Interview with Lily King

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing novelist Lily King, who was visiting the University of New Hampshire as part of the English Department’s long-standing Writer’s Series. She was incredibly generous with her time and her thoughts and our conversation covered topic after topic. Below (edited for length and clarity) is my interview with Lily King. 

Heidi: Can you tell me how Five Tuesdays in Winter: Stories was generally different from your others, or if there were differences in terms of process? 

Lily King: It was very different because this one is a collection of short stories, and these ten stories were written over the course of twenty years—I just felt that I finally had enough stories piling up that I could put together a collection. I had others that were either unfinished, or I didn’t like enough, or were too old and felt like juvenilia to use, so I whittled down the list down to these stories. 

H: That’s fantastic. In my own process, I often write pieces in a short form (like flash) and then slowly expand them until they reach their “ideal” size. Were these stories originally envisioned as books of their own or have they always been short stories? Is there a mix? 

LK: I think that most of my story ideas come to me as stories. I can see that they are finite, that I can’t see beyond them—I get the idea and then I sense that it’s small. Not that the idea is small, but that the arc is small. When an idea for a novel comes along, that just knocks me on the ground. “Oh God! I’m gonna have to do that!?” When an idea feels impossible, it’s a novel. When it feels like it would be fun, it’s a story. “Oh that? That looks fun. That would be a lark!” 

H: I love that. In all art—music, writing—there’s an element of play. It seems like short stories are the most playful, whereas novels feel like work. 

LK: That’s so true. I don’t know why [novels] can’t feel more fun. I really don’t. 

H: Correct me if I’m wrong, you also attended the University of New Hampshire? 

LK: I did, for three semesters. But I did the math, that was over forty years ago, and when I look around, I don’t recognize any of this. It’s all new. It’s all different. 

H: I know in ten years I’m going to come back and be totally lost. In a way, that’s some of what I love most—seeing writing that visits the past, or visits places that don’t exist. I just started reading your novel Euphoria [based loosely on the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead] and I’m really enjoying it. From what I’ve read of it, what I’m admiring about it is the way you’ve entered into it: not just the way that our interests might be different but the way our interests inspire our thought and the way that our thoughts are shaped by the things we see. I love writing that lets me enter into not only perspectives I haven’t considered but the minds shaped by those perspectives.

H: I did want to ask about your writing practice and your writing process—I know disentangling them might be complicated. 

LK: When I think of my practice, I think of the necessary discipline and how hard it is to get that and to sustain. Even in between books, I have a terrible time getting back on the horse and getting that real discipline back. When I have that discipline, I’m at my desk in the early morning—as early as I can get there—and then I just try to stay there as long as I can. It’s kind of “banker’s hours. It is my full time job and I try to work everything in my life around it. That was a lot harder when I had small children. 

Part of the process, that I suppose is also part of my practice, is that I do write by hand in spiral notebooks. I have to have that place where I can write whatever comes out, and I try so hard not to be berated by the critic inside me. When I write by hand, it’s just a little freer. It’s not in type, it’s not on the screen. I can write in the margins, I can do whatever I need to. Writing with a pencil in my hand just feels more creative to me and taps into some slightly different part of my brain. When I write on the computer, my writing just comes out differently. I love writing something and then putting it on the computer, because that is also a creative act and I can let the critic in a little more. The first step is really just forcing it out on the page. 

H: Making the draft exist is the hardest part. 

LK: definitely. 

H: I’m wondering if you can speak to writing about your home. I’ve talked to some writers who feel like home is almost a sacred space they don’t want to enter into creatively—what are your thoughts on that? 

LK: I do gravitate back toward New England (where I grew up). I didn’t plan to. I grew up in Massachusetts and got out when I was eighteen, said I’d never go back again, and of course I did go back many, many times. I have lived many other places—California, France, Spain—and I always thought I’d live away from here. I’ve lived in Maine now for twenty years, and I’m only now, just now, with the novel that I’m starting, writing about it. 

H: I have struggled to not write about where I’m from, and so I’m always interested to hear from writers about whether familiarity makes [the process] easier or harder. 

LK: I think it’s both. I loved, loved writing Euphoria—I felt very uncomfortable trying to write about Papua New Guinea (because I’ve never been there) and in 1931 (which I didn’t live through)—and it was really exhilarating to make that up. There just isn’t a lot written about that landscape, and so I really did have to make it up. There wasn’t a lot writing that was going to help me. It’s funny: at the end, they go to Australia. I’ve never been to Australia, but it felt so at home to get to write paved streets, a hotel, a Western Union. I really felt like I’d been there. I could research it, and look it up on maps. 

H: So far, [Euphoria] is a world I’m really enjoying stepping into. A couple last thoughts: what are your thoughts on genre fiction and literary fiction co-existing? How do you see those concepts?  

LK: For me, good writing is good writing. It’s all about the right details, and not too many. It’s all about concision and narrative arc. It’s like cubism and expressionism, figurative, realistic painting—they all exist. It’s all yes. I don’t have a hierarchy. I love so many different books. I love really smart, sharp writing—I don’t care what genre it is. I don’t love writing based on a formula. I want there to be creativity with the formula. If people are pushing against that formula, I love it. That said, I love rom-coms.

H: And last, do audiobooks count as books? 

LK: Yes! Definitely. Story is story. 

Five Tuesdays in Winter: Stories by Lily King is available now.