Words on a Page

In the second of my interviews with authors from this year’s Fairlight Moderns list of literary novellas, I speak to JT Torres . JT is an American author and academic, originally from Florida, who now teaches English at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. His novella, Taking Flight , will be published by Fairlight Books on 8 th July. ~ Loree: You’ve got a very impressive CV, with a surprisingly long list of academic publications for one who is still so young! It’s clear you’ve been extremely busy over the past few years. Completing a PhD nearly killed me, but you seem to be thriving in the academic world. As well as your novella Taking Flight , you have four peer reviewed papers coming out this summer. My first question, then, has to be: how do you do it? How do you balance such a full academic life with your creative life? Do your academic research and your teaching responsibilities impinge upon your ability to write fiction, or do they help in some way? JT:   The PhD n...

Fairlight Books will be publishing the latest four titles in its Fairlight Moderns list of literary novellas over the summer – mine, included – and during the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of getting acquainted with the other three authors. In the first of my series of interviews, I speak to Douglas Bruton , whose novella Blue Postcards will be published on 8th July.   ~ Loree:   I’m always interested in where writers get their ideas. For me, I often start with a nugget of information from a newspaper or a book. Just something that intrigues me and starts me asking questions. And before I know it, a story starts to build in my head. Your novella  Blue Postcards is set in Paris in the 1950s, right? Why Paris? Why the 1950s? How did the story come about? Douglas:   As part of the research I did for another piece of writing (a short story) I came across Yves Klein’s ‘A Leap into the Void’. I thought it was such a fabulous lie. That led me to IKB (In...