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Birkbeck’s Published Alumni Series: Karin Salvalaggio

This post was contributed by Melanie Jones of The Mechanics’ Institute Review. This month the Birkbeck Creative Writing department launched its new website The Mechanics’ Institute Review Online. This year marks a huge success for the Creative Writing MA as ten alumni have novels coming out this year.

To celebrate these achievements we are profiling a selection of the authors and extracts from their upcoming novels will appear on MIROnline. Here, Melanie Jones speaks with alumnus Karin Salvalaggio, about her latest novel, Walleye Junction (Minotaur, May 2016)

Read an extract of the book at MIROnline

Walleye Junction by Karin SalvalaggioMJ: Walleye Junction came out in May this year and is the third novel in the Macy Greeley Mysteries series. Can you give us a brief introduction to the novel?

KS: Walleye Junction is the third book in a series of crime novels set in northern Montana. The stories follow a special investigator named Macy Greeley, a single mother struggling to balance career and home life. She’s often on the road and when the book opens she’s in Walleye Junction, a rural community that lacks the necessary infrastructure to deal with a major crime. Members of one of Montana’s private militias are suspected of kidnapping and murdering a controversial radio talk show host named Philip Long. When two of the kidnappers turn up dead of a massive heroin overdose the local authorities believe the case is solved, but Macy has doubts. A cryptic email message points the investigation toward the murky world of prescription painkiller abuse and Philip Long’s estranged daughter is beginning to think there’s a link between her father’s murder and a school friend’s death 12 years earlier.

Did you always intend to write a series of novels or did this come about organically?

The series came about organically. I started writing the opening novel, Bone Dust White during my first year at Birkbeck where I was working toward an MA in Creative Writing. I never intended to write a ‘crime novel’ and saw this first book as a standalone, but life has a way of throwing up unexpected opportunities. Early versions of Bone Dust White were far more ‘experimental’ and infinitely less publishable. Looking back I’m relieved most of it ended up on the cutting room floor. The result is far more accomplished. Bone Dust White is a taut thriller with a strong sense of place and a cast of characters that feel authentic. I’m very proud of how far I stretched the genre in a debut novel. I’m now writing the fourth book in the series and it’s probable there will be more in the future. I don’t get bored because each book has its own personality and unique set of challenges. The only constant is Macy but she too is slowly evolving. It is the locations, characters and plotlines that change radically with each new publication.

What do you enjoy most about writing crime fiction?

I suppose I should now hold my hand up high and admit that I have an unhealthy fascination with the darker side of human nature. I read crime fiction but am often turned off by the gratuitous violence and the unending parade of serial killers stalking young girls. I prefer a good psychological thriller with authentic characters, a believable storyline and zero time spent in the morgue. I try to base my books on issues that are prevalent to small town America. Burnt River features returning war veterans who are suffering from PTSD and Walleye Junction touches on the prescription painkiller and heroin epidemic that is presently crippling America. Gun crime, drug abuse, sex trafficking, right wing militias, traumatised war veterans, unemployment and general disillusionment are all elements that feed into my novels. I like to create a point of tension that can no longer be sustained and drop an inciting incident into the middle of it. Throw in a bit of small town politics and a population that is barely hanging on and you’ll find the plenty of stories in the reckoning that follows.

The short story, Walleye Junction, was published in The Mechanics’ Institute Review in 2011. Are the novel and short story connected?

The short story, Walleye Junction, is actually connected to the whole series, as its setting and tone provided much of the original inspiration. I didn’t attempt a direct adaption until the third novel because I needed some distance from the source material. Redrafting it into a longer format would require making a lot of changes to a short story that meant a great deal to me. There was little room for sentimentality. A lot of ‘darlings’ died while writing this book.

The short story follows a young woman who is returning home to a rural community after years of estrangement. She has to cope with both her father’s death and the many unresolved issues she’s left behind. Much of the storyline is left to the reader’s imagination. We don’t know the cause of her father’s death or why she was forced to leave town in the first place. We only know that she’s been unfairly blamed for the death of a friend who died of a drug overdose sixteen years earlier. The novel puts these mysteries to rest.

