Interview Bernard Beckett

I have a soft spot for YA novels. Not sure if it is the nostalgic factor or that I like stories written that are easily accessible as I'm dyslexic and chunky novels seem like too much work. Bernard writes in YA so I won't be surprised because of my love of YA if one of his books isn't already in my reading pile.

Tell us about your latest novel or project:

Last year I wrote a novel for my seven year old sons. Each evening I would read them that day’s installment, which was a great motivator to stay on task. It’s a fantasy novel, and is currently in search of a publishing home.

What got you started writing?

Really, it was simply having time. I was in Japan for six months, working a few hours an evening in a language school, and having all the days to myself.

What challenges did you face when you first started writing?

As with anything, there’s just an awful lot to learn along the way. Getting useful feedback was the key for me, finding people with experience who were prepared to honestly identify the flaws in my writing was a huge help.

Do you ever get the opportunity to travel for your writing? Either to market or to research.

I get asked at festivals occasionally, mostly within New Zealand and Australia, but I’ve also been to Edinburgh and Wales and a festival in Munich.

Who in your life is your greatest cheerleader or support in your writing?

Undoubtedly my wife Clare, the smartest person I know and the most astute reader,

What is it like writing in New Zealand that would be different if you lived anywhere else?

I think in the end your writing can only come from the world as you’ve lived it. It’s hard to identify exactly what the New Zealand influences are, for we have only one upbringing and so comparisons are speculative. I know a small town upbringing very much informed my first novel, Lester, and that growing up through the economic turmoil of the eighties meant there is a strand of social justice in my writing at times.

Where do you get your ideas? Is there anything about New Zealand that has inspired you to write?

I think a huge advantage of new Zealand is that we really are a very small community. You quickly get to know other writers, and also there is a sense of connection to your readers. I think there is a natural humility to the kiwi psyche, which both allows everybody to feel as if they can have a go at everything, and also stops you developing an inflated sense of self-importance, and are crucial to good writing.

Why do you think readers are fascinated by books written about New Zealand?

I don’t if they are or not. The other is often exotic, although this tends to come in waves of fashion. there is also something comforting about reading about the world you know, and in this sense readers are very parochial, meaning there will always be a loyal, but small, audience of New Zealand literature.

Who is your favourite New Zealand author and why?

Charlotte Randall. A massively underrated talent, I believe. The Curative and Hokitika Town stand as two of the most confident and imaginative pieces of work by a New Zealand author. There is a genuine playfulness to her work that appears unrestrained by a sense of audience or reputation. She is that rare writer who writes simply for the sake of the act, and the work is fresher, braver and more arresting than that which strains only to be noticed and approved of.

What advice would you give for other writers in New Zealand?

Be like Charlotte Randall. Write for the pure joy of it. Forget sales, reputations and audiences. If the only person who reads it is your mother, but you still enjoyed writing it, that’s still a win. You still got to do the thing you love doing. And if that’s not enough, why write at all?

Do you get to network or meet up with other New Zealand authors?

No. I’m a full time teacher and a parent of young children. Even meeting up with my own reflection takes careful planning.

I counted two full time jobs in there without including your writing.

What was the first thing you did after your first book was published?

I went overseas for a year, just travelling about Europe, cycle touring and living in a tent. It was a fantastic year.

Do you read your book reviews? How do you handle the good and the bad ones?

I like the way this has developed of late, where anybody can contribute to the conversation via sites like Goodreads. It means the self-appointed arbiters of taste have lost their grip, and now it’s open slather in the genuinely mad world of democratic review. No matter what the quality of the work, you’ll always be able to find one person who says it changed their life, and another who wishes to do unspeakable things to the author for ever having inflicted the book upon the world. It’s fun to visit this madness occasionally, it’s a fine provider of proper perspective.

How long does it take you to write a book? Do you have any secrets to productivity?

This varies greatly. Back when I started it was all so new I tended to go nuts, and could churn out a very bad book very quickly. So initially I was publishing a book a year while working full time. These days I write when I have something I want to say, and that can take a lot longer. I don’t have writing routines, or indeed writing goals. I’ve never been a goal setter. I see writing as a hobby, and get to it when I can. These days most of my writing is plays for schools, which remains my favourite form of writing, because of the immediacy of the form. There’s nothing to match sitting in a theatre, watching the work brought to life by an act of community.

Where did you get the idea for your first or latest book?

When I started writing, a great deal of it was flat out imitation. So Catcher in the Rye was very important for my first few books, all of which were unpublishable.

Do you have any writing rituals?

No, not at all. it’s just a case of if and when the mood takes me.

What is your best experience meeting a fan?

I had a lovely correspondence with a young woman in India, who later moved to England to study. It was a complete treat to converse on life and literature with someone from a world so different from my own.

If any of your books was to be made into a film, which one would you pick and who would you have play the main characters?

I’ve worked on a bunch of screenplays with various producers, but as yet none have made it to the screen. Jolt, Lullaby, August and Genesis have all been turned into screenplays, and of these Genesis is the live possibility, still being pushed by a couple of producers in LA. I’d like to see a movie of Deep Fried, and I can think of any number of young actors I’ve taught who’d make great leads.

How important do you think marketing is for authors today?

For me, not so much, simply because I have a job to pay the bills and so have very little investment in how well a book does in terms of sales. in the end, that’s just numbers. I like to think word of mouth is still very important for book sales, but that’s just the romantic in me hoping that one small pocket of our existence can remain unaffected by hype and bullshit.

Do you have any book you have written that won’t ever see the light of day and why?

Sure, a bunch. My first four novels, or maybe five, were unpublishable. I am halfway through a novel called Singer which I suspect will never see the light of day, because I’ve recently developed a distaste for cynical works. What we need is a little more hope, I think.

Many authors have a word or a phrase they automatically use too often. Do you have one?

I’m sure I do, and it’s the very fact that I can’t identify it that allows it to sneak in, I’m sure.

What quirk or trope of your genre do you like or dislike?

With teen fiction, I love it when the work is written by younger authors, who still have a proper sense of the world they describe. I detest the way we older folk attempt to stay in touch with the world of youth in our writing. Consistently we hit bum notes because frankly, we have no idea.

Often writers get to approach some serious subjects. Which serious subject are you most proud to have written about or was the hardest to write about?

I think the most serious subject of all is love, and by extension, love. We make the mistake of equating serious with dark, and so there is a critical bias towards considering dark works more worthy. The secret is, however, that darker works are much easier to write, for they require no serious engagement with the world, and can be constructed by the cynical outside eye. But truly compelling stories of connection, of attention to our human potential, of love and of hope, they’re much more difficult, and attempts to pull them off are more likely to be dismissed as insubstantial fluff. So I am most proud of the times where I have veered not towards easy despair, but rather towards hope and joy. But that has not been often enough, and so I have a reason to keep writing.

Well, I'm glad there are more writers that enjoy writing about hope instead of just the dark things in the world.