Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#219 - Eleanor Anstruther
263 Plays13 days ago
Critically acclaimed literary fiction writer, Eleanor Anstruther tells us about how she has integrated Substack into her writing and publishing journey as well as her endeavours to figure out the best ways of being a hybrid author.
💖 Join the Patreon 🙏
Support the show and get access to the extended episodes and more!
📚 The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes 🥳
Jamie, Melissa and Noami talk about all things writing, tropes and publishing!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Oh, a spicy question. love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? You can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of a gamble.
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong Podcast podcast. On today's episode, I am joined by a critically acclaimed novelist whose debut novel was long listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Not the Booker Prize.
00:00:27
Speaker
She is carving her own path in this industry as she independently publishes her books alongside a thriving Substack community. It's Eleanor Anstruther. Hello. Hello, Jamie. So nice to be here.
00:00:38
Speaker
So nice to have you on. um Let's jump right in. You've recently had a book come out, your third, fourth novel, third novel. ah It's my second novel, but third book. i had a memoir come out in June as well.
00:00:54
Speaker
Okay. um And that's In Judgment of Others. um Tell us a little bit about it.
Overview of 'In Judgment of Others'
00:01:01
Speaker
Sure thing. So in Judgment of Others, I've just been reading a lot of Shirley Jackson and I've realised in Judgment of Others, it's sort of Shirley Jackson meets Jilly Cooper because it's dark, but it's also quite funny. And it's set in the home counties in a market town called Midhurst.
00:01:15
Speaker
It's about a group of friends who are all part of an amateur dramatic society called the Midhurst Amateur Dramatic Society or MADS for short. And Tessa, who's our sort of, she's our lead character. um Tessa is bipolar, but that's something that only her husband, Scott, and her best friend, Claire, know.
00:01:35
Speaker
um And she is convinced by Roz, who's the sort of newest member of their crowd. She's a C-list celebrity and she's come from London. She's been there about a year. She's convinced by Roz to play Elvira or go up for the part Elvira in Blythe Spirit.
00:01:50
Speaker
That's the show they're putting on. And for those who don't know Blithe Spirit, it is a Noel Coward play about a man wrestling with his real life his live wife and his dead wife.
Exploring Mental Illness and Societal Themes
00:02:00
Speaker
And Elvira is the dead wife. So Tessa says, OK, she'll go up for the for the part. She gets it. But the day before rehearsals begin, she has a psychotic episode. That's how the book begins. It opens with her psychotic episode. And she is sectioned in a high security psychiatric ward in Chichester,
00:02:20
Speaker
And Ros, who is the Seelah celebrity new friend, agrees to step in and take her place as Elvira. She will be playing against or opposite Tessa's husband, Scott, on stage.
00:02:32
Speaker
And Ros learns of Tessa's real psychiatric episode, but they all agree to keep it quiet and pretend that she's gone to Spain. um But Rod also decides the best thing to do is to take Tessa a copy of the script into the psychiatric wards, which she does.
00:02:50
Speaker
And so the story unfolds with two performances of Blind Spirit, one in Mercury Ward in the high security psychiatric unit and one on the stage in Midhurst.
00:03:02
Speaker
um It's an exploration really of of mental illness and of fantasy and who is telling the truth and who is not. And it's only really when Tessa finally comes out of a section sort of but the last third of the book, that we find out whose imaginings through the bulk of the book have been fantasy and and whose have been real.
00:03:27
Speaker
I really wanted to get into ah that sort of section of society and why ah conditions like bipolar and sort of psychosis, the kind of psychosis that Tessa has, you know, why lying in the pond is sectioned.
00:03:44
Speaker
And why other kind of behaviours, which are just as damaging and cause just as much ah hurt and difficulty within the community, are celebrated. And I explore narcissism, ah disordered eating and alcohol dependence.