In the beginning I tried to stay true to the short story’s plotline but I ended up making some major changes. Try as I might, I couldn’t make the original ending work. It was too sentimental. The young woman had changed too much over the course of the novel. She refused to bend to the ending I’d originally set up for her. I tried writing it a dozen different ways but to no avail. I ended up changing it radically. It is now much more subtle.

Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process?

Karin Salvalaggio

Karin Salvalaggio

Anyone who writes seriously spends a great deal of time sitting in a desk chair in front of a computer. If you’re not writing, you’re doing research. If you’re not doing research, you’re doing admin. There’s no garret in Paris and I’ve not smoked a Gitane in years. It’s actually a lot like running a small business. If you’re going to stay on top of ancillary writing commitments, social media, your finances (such as they are) and your relationships within the industry it pays to be highly organised.

I’ve written 4 books in 5 years. I’m not one to skimp on quality so that means I work long, hard hours. Though I have an idea of how I’d like things to go I never plot out my novels ahead of time. I create a place, a cast of characters and an inciting incident. After that anything goes. I try not to think too much about outcome when I’m working as I feel it’s better to be a little lost on the page. When I’m writing freely I tend to find the most surprising and interesting storylines. This strategy has its setbacks. There is a lot of waste. Thousands and thousands of words get thrown out. I’m far more brutal than I was when I started. Instead of saving it in a file, I simply hit delete. It’s strangely liberating.

I get up as early as 4 in the morning if I’m on a roll, but usually the alarm goes off at 7. I make a vat of black coffee, eat some breakfast and sit down to work. I’m lucky to have a beautiful home so I rarely feel the need to write anywhere else. In summer there’s a little house at the end of the garden. In the winter I’m in my office, at the kitchen table or on the window seat in the front room. I’m a bit of a social media junky so I have to be sure to shut down everything if I want to get the word count up. If I need to clear my head I take my dog for a walk. I’m pretty sure people think I’m going crazy as I sometimes talk to myself when I’m trying to work out an issue I’m having with a book. Thankfully, the dog doesn’t seem to notice. Generally speaking, I work on new stuff in the morning and edit it in the afternoon. Interjected within these hours are bouts on social media and something I like to call my ‘real life’.

How did the Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck affect you as a writer and do you have any advice for current students of creative writing?

I owe a great deal to the Creative Writing course at Birkbeck. I went in with zero confidence and I came out believing it was just a matter of hard work and time and I would be published.

I found the ‘work-shopping’ modules to be invaluable. It was how I learned to look at my work and the work of others more critically. It was also my first chance to see how readers really viewed my writing. Most of the students were incredibly generous with their time and feedback and I tried hard to reciprocate. Much of the course’s success depends on student participation. I’m not sure it’s the norm but I’d say I was in a particularly good year group. The cooperative approach to learning created an atmosphere that was surprisingly intimate. I made some very close friends during my studies at Birkbeck.

My advice to current students is that you’ll only learn if you listen. If everyone is telling you it’s not working, it’s probably time to put your ego aside and stop resisting. Some students would argue against every criticism that was thrown their way. I always wanted to ask them why they were on the course if they had no interest in improving their work.

Can you tell us about your current writing? What’s next?

I’m pretty much finished with the fourth novel in the series. It is tentatively entitled Silent Rain and will be out in May 2017. The storyline was originally inspired by Joyce Carol Oates’ novella Beasts but I’ve made so many changes that the source is barely recognizable. It’s an ambitious project. I’ve been a huge fan of Oates for years so have even more reason to get things right.

My next novel will be a standalone, which I’m hoping to work on between my other writing commitments. Though it’s a thriller, it will be set in London and Suffolk so will have a completely different feel. If I want to get a solid first draft done in a timely manner it will mean writing two books in one year. It sounds like a pretty insane thing to do but I’m determined to try. I need to get my head out of Montana for a while. I want to write about the city I live in and the characters I meet everyday.

