Kit de Waal in Conversation with Paul McVeigh

Birmingham Lit Fest Presents….

In this week’s episode author Kit de Waal talks to fellow writer and novelist Paul McVeigh about Supporting Cast, her first short story collection that focuses on the lives and loves of ordinary people including some familiar characters from her
earlier novels. They talk about writing character driven fiction, amplifying the voices of working class writers and dealing with rejection, alongside 2 readings from the book.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
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Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF 20 Podcast Transcription 6: Kit de Waal and Paul McVeigh
Kit de Waal
Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents...podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In this week’s episode I talk to fellow writer and novelist Paul McVeigh about Supporting Cast, my first short story collection that focuses on the lives and loves of ordinary people including some familiar characters from my earlier novels. We talk about writing character driven fiction, amplifying the voices of working-class writers and dealing with rejection, alongside 2 readings from the book.

University of Birmingham Sponsor Message
This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents... podcast is brought to you in partnership with the University of Birmingham College of Arts and Law. We explore what it means to be human in historical and cultural contexts, within ethical and legal norms and through languages and communication.

Paul McVeigh
Hello everyone and welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival. My name's Paul McVeigh and I'm here to interview Kit de Waal, novelist and short story writer, and currently screenwriter as well – and we'll hear more about that later on. Kit was born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 60s and 70s. Her debut novel, My Name is Leon, was an international bestseller, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, long listed for the Desmond Elliot prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award for 2017. That was followed by The Trick to Time, which was long listed for the Women's Prize [for Fiction], and her young adult novel, Becoming Dinah, is shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. Kit has had also huge success with the Common People anthology. But mostly today we're gonna be talking about Kit's short story collection that's a mixture of short fiction and flash fiction, and it's called Supporting Cast. And Kit's actually going to start with a reading from the book. Kit, hello!

Kit de Waal
Hello. It's great to be here in my hometown podcast because it's always great to be at any Birmingham event. The story I'm going to read is from Supporting Cast and it's a short piece of fiction. It's actually flash fiction. And the title of it is ‘Edith Paisley-Jones (Woman in a Flowery Skirt)’, and it's a character from My Name is Leon and she's a passing character, a woman at the allotments and it's set in 1981.
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‘She hung on, love ready, until her hands were weathered and rust-spotted. She stayed hopeful and optimistic until the light went out and the horizon disappeared. Her heels became square and sensible, her coat cut to keep out chills and disappointment. She wore thin lips and crept into loneliness like ivy through a tree.
Then he came along, and eyed her like an unclaimed prize.
She began to disregard her slip and umbrella. She found herself with him on piers, at funfairs, kissing him quick. She began to laugh again and leave windows open, became forgetful and blasé with recycling, a whistler, a lier-in, a gatherer of shells. Raising her head, she always found him there, waiting and dry-footed on the shore.
He took her hand, drew his shape on her life and on her plans. He was reliable and true. Then he became indispensable, necessary and she wondered how she would live without him, and when he spoke of permanence and years to come, she began to suspect his sudden appearance and question her good fortune. When she had been eager and would have been grateful, he was elsewhere, loving someone else. So she told him he came too late.
Now, she was near-sighted and content, she weeded her plot with rough hands, with knuckles too thick for rings. She became busy, practical, grew box hedging down the path and phallic gourds in pots. She cut her own hair, silver, fly-away, untameable. At weekends she studied maps and drove hours to deserted coves and dangerous walks he wouldn't dare. She covered miles of beach in stout shoes and concentration.
He never followed. They never met by chance.’

Paul McVeigh
That was lovely. When I was reading the collection, I often found myself in tears. You're a writer of what I call emotional fiction. When I read your work it just engages with my heart. And I wonder, when you're writing are you aware of that? Is it an intention of yours, and do you feel as emotional as we do when we're reading or listening to you?

Kit de Waal
To be honest I only really write what I can write. I don't, you know, I'm not trying to, to use any sort of devices or anything, I think I'd find it really hard not to write that way. If someone said to me, 'can you write something cold where you don't engage the heart?' I'd find it almost impossible. It's just, literally, you know, it's not like I've got a box of tricks and I can bring them out. I'm just sort of writing who I am, I suppose. Very occasionally, when I'm writing I've got a lump in my throat. I can remember when I was writing a particular scene in My Name is Leon when he meets his mother at a Family Centre after a long time. And when I wrote the end of that chapter, I remember thinking, 'oh my God, this is terrible' and I was genuinely upset. I knew it was a true scene and it had to happen. I certainly do know when I've struck the right tone and when I've got the right note because I'm moved. And I think you have to move yourself just the same way as if you're a comedy writer you need to find your own jokes funny, you know, otherwise, you haven't got a sense of it. So, I think I do know what I'm doing, but I don't know how to not do it, if you see what I mean?

Paul McVeigh
Yes, yes. And it just reminds me that I was reading recently about My Name is Leon and we're going to see it on television. Is it this year or next year?

Kit de Waal
Well, I think it was going to be October before the virus struck. So, I should imagine with a few months out it will probably be January or February [2021] now. But they've gone into pre-prod...