You\u2019ve recently donated your literary archive to the Linen Hall Library in Belfast. As a highly respected teacher of creative writing, how important is it that your archive is available for future writers? What will they learn? <\/p>\n
I hope they\u2019ll see what a messy business writing can be: all the scraps and fragments and marginalia and crossings-out are there in evidence. And I hope they\u2019ll see how important editors are to steer you towards a better articulation of what you\u2019re trying to express. <\/p>\n
When you were growing up, how conscious were you of other Irish writers, especially Irish female writers? <\/p>\n
Heaney and Friel were on the school curriculum and Edna O\u2019Brien\u2019s work was in our school library but we didn\u2019t study any Irish female writers. I got all the way through an English degree at Queen\u2019s without encountering a single one. When I did my master\u2019s in Irish writing, we read Maria Edgeworth, Somerville & Ross, Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O\u2019Brien. Janet McNeill and Christina Reid were the only two we read who had Northern Irish links. Up until then, the message we were getting subliminally was that female writers didn\u2019t deserve the same consideration male writers did.<\/p>\n
Did the idea of being a writer seem feasible to you as a young woman in Northern Ireland? <\/p>\n
Not at all. I\u2019d have said, when asked, that I wanted to be a teacher, even though I didn\u2019t, a journalist if I was pressed. Those were acceptable and recognisable professions. Saying you wanted to be a writer would have been akin to saying you wanted to be an astronaut: I knew what they did but I\u2019d no idea how you might set about becoming one.<\/p>\n
[\u00a0Nomad, a short story by Bernie McGillOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n How important is the literary past and hinterland to your writing? Is it inspirational, or a place to jump away from? <\/p>\n I didn\u2019t think much about that when I started to write. After I left Queen\u2019s, I made an effort to read writers I hadn\u2019t encountered before and I found Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood: women who wrote cracking good stories in voices that were distinctive and engaging and worthy of study. We didn\u2019t share a literary background but those voices sounded recognisable to me. <\/p>\n Your novels The Watch House<\/a> and The Butterfly Cabinet are historical \u2013 how much did archives and libraries play a part in the researching and writing of those novels? <\/p>\n A huge part. I spent hours in Coleraine Library scrolling through microfilm of the Coleraine Chronicle\u2019s reporting on the Montagu trial for The Butterfly Cabinet, and I visited the National Archives in Dublin, which held records from Grangegorman Prison, where Annie Montagu was held. I got the opportunity to visit the Bodleian when I was writing The Watch House to view the diaries of George Kemp, Marconi\u2019s assistant. Viewing historical records really brings home the human aspect of history and, for me, it can change the course of the fictional story.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve written and spoken about quiet spaces where \u2018the transparency of an inquiring mind\u2019 can find rest and be celebrated. How important are cultural institutions like the Linen Hall Library in keeping those quiet spaces open?<\/p>\n So important. I was thinking a lot about this when I was gathering material for the archive. The use of AI has had a huge impact on the way we now gather information but it\u2019s only as reliable as the sources it draws from. If its sources are skewed or biased in any way, then so will be the results. Librarians and archivists don\u2019t push an agenda of any kind. They are custodians. They leave interpretation up to us. One of my favourite books is Anthony Doerr\u2019s Cloud Cuckoo Land<\/a>, a work about the importance of books and libraries and the people who look after them and how they might just save us all.<\/p>\n Which projects are you working on?<\/p>\n Mostly, I\u2019ve been writing short stories. There are a couple of longer stories tapping me on the shoulder and I\u2019m giving those some breathing space in case they have the legs for a novel. They could be bluffing. That happens sometimes.<\/p>\n Who do you admire the most?<\/p>\n Hilary Mantel. The Wolf Hall trilogy is genius. She\u2019s such a consummate craftsperson. I\u2019m in awe of her work.<\/p>\n [\u00a0People in the Wind: A short story by Bernie McGillOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?<\/p>\n I\u2019d secure funding for a library in every school and one in every town. The town libraries would be open seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day to accommodate insomniacs. The librarians would get a break, though, there\u2019d be funding to employ hundreds of them.<\/p>\n Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?<\/p>\n Book: The Benefactors<\/a> by Wendy Erskine. It\u2019s word and tone perfect. It deals with the subject of sexual assault in a way that is perfectly balanced.<\/p>\n