Ann Enright interview

Excellent interview with Ann Enright, whose book The Gathering has just won the Man Booker prize. She says of her “inspiration”:

I don’t know if I ever get ‘inspired’ to write. It’s more a case of sitting in a chair and mulling things over until slowly I realise what it is I want to write. I felt like this story of the Hegarty family had been made up for me – so much so that I felt the suicide of Liam was self-evident and it wasn’t until a good way through the book that I suddenly realised I’d better tell people what had happened. I felt like the story already existed before I wrote it.

If you’re waiting to be inspired, don’t wait. You don’t need inspiration. Perspiration and tapping fingers on your keyboard will do just fine.