely interview here on the Big Chill website - the longest yet!

Here is a copy:

Mrs Gordon is a Big Chill forum scribbler extraordinaire, a grande dame (and a grand dame) of the Purple People and one of the brightest stars twinkling in the Forum celebrity firmament. In fact, she's a bona fide star author!

Because Mrs Gordon's alter ego in the unreal world is Clare Sudbery - a writer, computer programmer, singer, Scrabble fanatic, mother, Big Chiller, wearer of bright orange fur, spacehopper queen, saucy minx and many more things besides.

Clare's first novel, The Dying of Delight, was published this year. As you would expect, given that Clare spends far too many hours trapped in the fluffy jaws of The Big Chill's forum instead of working, reviews were terrible. They ranged from "This is a novel that pulses with guts, energy and wit" via "Sudbery's prose aches with humour. A beautifully crafted debut" and "The opening lines are among the best I've ever read. Grab this gem with both hands" to "An eclectic and eccentric journey through the history of now, and a damn fine read."

Kit found a very small space in her packed schedule, squeezed in, and caught up with her for some tea and biscuits and a chat about sex, drugs, parenthood, words, and a light dusting of rock 'n' roll.

How did The Dying of Delight come about? Tell us the journey of the book.

'I moaned to a friend about how uncreative my life was, and she told me to stop whingeing and do something about it. So I moved to a 4 day week, and started to write a novel. Supposedly I wrote every Monday. And sometimes I did. On the good days it flowed, I relaxed into my love of words, and it felt like I'd always dreamed it would. But a lot of the time it didn't. I had a big fear of failure, which was paralysing. But I'm also incredibly pigheaded, and the combination of having told the whole world that I was writing a novel, and having taken a 20% pay cut to do so, spurred me on to keep going.

'I've always suspected I chose novel-writing because it was patently ridiculous. I've always loved words, and used to silently narrate my life and dreams as though they were a novel. But I was a pitifully inexperienced writer. Music, on the other hand, was something I was doing a lot - my partner and I had a band, and I was writing a lot of music. I think I chose to spend time on writing, rather than music, because if I failed it would be understandable, and I could just write it off as a crazy project. Also a novel was such a long term plan, I didn't have to worry about the moment of truth coming any time too soon.

'Eventually though, I was in a position to send the first three chapters off to agents and publishers. And then came the rejection letters - all 33 of them. And my motivation plummeted, and I ground to a halt. This was it - the failure I'd always feared. Then an interesting thing happened. I really wanted to drop the whole thing, but I'm stubborn. I'd said I was going to write a novel, so I had to do it. I decided I was writing it purely for myself. Therefore suddenly it didn't matter what it was like. All the pressure was off. My motivation soared. I gave myself a deadline, and I made it. Three years after I'd started writing, I finished.

'It was a bit depressing, reaching the end. I wasn't convinced it was any good. That weekend was Eastnor '03. We went away, had fun, came back, turned the answering machine on... my publisher, Diva books, had been sitting on the manuscript for ten months, and chose that weekend to get back to me with a "Yes." Synchronicity!'

How did you decide what to write?

'I wanted to write something that I'd enjoy reading. Something zippy and easy to read, not taking itself too seriously, with an element of suspense and a climax, and with characters that I could relate to. But I also wanted to explore the tensions and complexity of modern urban life, and I wanted to talk about how we make assumptions about each other. We try to force those around us to fit our preconceptions, and don't pay attention to who they really are.

'I chose a very simple plot. It was actually an idea I'd had as a teenager, when I was a crime thriller junkie. It involved a dead body, and the whole novel built towards a climactic end, which was one of the first scenes I wrote. But as I wrote the rest, the plot and characters kept changing, so that by the time I reached the end it had developed a life of its own. The end no longer felt right. It took an external viewpoint (my editor) to finally convince me the ending had to go. I spent two months completely rewriting it, so that the one thing I thought I knew from the start (the original ending) has now been cut out completely!

'I was learning to write as I went along, and made several radical changes. For instance, I decided everybody was too nice at one point, and turned a sweet character into a grumpy old curmudgeon. I also moved from 2nd person (yes, really) to 3rd person, and finally ended up with a 1st person narrator.'

How has your life changed since you wrote the book? Are there any ambitions left to fulfil?

'My life has turned completely upside down. Before, I was a silly fool who was arrogant enough to think she could write. Now, I'm a silly fool who's arro... oh, hang on.

'But it's amazing how much difference external validation makes. My motivation to write has gone through the ceiling. And I'm really really excited. All the time! At some point I suppose I'll stop squeaking and calm down, but God knows when. This was a big dream, and no, there aren't many left. And yes, it's all right if I die now. But seeing as I'm actually planning to live until I'm a hundred, I've decided to fit songwriting, playwriting, movie-making, singing, remixing, gardening and quantum physics in before I go. Oh, and knitting. Mustn't forget knitting.'

Who are your favourite writers? Why?

'This question makes me feel like a fraud. I'm useless at talking about books. I do read them, but then I instantly forget who they were by, and what they were about. I do actually have several favourite writers, but whenever I answer this question I miss someone really important out, and then kick myself.