00:03:59
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, it's, I mean, I think it's quite funny. ah There are very funny bits in it, particularly in the psychiatric ward when they're putting on blind spirit, but it is also dark. And a lot of people have said to me, oh, it's quite, um you know, I get in there, I get under the hood of psychosis, ah which is always my intention.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah. And when you're talking about things like mental illness and sort of toxic behaviours, did you choose the setting quite deliberately to emphasise sort of areas where those things go a bit more under the rug?
00:04:35
Speaker
Absolutely. I really chose. It's middle England. It's middle class, although within that middle class, there's a variation from Claire, who's at the other point of view in the novel, who runs the stables, who doesn't really have much money at all, right through up to Peter and Diane, who are Ros's brother and sister-in-law, who are very wealthy. So, but it's broadly...
00:04:55
Speaker
middle class, middle England. And i yeah I chose that specifically, A, because I know it very well.
Substack: A New Publishing Avenue
00:05:00
Speaker
So I was already already under the hood. But also because it's within those sort of, what and I'm inverting commas my fingers, polite society in which, you know, behaviours like lying in the pond are not to be looked at, whereas...
00:05:16
Speaker
drinking you know ah bottle of Shablis a night is apparently absolutely fine, or you're treating your daughter badly, or whatever whatever it is, or or making up stories about your ex. So I think, yeah, it's the AGA polo crowd that I'd really wanted to get into and just really explore the the hypocrisy within that.
00:05:37
Speaker
um Because certainly that same crowd, a girl living on the street drinking a bottle of wine would probably be looked down on. But if you're sitting around a rather beautiful mahogany table, apparently it's fine.
00:05:49
Speaker
yes it was all of those hypocrisies I just really wanted to get under the hood of and and explore the damage because the damage is the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's that, it's that kind of system that allows you to just say, oh no, let's pretend like this person hasn't had a major issue and we'll just pretend they're on holiday in Spain.
00:06:07
Speaker
Right, exactly. And I think a lot of that, there's a phrase, remember who came up with it, but selling the perfect. And that yeah that society is very good at selling the perfect. And it opens, you know, as it was as I say, with her psychotic episode, but that's preempted by her desire to to push away the madness that's growing in her by doing up the kitchen.
00:06:28
Speaker
and Doing up the kitchen and putting in a new island, apparently that's going to make all of the discomfort and the disquiet inside her go away. And I think that' that's not an uncommon response to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd agree. um Before this novel, like you said, you've had a few books prior to this. And ah um I'm right thinking you're currently doing weekly chapters of your new novel. Yes, okay, that's right. So there was slight confusion there because I've been serialising work on Substack. So I just finished serialising
00:07:02
Speaker
yes what would be my third novel fallout uh which is i'm very excited about it's it's the first piece of literary fiction set at greenham common which i can never quite believe no one's done it before but there it is i mean good lord anyway it's about a teenage girl who runs away to greenham common it's an ensemble piece uh and greenham really is the greenham's the setting but it's also how greenham um affects and inspires each of the five lives that we follow through the book.
00:07:35
Speaker
And yeah, I serialized it on Substack. I think I finished serializing it just, it was New Year's Eve. I think it was the last chapter went out. um ah I'm really proud of it.
00:07:48
Speaker
I can't, I'm not allowed to say anything more about that right now. We have taken it down ah because things are afoot, but I can't say any more than that. Oh, I see. Okay, okay. But I also did serialise In Judgment of Others. And I think that's, I can tell you a lot about that because it's now published. I wrote In Judgment of Others in that period of time that all writers know when their debut novel is out on submission. It's a terrifying moment. And my agent said, just write something else.
00:08:13
Speaker
So I wrote this novel, which is completely different to my first novel in every way. I really jumped the tracks in terms of genre and all the rest of it. um but we and finished it and was proud of it but we simply couldn't ah get a deal on it so it sat in a drawer for ages until I arrived on Substack when I knew you know the only way it was going to have it to run around the park was for me to serialize it so I got into serializing it there and it it was such a hit on Substack that I thought hang on a minute why don't I just independently publish this uh so I did
00:08:45
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. I'd love to get into the, on Substack, um, well, Substack itself, if I go in your Substack, it says over 3000 subscribers, which is like a huge number of people.
