Questions with Erica Wagner, Former Literary Editor of The Times

The author of numerous books, most recently the novel Seizure, Erica Wagner is a multi-talented writer and passionate cook currently living in London, England. Beyond the print medium, she is frequently featured on radio and television broadcasts. Her passion for literature extends to her work as a judge of literary competitions, including the Man Booker Prize (twice) as well as the Orange Prize.

Born in a household defined greatly by her family's work with the Muppets, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University and a Master of Arts from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, but don’t let her British résumé fool you: Wagner is a born-and-bred New Yorker. She grew up on the Upper West Side and was a student at the Brearley School.

Mostly for The Times, she has interviewed such famous artists as Philip Roth, Seamus Heaney, Maurice Sendak, and Philip Pullman. Below, Blueshift is honored to present an interview with Wagner herself, conducted by our personal guru, Claire Carroll.

http://ericawagner.co.uk/

---------------------------

Tell us about your childhood. How did you discover writing?

I grew up in New York City, on the Upper West Side -- which was slightly less upmarket then than it is now -- and had, you know, a really happy childhood. I’m an only child. For a lot of my growing up years my parents’ job was answering all the fan mail for The Muppets (yes, really -- I’ve written about that here) and now, when I look back, I think this actually had an enormous impact on me as a writer, in showing me that writing was a way to connect with people. This was long before email, remember: sacks and sacks of actual letters would come to our apartment from all over the world, and my mother would write back to every single person who’d written one.

I was also a great reader, too; and both of my parents were, though neither of them read a lot of fiction. My mother was a very serious reader of The New York Times, so I’d say also that I was raised with a respect for journalism!

Do you identify more with your American or British upbringing?

I’d say my upbringing was American -- though my mother, especially, was a great Anglophile, and we came as a family on holiday to Britain often when I was a kid. I came to the UK to live when I was 18. I went to university here, and just never left. Living in England I discovered a very different place than the idealized vision of the place I’d had as a tourist; but clearly that didn’t put me off... I still think of myself as American (I’ve hung on to my accent, for the most part) but very well adapted to my life here in Britain. Writers like being outsiders, I think: it’s useful.

Tracking your publications, you’ve moved from short fiction to poetry and nonfiction. Do you have a favorite medium?

I wouldn’t say I have a favourite medium (look: I’m English enough to spell it that way), but I do like to stand up for the short story, especially here in Britain where the form has been, in recent years, rather under-represented. I think there are, in the United States, some really remarkable people writing stories at the moment -- Lorrie Moore, Lydia Davis, George Saunders, Donald Antrim, to name just a few. When I read their work I feel excited and invigorated, and that’s always a feeling that spurs one’s own writing.

How does your process of writing nonfiction differ from your creative writing process?

I think it was Stephen King who said that writing is like laying pipe -- it’s just work, and that’s how you have to think about it. It’s pretty pointless mooning on about the Muse: you have to sit down at your desk and write, no matter what you are writing. And all writing is creative: you’re still making something from nothing, even if you have a factual story to tell. So at the moment, I’m working on a biography of Washington Roebling, builder of the Brooklyn Bridge. Sure, the events of his life are all laid out in a line, if you like. But in what order do I recount them? What do I put in and what do I leave out? What sort of language do I use to describe him, and the other people in his life? These are all creative decisions.

Of course, if you are writing fiction, you have complete freedom in the story you choose to tell. But you still have to form a plan (at least I do; at least, up to a point) and consider how you describe your characters in the way you do, and set out the events in their lives.

What do you look for in your interviews? How do you make each interview come across as “fresh?”

I’ve been very lucky in my journalistic life, in that nearly everyone I’ve ever interviewed has been someone I’ve really wanted to interview. Now, this in itself has its perils, because you have to think about what your readers will want to know, and not just about what you want to know: they are not necessarily the same things. So, what I look for is an interesting person! And I’ve come across some pretty fascinating folks: Seamus Heaney, Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, Donna Tartt -- not to mention the interviews I’ve done with people who aren’t writers, like Buzz Aldrin, Harrison Ford, Harry Belafonte. Interviewing movie stars like Ford is tough, because you usually don’t have long, and you’re usually sitting in some awful hotel room, and your subject has already talked to 12 other journalists, and however professional your subject is, he’d still probably rather be doing something else. So the trick there is to prove you are a worthwhile person to talk to: that’s how you get something fresh out of them. With Ford, we had sons exactly the same age -- 10 at the time -- and we bonded over how hard it was to get them to clean up their rooms! “You just can’t get kids to push a broom these days!” he huffed. (I had got sent to do this interview, I should say, because my commissioning editor knew I’d had a terrible crush on Ford when I was about 14. If you’d told my 14-year-old self that this is what we’d be talking about, well...!)