'Still, here goes: Jim Dodge, Toni Morrison, Martin Millar, Mil Millington, Arundhati Roy, Mark Haddon, Angela Carter, Alice Walker, Jeanette Winterson... oh, and tons of others. Why? Oh blimey. I like lyricism, I like humour, I like elegance and structure, suspense, a small amount of philosophising, good characterisation... ooh yes, and I know they're not books, but I've found Six Feet Under and Shameless to be inspirational in terms of characterisation. I'm not keen on excessive physical description though. I don't care how good it is. I nearly always skip to the action.'

Speaking of action, what is it you like about Scrabble?

'I love words, and I'm also a mathematician and computer programmer. So I love dismantling and dissecting them just as much as I love rearranging them for aesthetic effect. Crosswords, Scrabble, word games... I love it all. And with Scrabble you get to play with numbers, which is an added bonus. I'm an obsessive, and incredibly anal. I once spent two months trying to devise the perfect Scrabble game.'

Do you have a favourite or least favourite word?

'I probably can't answer either of those questions. I love all words, and I don't hate any. I might hate some words because of their connotations, but all words have aesthetic value. Ugliness is also beauty.

'Still, I am particularly fond of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It feels good in your mouth, it sounds good, it's fun to say, it looks good, it has rhythm, it has tons of letters ... what more could you want?'

"Ugliness is also beauty." Can you tell us a bit more about this? What do you mean?

'Pure beauty is mostly boring. The best aesthetic impact generally comes from the shock of contrast between classically beautiful and classically ugly. "Stump" is technically an ugly word, but it comes out of your mouth with a blast that's pleasant to experience. I think it's partly about sensory input - you can revel in experience for experience's sake, and that means you want ALL input - the bad as well as the good. Does that make any sense?'

What is it about storytelling that makes it magical?

'Oh, wow. I think that question might be the wrong way round. It's not that storytelling is magical. It's that magic exists. Storytelling just reflects that. The world is full of magic, and it's because we have imaginations that we can even have such a concept. Everything is potentially magical, you just need to let go and start dreaming. Fiction gives us license to dream.

'And then there's the aesthetic. Words are beautiful, and beauty is a form of magic.'

Radio 4 say this about you: "An unconventional life was the inspiration for her first novel". How unusual was your childhood?

'My parents are, um, not quite normal. As a child I was teased about them, and that comes out in the book. But the easiest way I can describe my parents (and indeed my extended family) is to say that they're intensely creative, and really nice. I grew up in a very nurturing creative environment, and the result is a gigantic show-off!

'Seriously though, the nurturing side meant that I was confident. Confident enough to discover that it doesn't matter what other people think, and being individual is much more fun than fitting in. I discovered drugs, lesbianism and hard left politics at the age of 16, and I haven't looked back since.'

You write about the experience of drugs a lot in the book - and write it very well, which I think is quite rare. How did you go about this? Is it based on real life experiences?

'I tried to take the reader into the experience, by writing as though I was experiencing it myself. Yes, it's based on real life. And those experiences are so vivid and immediate, it's not hard to relive them in your head whilst writing.'

Sexuality in many forms is also a strong feature of the book. Did you always know you were bisexual? How important is it to you?

'I was 13, and sitting on a table with a (female) friend. Our thighs bumped. I felt turned on, and I just thought, "Oh well, I suppose I'm bisexual." When I was 16 I decided I didn't enjoy sex with men, so I came out as a lesbian. Later on I discovered that it wasn't willies that were crap, just teenage boys. So I declared myself bisexual.

'It's important because I'm such a political animal, and because I love talking about sex! If homophobia didn't exist, I wouldn't go on about it anywhere near as much. I would still talk about sex a lot, though.'

So is sex about politics?

'Only because gay people are discriminated against, and politicians like to pontificate about what people should do in bed. It shouldn't be about politics though. Not in an ideal world.'

What has been your funniest or naughtiest sexual experience?

'Hmmmmm. You knew I wouldn't be able to resist answering this, didn't you?

'I was 22 (1992), I was at Trade in London. I'd driven down from Manchester in the middle of the night, after the last night of an amateur production of The House of Bernarda Alba (I played the hunchback). I met a couple, they invited me back to their house and plied me with illicit substances. We romped in a single bed. They turned out to live with his parents and extended family. Who incidentally were all having Sunday lunch downstairs while we were, um, "at it". At one point I overheard the little brother say, "I don't know what they're doing up there, but they're making some very strange noises!"...'

You're doing a multimedia performance based on the book at Eastnor. How did this come about?

'Ally (my partner) and I went to a Media Lounge event in Sheffield, and I said "If only we could do something like this..." Before I knew it we'd come up with a plan to combine music, spoken word and visuals into a performance based on the book. I'll be honest, it was originally designed as a very elaborate plug for the book, but it quickly became a lot of fun in its own right. I used to be a performance poet, I write song lyrics, I'm incredibly aware of rhythm in the words that I write. So it's natural for me to perform to a musical accompaniment, and being the sensory input junkie that I am, it's even better that I got to work with some top notch VJs and give the audience something to look at, too.