00:08:58
Speaker
And that's on a sort of range of different subscription levels. So first I'd just love to ask, like, as an overview, what sorts of things do you offer as a creator on Substack?
00:09:12
Speaker
So a few things. um When I serialise my work on there before it goes to print, or at least I have done that up until now, I may not do that again, depending on what happens for the rest of this year with various bits of work that are in production.
00:09:30
Speaker
So it was a great launchpad for that work. And anyone who's subscribed to me from the beginning has had ah two novels serialised there and my memoir, which also came out last June, which I serialised.
00:09:44
Speaker
i I wrote that straight to the page, which what that means in Substack terms is that I literally wrote it and published it every day. without editing or rehearsal, which is an insane thing to do.
00:09:57
Speaker
But I just arrived on Substack at that moment in time. I didn't know any better, but it actually worked out quite well. i probably will never do that again. But anyway, now I've run an interview series called Eight Questions, which is ah it was ah one of those 3am ideas. I just really wanted to talk about Substack and how it's been the impact it's had on my life and why I arrived there.
00:10:18
Speaker
and nobody was asking me, so I asked myself and published that. Published that and called it eight questions. And then I started asking my friends and it's just grown arms and legs and it's now running through Substack. And the most wonderful people are agreeing. I had Nick Hornby,
00:10:33
Speaker
come on it. um Jameela Jamil came on just had Ros Barber, a feature on Monday. so really wonderful. Subscribers, they have that for free. Eight Questions are is always for free.
00:10:45
Speaker
um i also ah talk about all the events and classes I'm running now. I run classes on serialization, I've just done a thing on Arven for people new to Substack. So I'll always advertise and write posts about that.
00:10:59
Speaker
I also write posts about the independent publishing life, my experience publishing in judgment of others. So lots of articles and resources around independent publishing.
00:11:10
Speaker
And then lately, because ah the practice of writing every single day is such a good one for me, and that is writing posts that take no longer than a minute to read. It's bit like The Artist's Way. um started doing that again.
00:11:24
Speaker
so But those are for paid subscribers, and it's called The Obsessive Diary. And the the reason it's for paid subscribers is simply because I'm doing it purely for me and my practice. and And it's my diary. I could be writing it in a book, but I'm writing it on Substack. But, you know, if people want to read it they're very welcome to, but they ah they need to pay me another subscription to do that, which they are incredibly, can't quite believe it.
00:11:49
Speaker
But there you go. very grateful to all of them. um So that's a mixture of things. um And I do a lot of promotion of other people's work because that's the beauty of Substack. You know, I say this advice to anyone, if you want to get going on Substack, the two things to do are write what fascinates you and support those who fascinate you and your life there will be happy.
00:12:10
Speaker
Okay. ah just fixes all your problems all your problems yeah yeah yeah you don't need to redo your kitchen and an island you need to make a stack exactly i do the other thing i'm doing actually as well and this goes out to anybody who's interested anyone listening if you're not sub stack yet particularly if you're literary fiction writer although i've very happily interviewed anyone else i'm doing lots of live interviews now and those are super fun very low stakes um we We publicize them the day before. We get live on the app.
00:12:41
Speaker
We chat as if it was just like this, like you and I chatting. But it just so happens that people can jump on and listen. And it's a really great way for anyone interested in coming joining Substack, especially literary fiction writers.
00:12:56
Speaker
ah It's a great way to introduce yourself to my crowd and Substack. So do please get in touch if you want to be interviewed by me live on the Substack
From Traditional to Independent Publishing
00:13:06
Speaker
app. It's a lot of fun.
00:13:07
Speaker
And then i I send out those recordings. So everyone gets those for free as well. Okay, great. Okay, awesome. So your first two books, they were traditionally published, right? did So this came about because... my first book, ah A Perfect Explanation was my debut book, of which I'm still super proud. I'm glad to say it's it's it's a long time ago now, but I'm really proud of that book. It took a decade to write, like most debuts.