Karin Salvalaggio was born in West Virginia in the 1960s. Her father was career military and her mother was a homemaker. Karin has fond memories of her nomadic childhood – the hours spent on the road, the anticipation of a new life, the unpacking of the old one. She’s lived in places as climatically diverse as Alaska and Florida and as culturally distinct as California and Iran. Karin attended the University of California Santa Cruz, graduating in 1989, but aside from two years in Italy, she has lived in London, England since 1994.

She has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Her short story “Walleye Junction” was published in the Mechanics Institute Review in 2011. Bone Dust White was her first full-length novel.
 Her second novel Burnt River was published in 2015. Walleye Junction will be available on May 10th.

Melanie Jones

Melanie Jones

Melanie Jones graduated from the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA in 2015. She is the Managing Editor of MIROnline and a member of the MIRLive Team. She was a member of the editorial team for The Mechanics’ Institute Review, Issue 12.

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Birkbeck’s Published Alumni Series: Julia Gray

This post was contributed by Melanie Jones of The Mechanics’ Institute Review. This month the Birkbeck Creative Writing department launched its new website The Mechanics’ Institute Review Online. This year marks a huge success for the Creative Writing MA as ten alumni have novels coming out this year.

To celebrate these achievements we are profiling a selection of the authors and extracts from their upcoming novels will appear on MIROnline. Here, Melanie Jones speaks with alumnus Julia Gray about her novel, The Otherlife (Andersen Press, July 2016)

Read an extract of the book at MIROnline

The Other Life, by Julia Gray

The Other Life, by Julia Gray

MJ: The Otherlife will be published in July this year, what can you tell us about the novel and the themes behind it?

JG: I set out to explore what a rather amoral child might do if he were put under too much pressure; if the expectations for what he should achieve were too great and burdensome. How we deal with situations that demand too much of us is one theme – addiction, violence and escapism all feature in some way. Coming to terms with death is another.

You call on your experiences as a private tutor in this novel but also mix these with the supernatural and Norse mythology. Can you tell us about the process of mixing experience based writing with myth?

I’ve always been fascinated by books in which everyday life interfaces with the surreal or extraordinary. British fantasists like Diana Wynne Jones, Penelope Lively and Susan Cooper do this especially well in my view, and I knew I wanted to try to create this kind of mixture myself. I used my experiences as a tutor and teacher as a basis for the world in which Ben and Hobie live; I also drew quite a lot on my own childhood education, particularly in terms of the rigorous scholarship preparation that the boys go through. In general, these parts were a pleasure to write, since they involved a kind of rapid downloading of whatever memories happened to surface as I went.

The mythology, in terms of how the boys first encounter it, was also based on experience, in so far as I used the stories I’d written (as homework) when I was a child – sometimes word for word – as part of the text. Later, though, I had to do a lot of reading and research: learning a bit of Norse grammar, poring over dictionaries, tracking down esoteric translations in Senate House library. This was also pleasurable, but much slower. I’d say the process of mixing the two was the hardest part, since it was here that the plot became key to the architecture. The other challenge was to manage the incredibility of the supernatural elements; I wanted to preserve a real ambiguity for the reader, and this was hard to navigate at times.

The novel is written from the perspective of a teenaged boy, what was it about this particular voice that you found inspiring?

There are two narrators: sixteen-year-old Ben and twelve-year-old Hobie. Although Ben is the more sympathetic character, I struggled a lot more with his voice than I did with Hobie’s. I’ve spent much more time working with children of Hobie’s age, and I’d say of the two it was Hobie’s voice that I found the more compelling to write.

One of the first things I tried to do was recreate the rhythms of speech found in American Psycho – that kind of relentless, slightly flat tone, namechecking labels and brands, not pausing for breath – and then add dashes of Nigel Molesworth in full Down With Skool mode. What drives Hobie’s narrative is his rage: his frustration with his mother, with the boundaries imposed daily on his life. To write in Hobie’s voice I had to feel his rage, which was sort of refreshing, and then go with it. Ben is a softer, nicer, more thoughtful and sensitive person, but strangely this did not make it easier to write in his voice – all the rewrites I did were of Ben’s narrative. Another challenge was sufficiently differentiating the two voices.

