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Notes on Craft

Natasha Calder

‘What strikes me most, though, is how writers and climbers share an appetite for failure.’

Natasha Calder on bouldering.

Notes on Craft

Colin Grant

‘Always I tell myself: yes, you transmit but do they, the readers, receive?’

Colin Grant on distilling truth in memoir.

On Writing ‘Blind Bitter Happiness’

Adam Mars-Jones

‘When I was put on Granta’s first Best of Young British Novelists list in 1983, no novel of mine had been published.’

Notes on Craft

Dee Peyok

‘I wanted to learn everything there was to know about the singer and his words.’

Dee Peyok on craft and the Cambodian musician: Sinn Sisamouth.

On Washing Up and Hoverflies

Beatrice Searle

‘It may be the satisfaction of full hands that brings forth the full feeling essential for words.’

Beatrice Searle on stonemasonry.

Notes on Craft

Aidan Cottrell-Boyce

‘The whole episode is a miracle and much of the miracle is in the muscles of Carmela’s face.’

Aidan Cottrell-Boyce on craft, nuance and The Sopranos.

Notes on Craft

Lee Lai

‘I’ve loved experiencing the page as a map, as something to be wandered across.’

Lee Lai on the function of page and panel in comics.

Notes on Craft: Does this Count?

Ben Pester

‘Is the act of complicating a perfectly nice daydream a craft?’

Ben Pester on the craft of imagination.

Notes on Craft

K Patrick

‘I don’t know anything except my own body. When writing poetry, that’s the only place I can start from.’

K Patrick on writing the queer body.

Notes on Craft

Missouri Williams

‘After a series of seizures in my temporal lobe, I started to forget words and say sentences backwards.’

Missouri Williams on the drive to circle back.

Notes on Craft

Amy Bloom

‘Revision for me is relief. It is reassurance.’

Amy Bloom on the pleasures of revising.

Notes on Craft

Celia Paul

‘A painting is like a letter: they both live in the constant present.’

Celia Paul on writing Letters to Gwen John.

Notes on Craft

Preti Taneja

‘Traditional hand-craft becomes literary practice; becomes critical theory.’

Preti Taneja on intertextuality.

Notes on Craft

Nataliya Deleva

‘I didn’t want to write Arrival from a place of exile or outcast.’ Nataliya Deleva on writing in her adoptive language.