00:13:34
Speaker
And we sold it to the wonderful Salt Books Association, who published it beautifully. We also sold it, um and we got a deal in America and Italy, so it came out all over the place.
00:13:48
Speaker
um And that was wonderful. And I think, and I got lots and lots of publicity. I i you know sold a lot of books and I think wonderful as it was, the only problem with it it was it gave me a completely false impression of ah this writing life. Because I thought, great, easy, fantastic, let's go. You know, just imagining that the next one I would sell and do just as well.
00:14:09
Speaker
But it was a bit like i was flown to my version of, you know, the top of the mountain. I had such a good time. And then i was sent back down to the bottom of the mountain and told, now you have to walk.
00:14:21
Speaker
yeah And as a result, I have been walking one foot in front of the other, having sulked probably for about a year, stabbed my foot for another year. you know what i mean? Like it really, it it was it was emotionally and psychologically quite the kind of pull yourself together and stop complaining moment.
00:14:39
Speaker
which is, you know, and Substack really helped me with that. So, no, the memoir that came out next, that came out last June, I knew I couldn't get a deal on that because I'm not famous and who wants to publish my memoir, even though you know.
00:14:51
Speaker
So, i you know, I wrote it live to the page on Substack as an exercise. it That's what gained me subscribers. That completely transformed my presence there. And then I published it.
00:15:02
Speaker
And, ah but I didn't do any marketing for it again, because I, it had already done it heavy lifting. And I really wanted to try out Troubadour, who were the the hybrid publisher that I work with. um So yeah it's out there, but um I've done almost no publicity for it at all.
00:15:19
Speaker
um But Troubadour proved to be really reliable. And so for in judgment of others, I've given it the full bells and whistles. Okay. So was it when you were back at the bottom of the mountain and you were a bit like, oh, i have to start again. And that kind of obviously a frustrating place to be.
00:15:38
Speaker
And when you started the Substack, was presumably it wasn't like a multi kind of layered subscription system, like you didn't have everything going on Was it just a free thing that you were just doing and you thought, let's see what this is like?
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah, because I knew nothing about it. And I still think of myself as a technophobe, even though i have figured most of it out. But i was I was desperate. I really was. I'd had, I think, four years in the boondocks of just not not getting a deal, not getting work out there.
00:16:09
Speaker
And it As a traditional, ah being traditionally published means, especially when you're at the beginning, it means there's long periods of time when there's a complete silence.
00:16:21
Speaker
There's no engagement with readers. You're not out there doing stuff. I wasn't a jobbing writer as I am now. I hadn't established this network of, of you know, writing articles and that kind of stuff. So,
00:16:33
Speaker
I would write a book. It didn't sell. I would cry. I'd pull myself together. I'd write another one. It didn't sell. I would cry. You know, and this went on for years.
00:16:44
Speaker
And, you know, God loved my agent, Jenny Savile. She stood by, has stood by me, continues to stand by me, really believes in the work. She felt just as upset as I did that we just we couldn't get off the the second you know the tricky second album and and so and so then I was talking to my friend Fiona Melrose whose wonderful book has just come out by the way even beyond death it's brilliant I'm plugging it for her it's great she's going to be interviewed by me in a couple of weeks in substech and We were chatting and we were just talking, you know, comforting each other in our misery.
00:17:18
Speaker
And we talked about agency and finding a ways to reach readers, ah finding a way around. And then so then I think I read an article um by Hanif Qureshi. And because he was the really the biggest first name to really bring Substack into, certainly on my radar,
00:17:35
Speaker
And I looked i just opened i subscribed, I went in, I opened an account and it was just at the time it wass just called Ellen and Substack. That was it. and there were no notes, there was no chat, there was no nothing that all the services you have now.
00:17:48
Speaker
And I just thought, okay, I'm going to write every day and I'm going to press publish every day and I'm not going to think about tomorrow or yesterday. I'm just going to do it as an exercise.