Young adult fiction is increasingly popular with adult readers. Do you have any thoughts on what the genre has to offer readers of all ages?

I think YA has a kind of tautness of voice and a briskness of pace that are probably compelling for many readers. There are big themes, strong characters, absorbing worlds; there are many subgenres to choose from. Sometimes a book with a teen protagonist is marketed as YA, when in fact it might have been originally written for adults: just because it’s targeted to a particular audience doesn’t mean it should exclude a wider readership.

How have your experiences as a musician and songwriter affected your prose writing?

Julia Gray

Julia Gray

Music is quite important in The Otherlife – Ben is a massive Metallica fan, as am I. I really enjoyed writing about heavy metal, as it’s something I’ve not had the opportunity to do before. As I worked my way through various drafts I had certain playlists that I always listened to while writing. One was just called ‘Sad Songs’. Songwriting by comparison is a far faster process.

For me the hardest thing was to learn to sit still long enough, and to have enough tenacity and patience, to produce something eighty or ninety thousand words long, as opposed to a set of lyrics on the back of an envelope. From the first chapters (written for Julia Bell’s Writing for Young Adults Workshop) to the final copyedits, I spent exactly three years working on The Otherlife. I found the writing of prose informed my music-making as well.

How have you found the experience of becoming a published author? Have there been any memorable moments along the way?

I was sitting exactly where I am sitting now – on the floor in my living room – when I received an email from Louise Lamont, who is now my agent, asking me to come in for a meeting. (She had been given the manuscript of The Otherlife by another agent.) At this moment, it all started to feel a little bit more possible that maybe one day someone might publish my book.

You completed two Creative Writing courses at Birkbeck, a post-graduate certificate in Children’s Literature and an MA in Creative Writing. How did these courses affect you as a writer?

For me, the deadlines, structure, peer support and the guidance of tutors were all totally essential and I wouldn’t have had the confidence, understanding or ability to write a book in its entirety without having done them.

Can you tell us about your current writing? What’s next?

I’m halfway through another YA novel, which is coming along slowly but surely.

Find out more

Julia Gray is a London-based writer and singer-songwriter. Her first novel for young adults, The Otherlife, will be published by Andersen Press in July 2016; she has also written a picture book about the endangered Arabian Leopards of Oman, published by Stacey International in September 2014, and has contributed a short story to the eleventh edition of the Mechanics’ Institute Review.

Her most recent album, Robber Bride, was recorded with the support of the Arts Council. Named after the novel by Margaret Atwood, the album explores how turning points in contemporary and ancient narratives can be reflected in song. Julia has a first in Classics from UCL, a post-graduate certificate in Children’s Literature from Birkbeck and most recently an MA in Creative Writing, also from Birkbeck, for which she received the Sophie Warne Fellowship. www.thisisjuliagray.com

Melanie Jones

Melanie Jones

Melanie Jones graduated from the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA in 2015. She is the Managing Editor of MIROnline and a member of the MIRLive Team. She was a member of the editorial team for The Mechanics’ Institute Review, Issue 12.

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Learning in Womanist Ways: Narratives of First Generation African Caribbean women

This post has been contributed by Dr Jan Etienne, Associate Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies, about her new book, Learning in Womanist Ways: Narratives of First Generation African Caribbean Women

Background and influences for writing this book:
I was a member of Birkbeck’s Centre for Extramural Studies and taught on access programmes delivered at community education centres in such diverse multicultural areas as Hackney, Brent, and Haringey.Womanist ways 2

In my role as access tutor I came across first generation Black African Caribbean women on access courses pursuing learning in their third age (50-75). Whilst delivering courses such as ‘Group Work Skills for the Social Sciences’ I became acutely aware of the unusual rhythmic ways in which older black women in my classes were learning.

Such rhythmic learning styles were steeped in banter, joviality and constant reflections on stories of ‘back home’. I became curious to explore the nature of such learning. How might it play out in the confines of an often rigid higher education establishment?

