Rebecca Smith’s Shelf Life
Rebecca Smith is a non-fiction author and journalist from Cumbria. She worked for BBC Radio for over a decade producing a variety of programmes including news and features and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian and The Sunday Times.
She has a Masters in Creative Writing at Glasgow University and now lives in Central Scotland with her three kids and partner. Rural: The Lives of the Working-Class Countryside is her first book.
How and where are you?
I’m cold which is not unusual. The ‘office’ is also my two-year-olds room. The old Ikea kitchen table fits in the corner and my son’s cot is in the opposite side of the room. It’s not a big room but it all fits. A stramash of books and paperwork in this half, diggers and fire engines in the other. It’s not ideal but it works for now. I pull one of his blankets onto my knees while I work which warms me up until I go downstairs to wash up the dishes from breakfast which warms my up hands properly.
What are you reading right now?
I am reading (and re-reading) Fieldwork by Bella Bathhurst. I’m using it, almost, as a study text. She writes so clearly, so honestly about farming, I’m trying to soak in her technique so I can emulate it later. She using in-depth interviews to really understand the person and subject she’s writing about and the reader only sees glimpses of her, but enough to want to follow her journey but not enough to take the story away from the people she’s talking to. Thinking about it, it’s a radio technique. I was always told to edit out my words when interviewing someone for a radio programme. Of course, it’s different depending on what you’re working on. But I like the result. It has the feel of something real and unmanaged but really, it’s produced with great skill.
I have very little time to read or, maybe, I don’t make enough time to read, but the kids are my excuse. (When are they not?) When they start going to bed on their own, I know life will feel very different but until then, I slam my reading hours on trips away on trains or that wonderful ‘dead’ time when you take them to football and there’s no point driving back before they finish so you sit the car or pub if I’m lucky, and luxuriate in a few chapters.
I have read Esther Rutters’ All Before Me in this way (out in March) which is stunning account of a breakdown and her recovery in the shadow of Wordsworth’s life. And The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston (out in April), based in Cumbria during the foot and mouth outbreak, and follows a hill farmer. I don’t get chance to read much fiction so this was a treat. I loved the language of it, so recognisable to someone who has grown up in that environment.
And, of course, watching or listening to, or otherwise consuming?
TV is the way I decompress in the evenings. By that point of the day, I just need someone else to tell me a story and not work too hard for it. We’ve been watching Yellowstone, with Kevin Costner. I can leave the violence behind but I love the mix of characters, the history of the land and the fight there is over it. You think the narrative will be on one side of the argument but then it offers you another perspective. That whole idea of progress versus tradition, what’s fair and what’s right comes up a lot and there are never usually any answers, just plenty of whisky while chewing things over. And the shots of mountainous Montana and cowboys are not difficult to watch.
What did you read as a child?
I loved The Famous Five, books by Dick King-Smith such as The Sheep-Pig but also the underrated Martin’s Mice and George Speaks. And of course, Roald Dahl. Fantastic Mr Fox still makes my heart beat with excitement when I read it to the kids. I’ve kept most of these, so my son read these well-loved books (he’s now 13), then my daughter who is 6, and then maybe the youngest will too.
I also loved a series called The Mystery Club by Fiona Kelly. I used to walk around our estate, trying to solve the mystery of why that light was on in the house but no-one was living there. I even wrote to her and she replied. I’ve lost the letter now, but I remember being so overwhelmed that a real author had written to me.
Which books and/or writers have inspired and influenced you, and what have you learnt from them?
I didn’t read non-fiction, which is what I write now, until I was at university. It just wasn’t really on my radar. I read Angela Carter and worshipped The Bloody Chamber. There was something in seeing the other side of the fairy-tale, another way to tell the story that really stuck a chord with me.
Short stories were something I tuned to next. Helen Simpson’s Hey Yeah Right, Get a Life was a book that cracked open something inside me. The stories are so simple and precise, and were so relevant to my life when I read them, I carried a copy around for quite some time.
And latterly, books such as Gossip from the Forest by Sara Maitland and Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie showed me what you can do with an idea and a clear voice.
What’s the worst review you’ve ever received?
Ha, does anyone answer this honestly? I was lucky Rural received great reviews and in papers I couldn’t believe would even notice it (The Observer, Sunday Times etc.)
I had one that said my research was patchy which was annoying as it was true. I had literally no idea what I was doing when I set out to write Rural. I am no academic. So, there was plenty of things I wish I had covered or covered better. But I think that’s one of the things that chimed with people in the book. It is definitely not academic. If it was better researched it would have been much denser and, I think maybe less accessible. I had an 80-year-old man get in touch with me and say how much he loved it and tell me all about his memories of growing up rurally. He remembers paying the doctor with a brace of pheasants. It’s those kinds of connections I’m honoured to have made.
I also liked The Sunday Times review which started with, ‘if you own a second home or are thinking of buying one, don’t read this book’. That says what Rural is about rather succinctly.
Tell us a little about your creative process.
I’m not entirely sure what my creative process is yet. I started Rural at University (Masters in Creative Writing) so there were projects and deadlines, which I know I like to work to. I like a structure. So now I’m starting my next book, I’m feeling a little lost. Maybe I’ll need to pretend I’m doing my Masters again.
I think I write the bones of it before anything else. Sometimes I don’t even get round to writing the fleshy bits. Some writers write a lot then have to edit. I’m the opposite. Even a finished chapter needs more. My notes from the editor last time were mainly, ‘a bit more description here’, ‘a bit more research here.’ There wasn’t much to add. But enough to understand that I like the bones best.
How has your experience of the publishing industry been?
It’s been good. It’s like walking into a party where everyone knows everyone else and you’re there with your drink thinking, how on earth does this thing work and why does everyone know everyone else? And why do they all look so cool? If you’ve arrived with someone, they can introduce you and you are sorted. So having a good agent and a good publishing house means they can introduce you to that world and not abandon you by the door to the kitchen. So I think I was lucky. Both my agent and publisher guided me in the right direction and supported me. I asked questions a lot (although I probably should have asked more.) It’s scary and in some ways more so for non-fiction writers as it’s your story you’re putting out there. But I felt they had my back, not everyone has the same story to tell, so I’m lucky.
On another note, I do find this whole publishing/literature world classist. It’s so hard for working-class people to get the experience they need in this industry and a lot of editors and publishers come from more privileged backgrounds therefore simply don’t understand authors and stories from places they don’t see. But I think this is changing.
And, in addition to that, as a mother with young children, some things drive me round the bend. As we all know, there is no money in being an author, so you have to apply for grants and residences a lot. But if you are the main carer for your kids (or someone else) or have to work to pay the bills, a residency to Switzerland or Scotland for weeks on end is utterly unattainable. My partner, or my mum would have to take all their holidays just so I could go. Life doesn’t work like that. I’d like to see more grants/time available for people who can’t drop everything.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Just keep writing. You can’t edit a blank page.
What are you working on right now?
The proposal for the second book. There is always something else more pressing to do though, a review here, an event there, a radio programme to pitch. But I need to get on. I’ve arranged a few onsite research trips which will be the basis of the next book but I just need to keep writing. You can’t edit a blank page.