00:18:00
Speaker
And it absolutely transformed my life because very, very quickly people started commenting, subscribing, talking to me. I started meeting other writers. I've met people who've become really dear friends.
00:18:13
Speaker
I've just been in America and visiting a whole bunch of them in IRL, as my children would say. and And it's absolutely. And I'm now, you know, and talking and meeting and working with, um you know, the sort of top brass of Substack who created the entire thing. and And I keep saying to them, you know, what you've done is more than just create a platform for artists to, you know, create their own wares.
00:18:38
Speaker
You've created this kind of liminal space of trackways where we find each other. I mean, it really is absolutely
Substack as a Creative Platform
00:18:45
Speaker
transformative. i I can't quite understand how they've done it, apart from the fact that the algorithms aren't trying to sell you anything or bubble you or anything like that.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah, I arrived with zero, nothing. And I've now got, there's I've got 10,000 followers, which for me is like, what the? And over 3,000 subscribers and a whole lot of people paying to read my work. I mean, it's just absolutely phenomenal.
00:19:08
Speaker
okay that's amazing yeah Yeah, especially in an industry where, you know, a vast, I would probably say the majority of authors don't make enough money from their advances and their royalties to cover their living costs.
00:19:23
Speaker
so most of them do have, you know, other forms of income or jobs or whatever. I've made more. Yeah, I've made more this year from Substack than I've made in the last three years from selling books. Wow. It's just extraordinary.
00:19:34
Speaker
Do you think this is a viable route that more authors should at least look into? Yes. And what I'm really keen on, my Substack now, i developed its into I've honed it really, and it is the literary obsessive now, and I champion independent.
00:19:49
Speaker
fiction and but crucially I want to see how independent artists independent literary fiction artists can work in tandem with the mainstream so this isn't an either or because both uh there's pluses and minuses to both if you're an independent it's really hard work but you obviously retain your rights and complete agency if you're mainstream you get carried along but you can also get lost depending on what level you are and what money is put into your marketing and publicity.
00:20:18
Speaker
So I would really love to see more literary fiction writers join Substack and use it as a place to market test or try out or even publish original work there.
00:20:31
Speaker
Just as a as a tandem effort. um I've been talking to, i had a great chat with Sam Jordison recently And I asked him, that's Gally Beggar Press. I asked him what Gally Beggar, but did would they view published on Substack as published? And he said, no, we do not consider that.
00:20:51
Speaker
I then had another conversation with somebody a mainstream audience ah sort of big five publishing and they felt that artists could publish up to 10% on Substack and then pull it if they were going to submit to mainstream.
00:21:05
Speaker
And then literary ah fiction, literary magazines have got ah another set of rules again and competitions have another set of rules again. So it's always worth looking and finding out. But I think what substack, the gap it really fills in is, and i always get this from eight questions. I've seen it now after over a year of artists responding to those questions.
00:21:27
Speaker
It's a place where you can publish what you cannot publish elsewhere. And I don't mean that in a, you know, inciting hatred and you know, violence. i I mean, you know, good speech as opposed to, you know, right speech. You can really artistically spread your wings on Substack and you have complete agency over and you can try work out.
00:21:48
Speaker
And then you can also... submit to mainstream and submit to independent publishers or publish it yourself. And it shouldn't, one should not exclude the other. um But I think, and I think we can all agree, and I really understand the reasons for this, but mainstream, and what i'm met by mainstream, I'm talking big five, mainstream publishing, it does have a marketing issue.
00:22:11
Speaker
It does have, a there's a growing reputational issue with the books that are pushed versus what we find when we open the covers. And I think there's a real, there's an exhaustion by readers about being told something is the best next thing ever.
00:22:27
Speaker
They buy the book, having and that's now the marketing people's job done. They open it and feel that actually they're just being served either something they've read before or something that's just not good enough.
00:22:39
Speaker
Now, there are a lot amazing independent publishers out there like Gallybega, who are really still flying flag. And also there are wonderful people working in mainstream who are really flying the flag, but they're up against a lot of marketing straits.
