Dublin Writers Festival 2009 - 2nd to 7th June

This was one of those rare occasions to get up close and personal with debut writers and to ask about and gain valuable insight into what to expect from the world of publishing.


After a brief introduction by Declan Burke, Ed O´Loughlin, Aifric Campbell and Peter Murphy each gave a short reading from their debut novels. Declan then opened the Q&A session with some well thought out questions, before opening it to the floor. Here’s my pick:

Declan: The classic advice for novelists is write what you know – which is rubbish, because it limits imagination. Did you find that having lived in Africa was a help or hindrance when writing your novel?

Ed: It helped because it got me writing. I got material, colour and incident first hand. It gave me the courage to write. The intent was to for it to be purely fictional. The first draft was a long process and most of it was gone by the final draft. The most satisfying parts were those that were completely made up. You have to be able to invent stuff – that’s the fun part.

Declan: Did being a journalist help you as a writer?

Peter: I’d always wanted to write and in my 20´s, I was bursting with ideas but had nothing to write about. It was like being hungry but not wanting food at the same time. I thought it was cool to be a writer – second only to being a musician. So I ran away from writing. When I started writing about film, music or books, it gave me discipline.

Ed: With journalism you compress and tell but with fiction you show. I had to unlearn being a journalist to write fiction. Journalists usually write non fiction if they write a book because it helps with their career. It took me seven years to write this book; partly because I was lazy and partly because I was on the road a lot. The only way to complete a novel is to block off four hours every day and then you get results.

Declan: What pulls you in when you’re writing?

Peter: It’s a mood – a mystery I want to solve. For instance, I was listening to the Canadian band God Speed You Black Emporer and wanted to put words on it. I have lots of abortive stuff in the drawer. For this novel I took a swab of DNA from the second book. A definition of madness is repeating the same behaviour but expecting different results. I read reviews to find out what my book is about.

Aifric: I didn’t have a clue until I as finished. I thought I was going to write about the murdered lecturer but I was reading more about his brother. Something just grips you and it leads somewhere. Could be a character…or a parrot.

Peter: I read reviews to find out what my book is about.


Declan: For me writing 80,000 words was a big deal and an important learning curve. What did you learn when writing your novel?

Aifric: This is the first novel I have published. It’s not the first novel I’ve written.

Ed: Just sit down and do it. Don’t worry if your first draft is crap; you can go back and edit it. My first draft was a bigger feeling than getting a publisher.

Aifric: You become a better editor, better at the craft; better at your job. There’s always a pull between what publishers and the public want and what you want to write. You have to write the book you want to read.

Peter: Other people are smarter than I am. I was writing a lot, trying to find the story and by pure luck I found some brilliant readers. We’d meet every few weeks and workshop each other’s work. Getting published utterly changed my life; it was like a licence to practice.

Declan: Seeing a book of mine in the shops was the same. I have the life before that happened and the life after that.

Audience: What do you think of the festival theme The Power of the Word?

Aifric: Language makes us human; it’s our interface with other people. It’s our way of communicating with the world in a solid way. I’m fascinated by language and when you read, you interpret. It’s reading that brought me to writing.

Peter: Beyond literature, think of how language is used in the media. An Aramaic definition of “sin” is “impression”. A perfect example is the debasement of language during wartime.

Ed: We think consciously in words. They’re the only things we have to try and rationalise with and communicate with.

Audience: Do you listen to music when you write?

Peter: Not so much. If I do it doesn’t have a voice, can’t have words. If I’m drifting from the atmosphere of what I want to write, I will listen to some music equivalent of what I want to write.

Ed: Music is an emotional medium I’ve hidden some obscure musical references in my book, but no-one will find them. I like music for emotion.

Aifric: I wear noise cancelling headphones. But I write well on trains – it helps with dialogue.

Special thanks to Laughlin McKee for all photographs used in this post.

Labels: aifric campbell, ed o´loughlin, peter murphy