Has anybody ever given you a particularly useful trick or constructive piece of advice about writing?

Mary Lavin, whose work I revere, once told me that even though the New Yorker only paid her for the stories they used, she always, if she had several ideas, began the story she thought they were least likely to take. And John McGahern used to say, often quite early in the year (in the spring even), that he hoped he would not have another idea until after Christmas.

When did you start writing?

When I was 12 I began to write poems. I wrote many poems between the ages of 12 and 20 and then for three years I wrote letters home and then I wrote journalism and now I write fiction and long pieces about books and writers and some stuff about painting. I have also written a play and more recently some new poems.

What caused you to realise you had talent?

Oh I always knew I had that. I don’t know what caused me to realise it. It was always apparent. Or maybe the opposite is more true. I come from a family of five, and the others, or most of them, were very intelligent and did very well at school. My brother, who was four years younger than me, could read before I could. They were always very surprised, I think, when I did anything much, and I have no real talent, just persistence and a lot of things on my mind.

What was the first piece of writing you published?

I published poems when I was a teenager in a Catholic magazine called Eirigh. It came out every month. It was edited by a Capuchin priest who liked my poems.

Could you describe the experience of writing in your early years, compared to how it feels to write now? Is there a difference? Did you get a powerful rush of good feeling from writing good passages then, or a rush of pleasure from getting praise then? Do you get less of a rush now from success or praise? Or perhaps it’s the other way round?

Oh there’s no pleasure. Except that I don’t have to work for anyone who bullies me. I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway and I would disapprove of it. I don’t read reviews now. I suppose if a book I wrote came out and everyone, including George Steiner and James Wood, said it was rotten and I should not be published any more I would find out and I would mind for a while. But not for long. I would be over it in a day, maybe less.

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