00:22:53
Speaker
And I think on Substack, you know, you can really explore and break ground. And I think that's exciting. And I think readers want it. And you can gather readers there.
00:23:05
Speaker
ah readers there ah whether you then go on to publish mainstream or indie. Yeah. Well, like you say, it's it's a purely creative zone, whereas yeah a publisher has to look at something. It's a business and it has to look at something as a commercial product.
00:23:19
Speaker
It's a business. And i i mean, i I always stress that I really do understand that. But I also really understand that, you know, the the reading public are brilliant, and they are clever, and they can take new ground, they want it, you know, they actually want the best stuff, the new stuff.
00:23:38
Speaker
that they want to be tested, they want their brains stretched, they want their reading experience to be something new. And perhaps big marketing, they can't take that risk, and I get that.
00:23:50
Speaker
But smaller indies and independent artists and sub-stack writers, we can. And it's beholden on us, I think, to keep doing that, to market test it as well. And just to show, if we're going to break the paradigm, this is how we do it.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. um before we Before we head over to the desert island, i do want to ask, whilst we're talking about Substack, if an author wanted to, you know, experiment or look into doing something like like what you've done, whether it be Substack or Patreon or or whatever kind of service it is, um what advice would you give them to get going?
00:24:26
Speaker
ah Well, contact me and I will live interview you. That's the first thing. I'll talk you through it. No, it's a really it a good way to start because you'll be immediately introduced to 3,000, no, 10,000 people immediately by by being interviewed by me if they decide they want to click on that interview, which they often do. That's the first thing.
00:24:45
Speaker
um I would say that when you first begin, i would keep it really simple. A lot of people, when they begin, they over-promise and under-produce because they get over-excited.
00:24:59
Speaker
So I would say do the opposite. Start small, keep the bar low, keep it really simple. Think about ah the DNA of your substack being very ah clear. So the best substacks, the ones that that rise very quickly are things like my friend Chloe Hope's Death and Birds.
00:25:16
Speaker
It's a substack that's literally about death and birds and the clues in the title. Do you know what I mean? So you just keep it really simple. So when I click on your sub stack, your title will tell me exactly what it's about. I would avoid the word musings.
00:25:31
Speaker
It's really overused. And I tend to never, ever click on somebody who describes their stack as musings about something, something because it's just it's an overused word on Substack.
00:25:42
Speaker
So keep it simple. keep Keep the bar low in terms of what you're going to deliver. Take your time. And particularly, imagine Substack is a playground and the nice kind, not the kind where you stood in the corner and got bullied when you were five. Like I did.
00:25:57
Speaker
It's a great, fantastic, creative playground full of brilliant people who all want to support you. So go in there with a really, really playful attitude and just muck about and have fun and be supportive and ask lots of questions.
00:26:13
Speaker
Ask me questions and build slowly. That would be my advice. Okay. Yeah, I think that's good advice. And I think it's for a lot of authors. um It's definitely something worth looking at, whether you pursue it or not. It's definitely a new avenue that I think yeah has opened up within publishing and and definitely worth a look.
00:26:33
Speaker
It's a string to your bow. And can I just say that i know for a fact that there are editors and agents reading and watching new artists on Substack. So it's a good way to, it's it's good to get on board now. And it's a good way to show who you are.
00:26:50
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Good advice there.
Literary Preferences and Educational Insights
00:26:52
Speaker
um So we are around the halfway point for the episode and that means I'm going to ship you off and strand you in the middle of the ocean and ask you, Eleanor, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:27:10
Speaker
Yes, I've thought about this a lot and bizarrely to me, because it's not the book I imagined I'd say, i think it's Middlemarch. Okay. And I say that, not that I don't love George Eliot, because I love George Eliot. I'm surprised at myself because um i read it a long time ago. And I as ah i did my A-levels, English A-level was Middlemarch. And you know i yeah i didn't love it as much as I've loved other ah George Eliot's at all. But there's something about my age now, looking back,
00:27:43
Speaker
um And my mother often mentioned it. And I sort of feel that there's, I've reached a maturity now where I think reading it again, and I am going to reread it while I was thinking about which book it would be. And I knew it would be little much. I thought, okay, I'm going to reread that.
