Lucie McKnight Hardy’s Shelf Life

Lucie McKnight Hardy grew up in rural West Wales, the daughter of London immigrants. She grew up speaking Welsh and her education was in Welsh. She studied English at the University of Liverpool, studied creative writing with the OU, and has just completed the MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her debut novel, Water Shall Refuse Them, and her short story collection, Dead Relatives, are published by Dead Ink.

How and where are you?

I am currently in my study at home – a little room at the front of our house in Herefordshire, which is quite dark for a lot of the day because of the vast, unkempt woodland which borders our garden. This is mostly inhabited by a dozen skinny squirrels and a family of crows. The father crow – who has been coming to visit for a good three or four years now – has just started bringing his latest offspring to call, which is wonderful. They edge up to the front door, feathers slightly ruffled in the way of angsty teenagers, and look affronted when I go out and offer them bird seed. Then they will sit in the oak tree and screech until lunch time. We have a family of woodpeckers, too, who are bemusing: they will peck voraciously at the floor rather than at a tree and then sit around looking smug, as though glad to have confounded expectations.

My study is a horrible mess. I used to be a very tidy person, but everything seems to have descended into chaos of late. There are unread books everywhere, and notebooks, and paintings I have bought and am waiting to frame. And, quite often, a cat or two will appear on one of the surfaces, seeking sunlight where there is none. I try to tell myself it’s because they like me, but I know it’s because I keep the Dreamies in my desk drawer.

During one of the lockdowns, I taught myself silversmithing, using books and YouTube videos, so my workbench has been shoehorned into my study as well. It’s covered in hammers and saws, pliers and files, and, of course, my favourite blow torch. It’s quite a good set-up – if I’m struggling with what I’m writing, my workbench is just behind me, so I can swivel in my chair and spend ten minutes just melting stuff; it’s very therapeutic. I sometimes think working with silver is not dissimilar to writing: it’s creative but you also have to approach the project methodologically in order for it to bear fruit: planning out the elements you will incorporate, knowing how you’re going to attach everything together without it disintegrating. Positioning the gems. Also, as with writing, I have a lot of unfinished pieces knocking about; quite often I’ll get an idea for another project and abandon what I’m working on when something shinier turns up.

What are you reading right now?
Unusually for me, I’ve been dipping into a couple of non-fiction books recently. Chromotopia: An Illustrated History of Colour, by David Coles, is a fascinating account of colour and the history of paints and pigments. I’m also reading Sicilian Food: Recipes from Italy’s Abundant Isle, by Mary Taylor Simeti. This was a spur-of-the-moment, second-hand purchase, which turns out to be a rather eccentric part social history book, part cookbook, and includes recipes for such unlikely delights as ‘Virgin’s Breasts’ and ‘Chancellor’s Buttocks’ (dough, with a blancmange filling, for the uninitiated).

As well as a reread of a perennial favourite (The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks), I’m also enjoying a proof of a debut novel called Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf – a delightfully barmy futuristic sci-fi/assassin mash-up which is coming out in January. I’m also planning to set aside at least a couple of weeks soon to read Thomas Morris’s new collection, Open Up, which has just come out. I loved his first collection, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing, a heartbreakingly perceptive and moving set of linked short stories set in South Wales, and this one promises even greater things. I intend to devour it in small chunks and savour it.

And, of course, watching or listening to?

I’ve been watching The Woman in the Wall, a superbly brooding, gothic psychological thriller, which presents an unavoidably brutal take on the horrific Magdelene Laundries history.

I’ve also just binge-watched the BBC adaptation of Mo Hayder’s Wolf, which is a brilliantly dark crime novel by one of my favourite authors, and I think they did it justice. I don’t go to the theatre as often as I’d like, but I have a ticket to see The Woman in Black in a couple of months. It will be the fourth time I’ve seen it, in various productions. Interpret that as you will.

I don’t know if I should admit to this in public, but I don’t really like music. I know – weird, right? Since having children, silence has become a rare commodity, so if I have the opportunity I much prefer not to have music on. Sometimes (she whispers), I’ll even listen to white noise on my headphones just to cancel out what’s going on in the background.

What did you read as a child?
My parents had quite an extensive library when I was growing up, but not so many books for children; I think they were of the opinion that children should read adult literature. For that reason, I cut my teeth on Agatha Christie at the age of ten, and I was very into Roald Dahl – not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach, but his short story collections: Kiss Kiss and Switch Bitch. Influential literature during my formative years? Absolutely.

