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JeremyWorman.com
Jeremy Worman
has
degrees in English from London University and Cambridge University.
He has reviewed for The Observer, The
Sunday Telegraph, The Spectator,
New Statesman and the TLS. He won the
2009 Cinnamon Press short story competition and the 2002
Waterstones/Multi-Storey competition.
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Interview
with Jeremy Worman
The
Short Review:
How long did it take you to write all the stories in your collection?
Jeremy Worman: The
first one was written as long ago as 1996 (Simon Carver Looks at
Life, my first published story, in The
London Magazine).
TSR:
Did you
have a collection in mind when you were writing them?
JW:
From
2000 on I knew I was working towards a collection. The stories
grouped around the themes of Hackney now, and of life in the squatter
movement in Hornsey Rise and Hackney during the 1970s – I had
produced a London book!
TSR:
How did
you choose which stories to include and in what order?
JW: Rigorous selection and editing. In the final stage a sort of organic
order suggested itself and this worked well. The autobiographical
stories in the final section ‘Beginnings’ underpin the collection and
give a strong sense of the writer’s childhood and family history.
TSR:
What
does the word "story"
mean to you?
JW:
A
series of events or moods that leave you with a feeling that
something has happened beyond the sum of its parts – and which you
cannot entirely explain.
TSR:
Do you have a reader in mind when you write stories?
JW:
I
write for people who want to look beneath the conventional.
TSR: Is
there
anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your collection, anything at all?
JW: What
stayed with you after you had read Fragmented?
TSR: How does
it feel knowing that people are buying your book?
JW:
Lovely.
I feel less isolated.
TSR:
What are you working on now?
JW:
A
detective novel and more short narratives about Hackney (my agent has
sent my completed novel It’s
All Right, Ma
to a publisher).
TSR:
What are
the three most recent short story collections you've read?
JW:
Richard
Brautigan’s Revenge
of the Lawn, Stories
1962-1970,
which contains some brilliant short narratives. Collected
Stories of VS Pritchett,
too many of which are melodramatic and formulaic.
Collected Stories of DH Lawrence; at
his best he is
one
of the great short story writers.
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