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" I tend to research as I write so that the narrative can take priority, which is important for a piece of fiction, I think, finding out facts as and when I need to. "
Sarah Hall
Facts
Research
Need
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" I can gabble on now, but I couldn't when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time in my own head on the moors by myself. It felt like writing was the right way to express myself. "
Sarah Hall
Writing
Time
Myself
" I'm very aware of modern countryside issues, such as rewilding: how, as science progresses, we begin to understand that a healthy ecosystem is multiform. "
Sarah Hall
Science
Understand
Healthy
" I was brought up in Cumbria where I saw all these fierce agricultural women. "
Sarah Hall
Up
Women
Saw
" Our lives are politically wound. "
Sarah Hall
Politically
Our
Our Lives
" Swimming in the U.K. is not really about enjoying a sultry experience. It's about cold, clear acts of purification, and constitutional durability. It's about invigoration and bravado. "
Sarah Hall
Clear
Cold
Experience
" I married an American. He was from the Pacific Northwest but went to law school in the South, so I was living in Virginia and North Carolina. "
Sarah Hall
Virginia
School
American
" Various books revolutionised what I think about novels and showed me that they're not strict, formulaic things. 'Coming Through Slaughter' by Michael Ondaatje was one of them. "
Sarah Hall
Think
About
Through
" Over the years, I've lived in a variety of places, including America, but I was born and raised in the Lake District, in Cumbria. Growing up in that rural, sodden, mountainous county has shaped my brain, perhaps even my temperament. "
Sarah Hall
Brain
America
Growing Up
" For every prescriptive idea about the craft of fiction, there's at least one writer who makes a virtue of the contrary. "
Sarah Hall
Craft
Writer
Fiction
" Revisiting much-loved childhood novels is never easy. "
Sarah Hall
Easy
Never
Childhood
" Dystopian novels, such as Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four,' often tend to site their despotised or deformed civilisations in urban environments. "
Sarah Hall
Often
Site
Urban
" I was a terrible painter - my portraits looked like the evil chimera love-children of Picasso's demoiselles and the BBC test card clown. "
Sarah Hall
Card
Evil
Clown
" Wonderful characters rotate around and through bookshops on a daily basis, competing with and possibly even triumphing over fiction when it comes to entertainment, strangeness and inspiration. "
Sarah Hall
Daily
Inspiration
Wonderful
" I am a feminist, although I always worry saying that because you then get people asking you about the 1970s. "
Sarah Hall
People
I Am
Always
" I was useless at science. I was never going to be an astrophysicist. "
Sarah Hall
Useless
Science
Going
" Set in a nameless colonial country, in an unspecified era, Katie Kitamura's second novel tracks the fortunes of a landowning family during the first waves of civil unrest. "
Sarah Hall
Colonial
Waves
First
" I think you can tell any human story in a particular place. "
Sarah Hall
Story
Place
Human
" I felt impelled to write. It felt demonic, and I wanted to improve, the way some people habitually pick up a guitar and get better at playing it and making up songs. "
Sarah Hall
Better
Way
Some People
" I don't see that books can be written without political context - not if they're relevant and ambitious. "
Sarah Hall
Books
See
Without
" For its speculations to be taken seriously, dystopian fiction must be part of a discussion of contemporary society, a projection of ongoing political failures perhaps, or the wringing of present jeopardy for future disaster. "
Sarah Hall
Present
Society
Future
" Nightmares of a capital city overwhelmed by tsunami, war or plague transfix us, but catastrophe is first felt locally, and there are many homes outside the city. "
Sarah Hall
Overwhelmed
First
Outside
" Daniel Woodrell has made a name as a master of prose with personality - a densely descriptive, gamey form of storytelling, one might say traditional storytelling - of late rather an unfashionable mode. "
Sarah Hall
Master
Personality
Late
" I studied the short story as part of my creative writing course at university but then set off as a novelist. Generally, there is a sense that even if you want to write short stories, you need to do a novel first. "
Sarah Hall
Writing
You
Story
" I don't think practitioners should necessarily be advertising their work. "
Sarah Hall
Should
Work
Think
" I like extreme situations: people pushed out of their comfort zones; the civil veneer stripped off. "
Sarah Hall
Extreme
Out
People
" There was a lot of fiction I did not enjoy, whose landscapes seemed bland and unevocative, the characters faint-hearted within them, the very words lacking vibrancy. "
Sarah Hall
Enjoy
Landscapes
Whose
" You always hope you'll surprise somebody with the work. If you write something human and appealing, the perfect reader could be anyone. "
Sarah Hall
Work
Hope
Surprise
" Writers cannot simply have a go, imagining it's easier to produce a story than a novel because fewer words are required. Have a go by all means; be intrepid, but be equipped. "
Sarah Hall
Than
Go
Words
" One of the things I try to do with my writing is try to evoke the spirit of the place. I think these things imprint on the landscape and the culture. "
Sarah Hall
Try
Writing
Think
" I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power. "
Sarah Hall
Power
Think
Always