January/February 2017 Volume 61 | No 1

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW Lauren Beukes by Grizéll Azar-Luxton The editorial team has put together some 30 odd questions for authors with the brief to choose at least 20 of which only one was compulsory — the author’s honest opinion on libraries/librarians. When did you first experience the need to put thoughts to paper? I loved writing stories as a kid. I decided I wanted to become an author when I was five years old and I found out that this was an actual job you could have. What is your favourite genre to read/to write and do you always stick to that genre when writing? Any particular reason behind the choice of genre and do you feel that you might perhaps want to tackle a different one? I am promiscuous in my reading. I read across genres and authors — but I want stories that are surprising, engaging, that tell us something about who we are in the world — worlds I can step into and live in for a while. Where do you get your ideas from and how do you decide on the setting of a book? From everywhere around me, from letting my mind idle, and my imagination play, from conversations, from the things that make me angry like racism or violence against women or the failure of justice. The setting happens organically, but my cities are as much a character in my books as the people — these stories fit these particular places. Tell us about the research that goes into a book once you’ve decided on a topic/storyline. I’ll read as much relevant non-fiction as I can, read other fiction set in that place, read up on the history, or biographies, how things work and then I’ll go and visit the location, whether that’s walking around Hillbrow talking to security guards and street vendors, musicians and refugees, or immersing myself in the Detroit arts scene, taking the homicide department the best donuts, going to rehearsals with teenage theatre geeks, working in a homeless shelter, exploring abandoned buildings. They’re tax-deductible adventures that feed into the story, make it more than I could have imagined on my own. Those conversations, those personal insights are invaluable. Do you work to an outline of a plot or do you prefer to just see where an idea takes you? I always know where I’m starting and where I’m going. It’s like a pirate treasure map. I know where the final X is and generally how I’m going to get there, but it’s rough hand-drawn directions rather than calculated GPS. Do you have a number of characters in mind when you start writing or are they invented as you go along? How do you build a character, for example, choice of name, creating a voice for them, et cetera? The protagonist is usually pretty well formed — after all, it’s her voice that is going to carry the book. I will develop her back story and secondary characters will emerge as I go, and sometimes shift around. I’ll try out different names until I find one that fits the person I’m writing about. How do you feel when you write the last line of a book and do you struggle to start on another? I feel great relief and a little bit of a comedown. Writing for me is like a year-long swim through an icy, battering ocean, fighting off megaladons and undead pirates and hypothermia, with the lights on the shore twinkling in the distance. And when I finally crawl on to the beach, exhausted, broken, half-drowned and look back at the dark water, it doesn’t seem that great an accomplishment in the moment. But perhaps that’s because it’s not over yet. There are still edits, rewrites, edits, copy edits and proofs to go. I love having the physical book — that makes me happy, doing readings, looking at the words on an actual page, not just my screen or typesetter proofs. 22 Cape Librarian January/February 2017
Kaapse Bibliotekaris Januarie/Februarie 2017 23 Casey Crafford
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Page 9 and 10: LITERARY AWARDS | LITERÊRE TOEKENN
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Page 53 and 54: Authors: Anita Brookner Anita Brook
Page 55 and 56: Elliott, M College reading campaign
Page 57 and 58: National Days Honouring women.-p.8.
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Page 63 and 64: National Days 2017 compiled by Szer
Page 65 and 66: World No-Tobacco Day Date: 31 May 2
Page 67 and 68: World Osteoporosis Day Date: 20 Oct
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January/February 2017 Volume 61 | No 1

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