Things that were happening in the wider environment (community; politics; academia) shaped my understanding and stance towards the issues I discuss in the book.

Their early enthusiasm for lifelong learning and widening participation in the higher education helped to promote second chance learning for older women learning in the community. However, the more recent dismantling of the lifelong learning/continuing education agenda in higher education made me concerned about the future learning opportunities for older black women.

The reduction in funding for adult and community education centres was also a concern as well as the demise of community and voluntary sector services. The closure of these centres/informal learning spaces, frequented by older women made me re-consider the role of higher education in a diverse, ageing society.

The book introduces Matriarchal Learning hubs and acknowledges that in our increasingly ageing society, learning in later years improves lives and has important benefits for all communities – not least to help tackle isolation and loneliness in the community.

However, for older black woman, reduced social capital means fewer social networks and fewer opportunities to access learning. Learning in womanist (black feminist) ways can help improve local communities.

The book reveals that black African Caribbean mothers and grandmothers have a particular interest in learning for the betterment of their communities. In Matriarchal Learning Hubs older black women are able to concern themselves with ways to tackle such issues as support to other black women experiencing the impact of such issues as rising crime on social housing estates; youth violence and school exclusions among Black Caribbean boys. Such issues are key motivations for learning in local community settings. Opportunities to widen learning in community spaces for older people must be a priority.

This book is written for all students who are inspired to make a difference in their local communities. It is also written for those teaching in educational settings with older learners who want to explore alternative teaching strategies. Finally, it is written for policy makers who believe that voluntary and community sector spaces are important necessities in an ageing society.

As a result of my research I am inspired by my ability to enrich my teaching. I have greater understanding of the motivations of my learners particularly those working in the community who are helping to empower and improve he lives of others. I also have a particular new engagement with contemporary narrative study.

Capturing the totality of the nuanced ways in which my research participants shared their experiences challenged me.

Using the variety of flexible approaches to contemporary narrative study provided me with the creative ability to present the women’s narratives in an accessible, appropriate manner.

This book introduces a much needed Black British Womanist perspective to lifelong learning. In an ageing multi-cultural society, learning seeks a Black Womanist (feminist) perspective. This book provides that platform.

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Birkbeck’s Published Alumni Series: David Savill

This post was contributed by Melanie Jones of The Mechanics’ Institute Review. This month the Birkbeck Creative Writing department launched its new website The Mechanics’ Institute Review Online. This year marks a huge success for the Creative Writing MA as ten alumni have novels coming out this year.

To celebrate these achievements we are profiling a selection of the authors and extracts from their upcoming novels will appear on MIROnline. Here, Melanie Jones speaks with alumnus David Savill, about his novel, They Are Trying to Break Your Heart (Bloomsbury, April 2016)

Read an extract of the book at MIROnline

They Are Trying to Break Your Heart

They Are Trying to Break Your Heart

MJ: They Are Trying To Break Your Heart comes out this month, congratulations! Can you tell us a little bit about the novel?

DS: I’ve been telling people it’s about the connections between the Bosnian conflict of the 1990’s, and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami – of which there were none until I made them up. It sounds bleak, but the story is focused around people putting each other back together again after catastrophe. In writing the novel I was interested in the tangential connections between people, and the power of the slightest encounters. But there’s a compelling mystery in there too – the story of a human rights researcher who discovers a war criminal believed dead may be alive and living a second life in Thailand. If you want a straight thriller or war story, you’ll probably be disappointed – I hope what the reader gets instead is a really novel drama about displacement, loss and love.

The novel tackles the political landscape of the early 21st What was it about this time period that inspired you to write?

In one sense, I’ve done what so many debut novelists do, and drawn upon formative experiences. I was 19 when I spent two summers volunteering in Bosnia, and the lessons the war taught me needed to be worked through. But as the writing moved from therapy to story, and as I began to inhabit a Bosnian protagonist, I began to realise a whole generation was growing up with no knowledge of the conflict, or what it meant for the politics of human rights and interventionism in Europe, (let alone the basic history!) This became a purpose for the book. I’m also really interested in the challenge of writing about very recent history, where the historical narrative isn’t settled, and a novel has a chance to work something out about how we came to be where we are.