Which books and/or writers have inspired and influenced you, and what have you learnt from them?
I feel I should come up with a new and original answer to this question, as I always mention the same two writers, but it’s true: Alison Moore and Andrew Michael Hurley have been hugely influential on my own writing. I first came across Alison’s strange, uncanny short stories when I met Nicholas Royle, who is the publisher behind Nightjar Press. Nick was my supervisor on my MA, and subsequently I read a couple of Nightjars – single story chapbooks with incredible cover imagery – and was amazed by Alison’s ability to unnerve and confound. I quickly hoovered up everything else she has ever written. When I was writing Water Shall Refuse Them, I read The Loney by Andrew, and was really taken by how relentlessly dark it was. He has an astute ability to write a deeply unsettling or outrightly disturbing scene, which should otherwise repulse the reader, but which also skewers our attention like a butterfly on a lepidopterist’s board (if you’ll excuse the slightly elaborate simile).



What’s the worst review you’ve ever received?

A reviewer on Goodreads with a lot of followers called Water Shall Refuse Them ‘a Walmart version of Stephen King,’ which at the time stung, but with hindsight, to be mentioned in the same sentence as SK, albeit disparagingly, is actually quite funny. She was obviously just looking for a reaction, and she got it – lots of replies along the lines of ‘brutal, lol,’ and ‘sick burn!’ which I thought was worse than the actual review itself: lots of people taking pleasure in an author’s ignominy. I don’t read Goodreads reviews these days – I’m grateful for everyone who has ever left a positive review of one of my books on there, but I think it’s quite a toxic place for an author, so I steer well clear.



Tell us a little about your creative process.
The novel I’m working on at the moment was plotted out quite carefully, chapter by chapter, before I started writing, which was a new approach for me. I found that, while it helped make the process more efficient, it did take some of the joy out of it – the spontaneity was missing. Towards the end of the first, main draft (or, at least, I thought at the time it was nearly the end), I decided to change one of the major plot lines, which meant I had to go back and rewrite a lot. That’ll teach me to hanker for spontaneity.

It’s different when I’m writing short stories, where I much prefer to just set off and see where the road takes me. In order to instil a little bit of order in proceedings, I’ll sometimes set myself a challenge; for example, I might say, ‘I’m going to write a story in the second person,’ or, ‘I’m going to write something from the point of view of someone on the periphery of the story,’ and see what transpires. I do find writing to a strict brief quite difficult – if I have a commission with a certain theme I tend to take a lot longer than if I’m writing something purely for myself.

I’m very much one for writing on my laptop, rather than penning longhand in a beautiful notebook. I have many, expensive, journals given to me over the years, with thick and deliciously creamy pages, probably much like the aforementioned chancellor’s buttocks, but I can’t quite bring myself to use them; they’re far too special for my scribblings.

You’d think that by now I’d have taught myself to touch type, but no. I’m quite speedy, but still have to look at the keyboard. I should probably do something about that.

How has your experience of the publishing industry been?
I wrote Water Shall Refuse Them as my dissertation for my MA in creative writing at MMU, and then sent it out to a handful of agents, most of whom either said, ‘I like it, but it’s not for us,’ or just ignored it completely. I’d had my eye on Dead Ink since I’d researched an essay on independent publishers, but they always seemed to be closed to new submissions. As soon as their website announced they were open, I sent them the submission package – first three chapters, synopsis and covering letter. Nathan at Dead Ink got back to me the same day and asked for the full manuscript, and then read it within the next couple of days. We had a chat and he offered to publish my horrible little baby. Dead Ink have since published my short story collection, Dead Relatives, and I have another novel in the pipeline with them.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Feel free to ignore the old adage ‘show don’t tell’. Sometimes you just have to tell. Just get to the point.

Also, if a story isn’t working, try changing the tense or the narrative perspective. It’s remarkable how such a shift can open up new pathways.

What are you working on right now?
I’ve just sent the manuscript for my next novel to both my agent and a trusted friend for their feedback, so I’m looking forward to writing some short stories before the shit hits the fan and the editing process begins. I also have another novel in the works, which is a melting-pot of two different novels I’d set aside at various points in their progress. I love both main characters, so am looking forward to making their individual journeys collide.