Sarah Moss and Megan Hunter in Conversation with Olivia Chapman

Birmingham Lit Fest Presents….

In this week’s episode, authors Sarah Moss and Megan Hunter join Writing West Midlands’ own Olivia Chapman to discuss their latest novels Summerwater and The Harpy. In this podcast, they discuss writing about relationships, creating unnerving fiction and the expectation placed on writers to make sense of the time we are living in.

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/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.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 Podcast Transcription, Episode 9: Sarah Moss and Megan Hunter

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, authors Sarah Moss and Megan Hunter join Writing West Midlands’ own Olivia Chapman to discuss their latest novels Summerwater and The Harpy. Both novels offer a sharply observed and unsettling insight into their character’s intimate relationships, as well as their interactions with strangers. In this podcast, they discuss writing about relationships, creating unnerving fiction and the expectation placed on writers to make sense of the time we are living in.

Aston University

This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents… podcast is brought to you in partnership with Aston University. For information about studying English at Aston, and for further information about the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, please see their website – www.aston.ac.uk - and their social media channels (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram) @AstonSSH.

Olivia Chapman

Hello, welcome to Birmingham Literature Festival. Thanks for joining us. I'm Olivia Chapman, I'm one of the team at the festival. And I'm delighted to be talking to two novelists that I greatly admire today, Sarah Moss and Megan Hunter. Sarah is going to be talking to us mainly about her seventh novel, which has just been published this summer and is called Summerwater. It's got a cast of characters who are living, or not living, they're on holiday in a caravan park in Scotland, where it just doesn't stop raining. And it's focused on one particular day. Megan is going to be talking to us mainly about her second book, The Harpy, which was due to be out in June and has been delayed to the autumn because of the pandemic. The Harpy is one of the most unsettling and kind of got-under-my-skin novels that I've read this year, focused around one family and the relationship between husband and wife when she discovers an infidelity. So, I'm delighted for you to be joining us, Sarah and Megan. Welcome.

Sarah Moss

Thank you.

Megan Hunter

Thank you.

Olivia Chapman

I wanted to start by asking both of you – but I'm going to start with Megan – about writing relationships, writing specifically [about] a marital relationship. You both do it exceptionally well, and I very much enjoy your writing on that particular relationship. But Megan, I wanted to ask you about the dynamic between the husband and wife in The Harpy. You can tell from the start that they're not happy and it kind of goes further. How was it getting right under the skin of that relationship?

Megan Hunter

Well, it was difficult at first and it was a new thing for me, I'd written about relationships before in The End We Start From but that was written in a very particular way; almost, you could say in the form of a prose poem. There weren't very many conversations, you know. They weren't really scenes as such. And in this novel, I really was writing scenes and conversations and actually quite intimate and difficult and conflict driven sort of arguments. So that felt like a very new thing for me. But I, once I sort of got immersed in it, and I was used to it in the novel – I mean 'enjoyed' isn't really quite the right word – but I certainly became sort of used to it, became familiar with it and kind of was very engaged by it. But it was hard. I mean, over the course of however long you write a novel to write about such dark and difficult things for, you know, years on end, when, you know, you're not necessarily feeling that way yourself. That's quite difficult to keep re-entering that dark space.

Olivia Chapman

And Sarah you usually – 'cos this is your seventh novel, and I've read I think all of them – but you do tend to focus on one family or relatively few characters. Summerwater is unusual in that you have, I think, five or six different families or different cabins that you're looking at. So, they all have slightly different dynamics, but

you get to know each character and specifically the relationships between them very, very well. How was that for you to be kind of so deep with so many characters and their very intimate relationships?

Sarah Moss

It felt like a very playful book to write. I enjoyed it and I did all of it, I mean, the metaphors I come up with are to do with dancing, which I think is partly because of the way the narrative passes from one character to another. Although the themes are quite dark – though not as dark as The Harpy I think – it felt like quite a kind of, quite a light-footed book to write.

Olivia Chapman

Because you spent less time with each family?

Sarah Moss

I think because I knew that I was only with them for quite a short time. And that close third-person narration I think is easier for that than first person because you can skip: you don't really have to introduce each person because you just step into their proximity.

Olivia Chapman

So that's interesting. So it's more like you're taking a snapshot and then you kind of duck out again?

Sarah Moss

Yes. I mean, I'd hope something more mobile than a snapshot. But yes, absolutely. You pass through. You kind of haunt each cabin for a little while, but then you move on.

Olivia Chapman

Oh, I like that imagery of haunting – the writer hauntin...