Madeleine Thien’s new story collection, Simple Recipes is available now from W.W. What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers? Since I turned fifty, I have written most things by hand.
Initially this was because of an illness whose origins were mysterious; typing caused incredible pain, to the point where I could not use my left hand. I feared that I might not be able to write or meet the demands of my various jobs. Strangely, however, I could handwrite.
Thus, over the past few years I have written every short story and essay and, most recently, a new novel, by hand. Meanwhile, I’m learning how to manage the pain because sometimes the keyboard is unavoidable. I was determined to write novels that no one expected me to write, least of all myself.
But handwriting has proven to be a salve in so many ways. I am writing differently. It is a relief to be away from screens for many hours of the day and, at the same time, to feel less separated from the world, to be attuned to paper, pen, and the rhythm of the line being written.
I feel like there is more space for the people in my novels to breathe. What’s one book you wish you had read when you were young? Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.
I wonder what I would have felt when I was young and so much seemed bewildering and marvellous and vast, and I feared that I would not make it to adulthood. I wonder how, as a girl of fourteen, I might have understood the states of mind and the conditions described in the novel. This book has been a touchstone for me.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