I’d certainly say growing up, however, I had a writerly crush -- the most important kind -- on Margaret Atwood; I’ve now worked with her quite a bit over the years, and come to be a friend. That’s a real privilege when that happens: my 14-year-old self would be even more astonished by that. I just spent a few days in her company for a big piece in The New Statesman (you can read that here): it was inspiring to see how, at 75, she is still so immensely curious about the world, approaching absolutely everything with vigour and originality -- that’s what makes her the great writer she is.

What is a favorite (or interesting) interview you have conducted?

A little over ten years ago I got to go to Maurice Sendak’s house, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, to talk to him about Brundibar, which was both an opera and a book -- an opera that had originally been performed by the children in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Like a great many of the “children’s authors” I have interviewed, he did not see himself as a writer for children at all, although he was the author of a great many classics of that literature, most famously Where The Wild Things Are. He was just an astonishing, astonishing, wonderful man. Cranky, angry, charming, warm, forthright -- and as we spoke a full moon rose over the woodland that surrounded his house and I simply couldn’t believe my luck, that I got to sit there with him and talk for two hours. That’s one I will truly remember to the end of my days -- you can read the whole thing here.

As your novel Seizure is being published in France, what can you tell us about the translation process?

Seizure was actually published there a couple of years ago now; I’ve clearly missed updating that on my website! With a finished book being translated, I suppose I think you have to let it go: I am very pleased with the translation, and since I speak French I can say that confidently. But Gravity has been published in German: I’m delighted, but I can’t read the book.

What was fascinating for me -- while we’re touching on this subject -- was working on a bilingual show, Pas de Deux/A Concert of Stories, with the French storyteller Abbi Patrix. (You can see details of the show -- still in Abbi’s repertoire, as he works with his partner, Swedish percussionist Linda Edsjö -- here.) I had long admired Abbi’s work as a performance storyteller, and when he read my novel Seizure (in English) he said he wanted to work with me: Seizure draws on traditional stories taken from old ballads, and he wanted to make something in French and English that would weave together not only two languages, but also the old and the new. We wrote the show sitting side by side, for the most part, writing in English and French, although some sections of the show are completely my own original writing -- but written with Abbi in mind as a performer, if you see what I mean. I wrote those sections for him, with his voice, and his manner, in mind. It was wonderful working with him as an artist, and also working for performance; but it was also fascinating exploring the differences between the two languages. What kind of jokes can you make in each language? How do rhythms of performance have to change? I very much hope we get to work together again. Watch this space.

What attracted you to the story of Washington Roebling? What can you tell us about the upcoming book?

Where to begin? A walk over the Brooklyn Bridge when I was sixteen, in the company of a young civil engineer who’d come from England to New York with the express purpose of seeing the bridge... it is, simply, a great work of art as well as landmark structure and I experienced it as such. This was transformative: and much as one looks at a painting by Rembrandt and thinks, Who was the man that made this? I wondered the same thing about the builder of the bridge. The bridge was originally designed by Washington’s father, John: but John died as the result of an accident in 1869, the year the Bridge was begun; Washington, who was then 32, a decorated veteran of the American Civil War, took over; the task took 14 years to complete.

But it isn’t, finally, the Bridge which draws me to Washington now. He was a brilliant, hard-working man with a wry sense of humour and a keen eye for the foibles of the human race. Luckily for me he was a wonderful writer and so it’s possible for a biographer to really convey (if she gets it right...) a true sense of the man and the time in which he lived. I’m not being facetious when I say: I love him. I see his flaws, certainly, but I love him, and admire him, and wish to do him justice. Stop 50 people as you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and ask them who built it -- 49 won’t be able to tell you. (I’ve tried this, so I know it’s true.) Maybe my book will help change that.

Tell us about your experience as the Eccles British Library Writer in Residence this past year.

The Eccles British Library Writer in Residence is an award made to a writer working on a book that will use the BL’s Eccles Collection -- essentially, its American holdings, which are wonderful, the best outside the US. So that was perfect for my book. It’s hard to express what a fine institution the British Library is, for all of its readers, as the people who use it are called. Once you have a “reader’s ticket” -- you have to apply, and not everyone gets one, but they are pretty generous if you do honestly need to use the library’s holdings -- the world’s literature is at your fingertips, and you work in a place that’s beautifully designed, beautifully lit, and basically works like a dream. And... it’s free. Every time I go to the British Library I think, this is what I pay my taxes for. How brilliant is this?

And do you want to see, with your very own eyes, the manuscript of Beowulf? How about Handel’s Messiah, written out in the composer’s own hand? Gutenberg’s Bible of 1455? All that and much, much more is all on view in the BL’s Treasures gallery -- which alone is worth a trip to London. You don’t need to be a reader to see that: just walk on in. Incredible.

Can you identify any common threads that inspire you to write a good review (or a bad one)?

