A Chat with Elizabeth Knox

Writing in New Zealand is a tough business. I’ve recently started reading a lot more New Zealand fiction and as a country, we are producing some great work. I’ve discovered some talented authors in the Twitter writing community. These hard-working creatives should get more exposure. The idea for this segment grew from a desire to support New Zealand writers. It goes live on the 7th of each month.

My guest for this month is Elizabeth Knox. Best known for The Vintner’s Luck, she has published twelve novels and three autobiographical novellas and a collection of essays. She is an award-winning New Zealand author of literary fiction for adults and youth and recipient of the coveted Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton.

The Interview

KJ: What is an early book / author that inspired you to write?

EK: I was sixteen when I read Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. I loved its flagrant humour and antic nature; its grandeur, its seriousness, both artistic and intellectual; its spiritedness and fearlessness about being farcical, or about being grand; its sense of wonder and enchantment; its deep and real feelings. All of those things managing to sit singing with one another in one book gave me a sense of what it was possible to do.

KJ: What are you reading now?

EK: Right now I’m reading Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls. It’s the story of Briseis, Achilles’ slave and his prize of battle. It is tough and extraordinary.

KJ: What is your daily writing schedule like?

EK: My daily writing is these days endlessly interrupted by other tasks, many interesting, all worthy, but not as fun or necessary as what I call “the core business’—the writing of books.

KJ: What is your favourite remedy for ‘the dreaded block’?

EK: If I ever find myself ‘blocked’ it is always because I’m approaching the task in the wrong way. I go for a walk and mull it over, and usually work out how to proceed. I like writing too much to get ‘blocked’ in any real sense.

KJ: What do you hope people get out of your books?

EK: I hope people are moved and transported by my books.

KJ: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

EK: Work harder and worry less.

 

Great advice, thank you very much Elizabeth.

 

 

Buy The Vintner’s Luck here.

Burgundy, 1808. One night Sobran Jodeau, a young vintner, meets an angel in his vineyard: a physically gorgeous creature with huge wings that smell of snow, a sense of humour and an inquiring mind. They meet again every year on the midsummer anniversary of the date. Village life goes on, meanwhile, with its affairs and mysteries, marriages and murders, and the vintages keep improving – though the horror of the Napoleonic wars and into the middle of the century, as science marches on, viticulture changes, and gliders fly like angels.

Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. 

 

Blog: www.elizabethknox.com