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Vanessa Gebbie
Website: VanessaGebbie.com
Vanessa Gebbie's short fiction has won many
awards including Fish and Bridport prizes and has been published in the
UK, USA, New Zealand, Canada and India, translated into Vietnamese and
Italian and broadcast by the BBC. Her novel in progress won a first
prize in the 2007 Daily Telegraph Novel Competition.
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Short
story collections
Interview
with Vanessa Gebbie
The
Short Review:
How long did it take you to write all the stories in your collection?
Vanessa Gebbie: The
stories represent a section through a body of work that was begun in
late 2003 when I started writing fiction, through to early 2007.
TSR: Did you
have a collection in mind when you were writing them?
VG: Not at all. Each
story was written separately. I constantly submitted to different
competitions, journals and anthologies. The idea of a collection only
surfaced after I'd been lucky enough to have a few stories hit at some
respected competitions, and I wondered if there was any chance of
pulling a collection together. But I had no idea how, or who, or when!
TSR: How did
you choose which stories to include and in what order?
VG: The competition
successes were an obvious choice. They'd already been selected from
many entries - in some cases from a field of several thousand - by
final judges such as Zadie Smith, Michael Collins and Tracy Chevalier.
So it was reasonable to assume that these were strong material, worth
including. I then looked for work that complemented those, thematically
and tonally.
TSR: What does the word "story"
mean to you?
VG: Something that
takes you out of yourself for the duration of the read. Something that
leaves you thinking or wondering. Asks the question, 'What if?'
I found this quote the other day by the late Bryan Robertson OBE,
curator of the Whitechapel Gallery. It sums up what I look for in a
story, however long it is, flash, short, novella or novel...
"What I look
for is…a transcendent ability to soar above life and not be subjugated
by it."
Isn't that perfect?
TSR: Do you
have a "reader" in mind when you write stories?
VG: Not
when I write, not really. It's like making an arrow before before
fitting it to the bow, before taking aim. I want it to hit the spot. I
like to think the amorphous "reader" who might appreciate what I do is
someone who does not skim for plot. Takes their time. Likes to find a
little magic in the ink. That's how I read. So really, I am writing for
myself. After having written for a while now, I understand completely
what that means!
TSR: Is there
anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your
collection,
anything at all?
VG: Oh God yes! I'd
like to know if my Alaskan lakeside in The Kettle on the Boat
is anything like a real Alaskan lakeside. And I'd like to talk to a
synaesthete, to find out if the imagined synaesthesia in Tasting Pebbles is
anything like the reality. And lots more. I've got a crazily active
imagination, and it would be fun to know how 'real its conjurings are.
TSR: How does it feel knowing that people are buying your book?
VG:It is very
affirming. A lovely feeling. But (typically me) tinged with doubt: 'Did
I do it as well as I could?'
TSR: What are
you working on now?
VG:I am working on a
thirteen part project, loosely based on the twelve apostles, hoping to
make it into a coherent entity. It has already won three prizes, which
makes the rest a scary proposition to write. Expectations are horribly
high. The first portion won two things, at Bridport and at The Daily
Telegraph. The second won at a journal in the USA earlier this year.
With a strong nod to Dylan Thomas, it is set in South Wales, where I
grew up. I write when I can hear the voices of my grandmothers and her
neighbours in my head.
TSR: What are
the three most recent short story collections you've read?
VG: A friend lent me a collection by Shusaku Endo, entitled Stained Glass Elegies.
Such cool, intelligent writing. Explorations of what it is to be part
of the Japanese war generation, struggling both with loss of national
pride and with spirituality. Wonderful stuff.
I have the Faber Books of New Irish Short Stories (2004/5
and 2006/7 edited by David Marcus) by my bed. There are such stunning
writers in Ireland. I dip and pick, as from a sweet shop.
I'm currently reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, and am in awe.
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