I don’t much like writing bad reviews. It’s hard enough to draw attention to the good things in the world without shoving them out of the way to make noise about the stuff you don’t like, that’s my general take. It’s also more challenging -- often -- to express why you think something works than to take it apart because you think it doesn’t. As a reviewer I ask myself: what is the writer setting out to accomplish? Does he or she achieve that goal? I believe you have to look at books on their own terms -- to some extent, anyway. I am interested in the rounded creation of character, the imaginative use of language, the creation of a world that is (somehow) wholly convincing. (I’m talking about fiction here, of course; different things come into play when you are reviewing non-fiction. If someone says the Civil War started in 1862, or JFK was shot in 1973, then you have another sort of problem.)

When I read fiction I am looking to be taken out of myself. I want to disappear into the writer’s world. If that happens, it’s my job as the reviewer to express just how the writer managed to do that. A most enjoyable task.

How are the stakes different when you’re judging a big prize, like the Paris Literary Prize or the Man Booker?

Judging a prize -- certainly, judging a fiction prize -- is different from reviewing. If you’re reviewing, you may well be thinking about the audience for the book, whether it’s a fine way to while away an afternoon or two... But a prize like the Man Booker is looking for work that will really endure. Books that make it to the shortlist will have been read by all the judges at least three times: you are really analysing these books in depth, and arguing about them (in the nicest possible way, of course!) with your fellow judges; you’re asking, will this last? Is it doing something really fresh, really original? What absolutely makes it stand out? That is a very rigorous process.

A prize like the Paris Literary Prize is different in another way, because that’s a prize for a novella by an author who has never been published before. You read the entries completely blind; you don’t even know if the author is male or female. With a prize like the Man Booker, however much you’d like to completely ignore that a book is by a certain author, or issued by a particular publisher, it’s nearly impossible to discount reputation entirely. You’ve got none of that to go on with the Paris Literary Prize: you have to fall back absolutely on your critical faculties, and that’s very exciting.

How does judging these prizes impact your own writing?

It doesn’t. I mean -- except in so far as you’re fortunate enough to read a few great books very closely, and think hard about how they work. But’s something available to every writer, not just writers who judge literary prizes!

Who inspires or has inspired you?

I learned to read when I was very young -- just shy of three, I think. And I like to think I remember the actual moment when I did so: sitting on the very end of my parents’ bed in the morning, waiting for them to wake up, and trying read a book I loved my Dad to read to me: The Diamond D and the Dreadful Dragon, a Sesame Street book. Suddenly, the bits I couldn’t remember made sense -- the words came together on the page, and I could read! That’s a miracle I’ll never forget, and so I’ll happily say that that story has been an inspiration to me over the years.

The first book that made me cry was a French tearjerker (read in translation, I assure you) called Nobody’s Boy (Sans Famille) by Hector Malot. Lawks! How the story of Rémi and Signor Vitalis made me weep! And I was about nine when I discovered Watership Down, by Richard Adams -- a book about a warren of rabbits? I can still pretty much recite the first paragraph of that novel. Later on Jan Morris showed me that history wasn’t just something for the classroom, when I found her Pax Britannica trilogy, a vividly entertaining account of the rise and fall of the British Empire.

But inspiration isn’t only found in writing, of course; I think it’s important to keep a sharp eye on the world and what’s in it and consider how different art forms, different cultures, influence and shape each other. So, for instance, I recently interviewed the filmmaker Ken Burns, whom I’ve admired for many, many years; his first film was a film about the Brooklyn Bridge. Burns’ narrative documentaries, like the work of Jan Morris, have made me think more deeply about how to tell a historical story. And in person, his energy and enthusiasm are simply infectious.

Inspiration is everywhere. The day I met Buzz Aldrin -- the second man on the Moon -- I also met the woman who would help me care for my mother when she was dying. I am fascinated by the space program, and knew I was fortunate to meet Aldrin... but you know what? Well, I’m going to leave you to imagine which of those two people I found the more inspiring -- one of them a woman who would never have her name in the paper, never be publicly rewarded, but who remains one of the finest people I’ve ever met. Keep an open mind.

What advice do you have for our, predominantly young, readers?

I just said it: keep an open mind. If you want to be a writer, read. Read everything, but most especially read what you love. Don’t think that in order to be a writer you “must” read a certain kind of book; read what draws you, what pulls you in, and then think hard about how and why the author managed that astonishing trick. Practically speaking, know you’ll have to just sit down and do your work: we’re back to laying pipe again. Or, as the bestselling author Nora Roberts has it, there is only one rule of writing -- and that’s ass in the chair. Mostly, however, writers are writers because they can’t help themselves -- there’s no especial grandeur about it. What’s grand is being human, a breathing creature in a beautiful, fragile world that needs our guardianship and awareness. Remember that privilege, that’s my advice. When in doubt, be kind. And good luck.

---------------------------

Keep following for more interesting interviews and blog posts! And happy holidays - look out for a surprise on Christmas morning!

#interview