'Ally (aka Enchanted Gordon) was "creative director" - he helped me choose the sections to read, and he then decided what music to use (after listening to me read). John (Amukidi) and Jim (Myogenic) were given a CD of words against music, and came up with visuals to fit.

'It was a bit of a gamble, but we all worked really hard on it, and the whole thing has synthesised into something rather gorgeous! It's designed to be representative of the book as a whole, which has several moods and voices, so it covers quite a range of emotions.'

How do you go about writing song lyrics? Is it like writing poetry? If different, how?

'It's a lot like writing poetry, except that you can get away with an awful lot more, and there's more of an emphasis on rhythm. Generally with song lyrics, it's all about sonorousness - it's much more important for the words to make a nice sound than to make sense (although it helps if they mean something too!).'

Tell us a couple of your favourite lyrics.

'John Martyn: "May you never lay your head down without a hand to hold" - simple but spine-chilling (hard to separate lyrics from music though, in terms of impact).

'Paul Simon: "She comes back to tell me she's gone", "Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party? Who am I blow against the wind", "Diamonds in the soles of her shoes", and tons more. I know it's a bit cheesy, but I really love the combination of silliness, sonorousness and warmth in most of the Graceland lyrics.'

I know you're a bit of a singer. Tell us a bit about that.

'I sing mainly blues and jazzy stuff. I've got a low throaty voice, which I like to throw about raucously. I used to sing in a band and do a lot of open mic spots, but I haven't sung much lately - I've had to focus on one thing at a time. Ha, I've just remembered something. When we did the multimedia performance in Manchester, a close friend said: "Is she going to sing? I bet she's going to sing." In fact I don't sing during that, but I am planning on performing a poem on Saturday night at Eastnor (during the NuPoetics set in the Art Trail, 9pm) that involves singing.

Why do you like to sing? How do you feel when you're singing?

'Music is... well, music is one of the purest aesthetic experiences. Who knows why we like it? Singing is great because it's music. It's also something you get to do on a stage, and I like stages. And you don't have to put your voice in a case and lug it about everywhere. And you don't get blisters when you rehearse. And it rattles your ribcage.'

You have a full time job (what is it you do?), a two-year-old son, and a book deal. What kind of impact has parenthood had on your life? Do you "have it all"?

'I'm a software engineer. This means I write... oh it's all right, you can get out from behind the sofa, I'm not really going to try and make you read about it. But it's actually very interesting, and creative. It is!

'I love my job, but it is hard juggling job, motherhood and writing. Of course you can't have it all. There's too much to be had. But you can have a surprising amount, if you relax your standards a little. I'm amazed at the amount of time people waste on pointless tasks such as ironing, washing floors and painting toenails. I don't do any of that stuff. OK, so I live in a pigsty and my hair is a mess, but I'm very happy, and so is my son. And he has a really robust immune system (I love that excuse!).

'Being a mum has made me more efficient, more optimistic, more relaxed and much more sensitive to human suffering. My first thought is always, what if it was Felix? But I've made a very conscious effort not to fall for the hype and worry about every tiny little detail of my son's upbringing. He'll be all right. And his best chance will be if he learns how to relax.'

Would you say you grabbed life with both hands? Do you have any regrets?

'I try very hard not to regret. It's pointless. You can waste your life on regrets. Yes, I probably grab life with both hands, but in the same sense that a child grabs a hamster. The worry is that I might throttle it.'

What's under your bed?

'Hang on, I'll just have a look. This is easier than you might think, because our ceiling sprung a leak and we had to move the computer into the bedroom.

'Oof. It's a bit late for getting down on bended knee.

'Right then:
- Books: The Wind on Fire trilogy (William Nicholson), Lucas by Kevin Brooks and a lesbian erotica sampler.
- Oooh! Two old diaries from when I was a teenager. Full of juicy stories about, well, nothing. But told with much relish.
- A photography book: "Up & Down" by Marc Riviere. Actually rather ace: a man went around the streets of Paris and somehow managed to persuade random strange women to show their tits in public. I have no idea how he managed it, but I'm glad he did.
- Fluffy mules with Shorn Sheep on the toes.
- A bucket, from when I was sick during pregnancy (it's all right, it's empty).
- My favourite slippers. They're made of velvet and gold, have curly Aladdin toes with bells, and are more hole than slipper.
- Two pairs of shoes, one pair of sandals, two hot water bottles and one of those annoying O2 top-up things that look important but aren't actually any use.

How and when did you get into The Big Chill? What does it mean to you?

'We saw the Big Chill Gala (Norfolk, '96, I think) advertised somewhere and liked the look of it. We went and had fun. Then we got on the mailing list and in the morning the Enchanted Garden brochure dropped through the door. I woke Ally up to squeak about how great it looked. After a couple of great festivals, we discovered the Big Chill forum. Seeing as we're both textually loquacious (we love to natter via typing), we got addicted very quickly. Through the forum we met tons of people and became involved in the Big Chill at all sorts of levels. Now it's like an extended family. It's incredible how many interesting, talented and downright nice people are involved. Life would be much more boring without the Big Chill.

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