00:27:59
Speaker
I think I will, I will consume it. I will digest it in a way that I wasn't capable back then when I was 18, I would understand it better.
00:28:10
Speaker
And so for that reason, it's a big book. because George Eliot is one of my greatest teachers. I always learn from her. And yes, I think, I feel like I'll, I'll enjoy reading it again. and um,
00:28:25
Speaker
I was going to say, once I've read it, I'll rip it up and burn it for fire. But I won't because I couldn't do that. i you know i heard about someone the other day saying when they travel, as they travel, they rip out the pages. So there's less to carry.
00:28:37
Speaker
Can you imagine doing that? What? What do they They stir them away. It's really upset me. It's really upset me. It's like, good God. Yeah. So I will keep it. Maybe I'll use it as a very ah severe pillow.
00:28:49
Speaker
very severe
00:28:52
Speaker
Okay, that's interesting. I mean, I'm always impressed when people can go back to books that they were forced to study as a teenager. yeah Because for me, it ruined those that literature for me. And yeah it's hard for me to think fondly on that, especially when you're forced to study something, which is obviously not the way that the author intended you to read that.
00:29:13
Speaker
No, I don't imagine she intended 17-year-olds, 18 years to be reading it. I mean, it's ridiculous. And if I were queen of the empress of the world, I would change the education system, starting with the English A-level. I mean, good Lord.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. They really need to revamp some of the books and the curriculum. They really need to revamp it. Yes. Because there's some that I, sometimes I read a book and I'm like, this should be studied in schools because it's age appropriate and it's just brilliant. Like I think a monster calls is so obvious for me that should be on English literature curriculum.
00:29:46
Speaker
Right. I mean, Stephen King, anything that gets them in is excited. When my son was doing, i think he was, she says GCSEs and he completely fell in love with Murakami and they wouldn't let him read it. They made him read to Jane Austen and God knows I love Jane Austen.
00:30:05
Speaker
He was like, what the, I don't care. And I said, I don't blame you. This is, why do you, Pride and Prejudice for a 17 year old boy? I what the hell? It's like, You know, anyway, it's and I'd even i go so far as to say a lot of the Shakespeare, it's just don't put them off.
00:30:24
Speaker
You know, them in. Once you're in and you've fallen in love with the written word, you will read anything. Yeah. You've got to fall in love. The thing that breaks my heart, because i I love and adore Shakespeare, and it's because my mother, when me and my sister were very young, basically like took us to see so much Shakespeare before we were old enough that we had to study it. And thats it's a play. And it's it's wild to me that people that the school board thinks that the first experience you should have the Shakespeare is reading it as an academic text.
00:30:56
Speaker
It's insane. That's not the form. That's not it's supposed to be experienced. It's not the head into the globe. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I and I don't, I admit now, I don't love Shakespeare. I don't because exactly that was my first experience, Romeo and Bloody Juliet.
00:31:13
Speaker
yeah The most exciting thing about that was my teacher, Mr. Wincott, who I was madly in love with. So that's what always think of when I was 13, you know, and like I've never got over it. I don't think I've ever, I don't want to, I feel bad saying it, but I just, I don't love it.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah. Because i don't know, you just, you need to, if you're going to teach it, you need to, before you even start reading it, you should take, everyone should have seen, they should have seen it. The whole class should have seen it performed on the stage somewhere as it, as was intended.
