I’ve been interviewing writers just like you and me since 2012. I started with written interviews called the Thursday Throng, and maybe at some point I’ll bring that archive over into Substack. Since 2020, I changed it to a podcast. The important thing about these conversations is that these are people who have had the courage to put their words down on paper (metaphorical or otherwise). I find I learn something from all of the lovely writers and authors I speak to, I hope you do too.
This month my guest is Alexandra Packer the winner of last year’s short story category for the Hysteria Writing Competition. Her story was titled Et in Arcadia Ego and you can can read and listen to it on the Hysteria website.
In this month’s episode Alexandra and I talk about:
Et in Arcadia Ego translates to ‘I too am in Arcadia’ and inspired by the Nicholas Poussin painting.
How the competition readers make a decision about whether an entry meets the theme requirement.
How to avoid writing about a current war without writing about the Ukrainian conflict directly.
Writing fan fiction vs submitting original work.
How the story represents both the living and the dead, and how the hardest part may be waiting for the dead to return home.
How the events of our lives often influence our writing, as well as what may be called synchronicities and coincidences.
All writing has it’s basis in human understanding and experience of life.
The challenge of writing without having direct personal experience versus the assumptions we make about reinterpreting the totality of human experience.
How much time it takes to write original fiction amidst the business of life.
The ‘writing niggle’ to create something more and where inspiration comes from.
Alexandra’s love of baking and how it can weave it’s way into fiction.
The nature of culture and change and how it infiltrates and infuses our own ability to envision ourselves as well as the worlds we create in fiction.
What is, is!
As mentioned in today’s episode
Sussex bake down - Facebook
You can meet Alexandra on Twitter @alexandtheweb
If you’d like to join me on The Art of Being, just leave a comment below.
Meeting Alexandra Packer