helen
sandler | journalism
Frances Gapper |
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Frances Gapper’s
collection of short stories, Absent Kisses, has just been published by Diva
Books. We found her far from absent when we asked her a few questions about
her writing, starting with the basics... When do you write? Early in the mornings
before going off to work, with a fountain pen that I bought in the John Lewis
pens department – but it’s only a cheap one – on A4 lined
paper, and then I type it up later. Do you know who
you’re writing for? If I have a reader in mind,
it’s a few people I know, who I can imagine enjoying it. They all
happen to be women. Women do generally like my work better than men. You have a female
sensibility. Yes. Certainly
there’s an affinity with the female characters; but a lot of the
characters in Absent Kisses are
half human and half something else – mermaids, for instance. Perhaps
that’s less about being a woman in the world and more about being a
lesbian. Anyway, I’ve always been fascinated by stories that have that
kind of character, which tend to be quite old stories. There are a few themes
like that linking the different stories in Absent Kisses. Over what kind of
time scale did you write them all? The oldest one is
‘The Secret of Sorrerby Rise’, which I wrote ten years ago or
more. [It appeared in an anthology of melodrama called Wild Hearts and then in the Penguin Book of Lesbian Short
Stories.] But I’ve written
quite a bunch over the last couple of years because I started writing again
after having a kind of block for about ten years. What do you think
stopped you writing for all that time? Why did you start again? I think it’s because
I came to terms with my dad’s death. But I’m writing quite
steadily now – at the moment I’m working on a novel. It’s
about a group of nuns who are in revolt against God. I’ve been writing
it for a year and a half and hope to reach the end of the first draft this
autumn. Does it have any lesbian
nuns? It has some lesbian
interest. It has no lesbian sex but some oblique lesbianism in it. Has the fact that you
were brought up as a Catholic influenced your themes? I think it does show
itself, but not in very straightforward ways – the fact that I found
myself writing about nuns is telling. This novel is more concerned with prayer
and the spirit than anything I’ve written before. The spirit does run
through the stories in Absent Kisses though. Yes, well [laughs],
it’s kind of you to say so. Where does the writing
come from? When it’s working for
me, it is like I’m not writing it or that... that I don’t feel
it’s me that’s responsible for it. That sounds like psychic
strangeness but it is what many writers say. Is the story there
before you write it? No. It’s not
pre-existing, no. But it feels like I’ve just heard someone say what
I’m about to write down. And I do literally take things that I hear
being said, in the tube or elsewhere, and put them into my writing.
It’s like everything flows through me. That’s what I’m
trying to do at the moment, with this novel, which I haven’t done so
much before. I’m… um… I’ve been trying to let the
world flow through me. It’s particular to
you, your writing, but you’re also part of a tradition in some ways
– the stories show certain influences. Who would you say has influenced
you? Grace Paley, Stevie Smith
(her poems as well as her novels and short stories), Emily Dickinson...
Obviously, Ali Smith... And I don’t know if I’ve been influenced
by Sarah Waters, but I like her work very much. And Lorrie Moore – a
lot. Any writer who takes risks with language and ways of saying things, even
the risk of saying things in really casual ways. Order Absent Kisses now:
click on Diva or Libertas © Helen Sandler 2002 This article first appeared
in Diva |
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