There are very different voices in the novel. How did you approach this and did you enjoy writing any character more than the others?

Stepping into the head of a Bosnian protagonist was a big moment in my development as a writer. Until then, I’d been far too compelled by autobiography. I began to test this voice out in Birkbeck workshops, and the reactions gave me confidence. I work on the principle that all humans across all cultures, whatever gender, share the same basic drives and ambitions, and face the same struggles in life. There are differences, of course, but the more time I spend inhabiting different protagonists, the less important those differences seem to be. I liked writing Anya the most. Although the drama joins her in a moment of uncharacteristic doubt, she’s the kind of committed, focused and ambitious woman who fascinates me. One of the main springs of my inspiration is people I admire.

David Savill

David Savill

You left a career in journalism to become a writer and teacher, can you tell us what made you decide to switch to writing fiction?

I was working in Sri Lanka on the tsunami aftermath when I came very close to a fatal car accident. A bus in front of us hit a truck head-on. The bus driver died, and one of the passengers was thrown into the backseat of our car so that we could take her to hospital. It’s terrible to say, but with the shock I had a feeling of elation. I’d spent so much time around the grieving, and seen a lot of death in those months. On top of the natural disaster, this random accident seemed absurd, and for a moment, it helped me shed the fear of death. And in that moment I thought, ‘so I could die tomorrow, what really makes me happy?’ The act of writing, actually sitting down and doing it, was all I could think of. I loved a lot about journalism and documentary film-making, but it didn’t allow me to tell the kind of stories I felt improved life on the deepest level – the stories found in literature. It’s about form of course, and what it’s fit for. I needed to be working in a different form. Another answer is, I wasn’t the world’s best journalist.

How did completing a Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck affect your writing process?

In many ways. But the key thing it gave me was the belief I had a story to tell. Not that I was a writer – I knew I was a writer, because I think writing is a personality type. The tragedy is some people never discover the thing they’re best at doing. But before Birkbeck, I wasn’t sure I had anything interesting enough to relate to people. Being good with prose is a job – a matter of hard, stubborn work for me. But what if you have nothing to say? Julia Bell uses this word ‘territory’, and I began to see I had a territory to explore, and I needed to mine it for something of value to the reader.

Do you have any advice for new writers, perhaps those just starting a creative writing course?

Listen. Be receptive. Throw your ego out of the window and experiment with new things. Don’t expect your drafts to be complete, or for people to like them. Why should they? You can only hope your cohort and tutors spot the potential and help you develop it. Authors are asking readers to invest the most precious thing they have — time, and a creative writing course is probably the only place people will give it freely, even when your writing doesn’t deserve it. Be persistent, practice a lot, and your prose will improve. Then you need to focus on what it is you have to say that is worth a few hours and £16.99 of someone’s hard earned money. I’m convinced we all have something worth writing about, but finding it is hard. Dig deep. After doing the hard work, whether you publish or not is pretty much down to luck. I’m enormously grateful I had a little.

Can you tell us about your current writing? What’s next?

I am so happy not to be writing They Are Trying To Break Your Heart! My next book is provisionally titled, Disinformation: Finding Grace Bailey-Payne. It’s the biography of a brilliant, but little known journalist who disappeared in Georgia in 1999. I hope it’s also about how Russia became the place it is today, and the power games played between Europe and Russia in the beautiful Caucasus mountains.

Find out more

David Savill worked as a freelance journalist in the Caucasus and then with BBC Current Affairs television before founding the St Mary’s University MA in Creative Writing. They Are Trying to Break Your Heart is his first novel. It was published by Bloomsbury in April, 2016.

Melanie Jones

Melanie Jones

Melanie Jones graduated from the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA in 2015. She is the Managing Editor of MIROnline and a member of the MIRLive Team. She was a member of the editorial team for The Mechanics’ Institute Review, Issue 12.

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