00:31:43
Speaker
As was intended, standing up in the rain, shouting, being the whole nine yards. Exactly. Whereas I do love, you know, my very earliest reading was sort of, I mean, like sort of proper sort of grown up books with a very early Jilly Cooper, ah you know,
00:31:59
Speaker
oh they though She wrote a series and I can't think of any of the, the Bella and all these like, a bit like Mills and Boone, but they were Jilly Cooper. yeah And I just fell in love with the written, and then Narnia, you know, it's like, and they're off right and now, you know, off I went. And so I was able to love, I didn't hate Middlemarch when I read it as an A-level student, but I didn't, I didn't appreciate what was happening before my very eyes. And I would now as a writer, you know, technically I'd be like, wow.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. That's impressive. I don't think I will ever give the changeling another chance. but So there I'm sending a book. That's the thing. I mean, i these days as well, I don't force myself to, if I'm really not liking something, I just stop.
00:32:46
Speaker
I might, you know, I might push through if I know that it's just a technically, You know, it's and sort of, it's having to stretch my brain. I might push myself through. I'm thinking of Praiseworthy, which actually I didn't have to push that much, but it is, it's a heck of a book to read, Alexis. yeah right You know, you do have to kind of gird your loins and go, okay, take a deep breath.
00:33:07
Speaker
But if I'm reading something that I just think, no, I just stop now. I just go, no, not going read it. Yeah. I've come around to that as well. When I was younger, I would force myself to finish things, even if I was not enjoying it. But yeah but now sometimes, especially with li more literary stuff, there is like, it can be very rewarding kind of persevering through that. There's the push through. I always think of Unbearable Likeness of Being, and that was the novel that I pushed through when I first read it.
00:33:34
Speaker
And then I read it again and was glad I had. And then I read it again recently. And again, as a much more mature person and as ah now as a professional writer, I, I read it on a completely different level and was utterly blown away by technically and on a literary level and everything. So yeah, I think, and I had this conversation actually with somebody recently in America, a professor like, yeah, he wants books to be hard.
00:33:59
Speaker
So it's not hard. I don't mind tough or hard. Like, you know, I've got to work. yeah I do mind, I do mind badly written. ah do mind that. I'm not going to read it. Yeah.
00:34:10
Speaker
What I'm getting is you're not a fan of romanticism. Well, you know, haven't actually read any romanticity, because genre-wise, I do have a thing about um um magical realism. Although...
00:34:26
Speaker
Praiseworthy in a sense is kind of really sails very close to the magical realism wind. But i I tend to not be so genre. I'm not interested in genre. I'm interested in literary fiction. I think that's the thing. And Sean McNulty and I have been trying to define literary fiction and we've decided it's two things. It's free of cliche and depth.
00:34:48
Speaker
And okay as as long as it's free of cliche and has depth, I don't care what genre it is. Yeah. i could see yeah i can I can see that as a, cause it is one of those hard things to define. Yeah, it is difficult, but I think that's the one I've sort of settled on for me. And I think somebody else might define it differently, but that's the one I'm i'm really comfortable with speed and density and free of cliche.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:35:10
Speaker
Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah. So next up, I'd love to get a bit more into publishing side of things, chat a bit more about Troubadour, which you mentioned. ah And also, um I'd love to talk a bit about kind of your literary agent and as an indie publisher, kind of what that conversation was like.
00:35:29
Speaker
All of that will be available in the extended episode on patreon.com slash rightandwrong.com. Yes, will we will see. Anyway, we're out of time. That was great. I feel we we covered a lot of ground there. it was great. um Thank you so much. My pleasure. For coming on the podcast and chatting with me and telling me about everything you've been up to and your kind of exciting waves that you're making within publishing.
00:35:52
Speaker
Oh, it's been so much fun. And if you would like to come on and be live interviewed by me on Substack, Jamie, just say the word. That would be great. I'd love that. Yeah. um And for anyone listening, if you're interested in Eleanor's Substack, The Literary Obsessive, you can find it at eleanoranstrather.substack.com.
00:36:10
Speaker
You can follow her on Instagram at eleanoranstrather, on bluesky at eanstrather, or you can head over to her website, eleanoranstrather.com. To support the podcast, like, follow and subscribe. Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:36:26
Speaker
Thanks again to Eleanor and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.