12 or 20 (second series) questions with Holly Pester

Holly Pester is a poet and writer. She has worked in sound art and performance, with original dramatic work on BBC Radio 4 and collaborations with Serpentine Galleries, Women’s Art Library and Wellcome Collection. Pester lives in Colchester, England.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
a. Vocabulary, age, faith in attempts
b. Vocabulary, age, faith in attempts
c. Vocabulary, age, faith in attempts

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
How? Argh.  Who knows. Playfulness?
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
Slow slow slow. Like getting blood out of a stone. Lots of walks.

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
From the fragment outwards?

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Yes I am. It’s personal buzz, and a collective editorial moment.
 
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Oh goodness. Experimental writing has to create questions rather than answer them, no?

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Being a teacher is the most important role in my life as a writer. It offsets personal desire for my own success. Which is fatal.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Love editors. Love em.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Write with your weirdest impulses and habits, not against them.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
I hope to always move around forms and shapes and durations of text.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I work full time. Any writing time has to shove its way in between writing reports, teaching and marking student work. The tension between labours is maybe the answer to the questions about ‘what theories’...?

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Read. Read. Read. Watch a shocking movie.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Final demand envelopes.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Sitcoms, performance art, clowning, dreams

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
My boyfriend, Margery Kempe, Muriel Spark

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Write a joke book. And a play. And a book of essays.  

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
A low paid administrator in a regional arts venue, with a burlesque practice on the side.  

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I just don’t know.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Falling, Carol Morley

20 - What are you currently working on?
Getting my students through their degree… Another book of poetry.

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