Stella Duffy
On friendship, secrets, hope and baking cakes…
Seraphina Granelli: Stella Duffy – writer, actor, comedian, improviser and teacher. What do you call yourself?
Stella Duffy: Stella. Writer/performer mainly. Director/presenter occasionally. Improviser sometimes.
SG: When and why did you start writing?
SD: I wrote plays and sketches at school, for myself and others to perform. Then the same at university, then again in the first theatre company I worked with, but I didn’t really call myself a writer – always assumed you had to be at least middle class, if not posh, to be a writer! When I came back to the UK in 1986 I couldn’t get the kind of acting work I wanted to do, so I started in standup in ‘87/’88 ish, so that was kind of writing (but horrible!), then I started doing impro, which is definitely writing (but, usually, live on stage) and that led me to writing ‘properly’ – i.e. sitting down in front of a computer! I started working on Calendar Girl in 1991, and when that was published in 1994, I guess I then felt like I could call myself a ‘writer’. But by then I had actually been doing it for a long time.
As to why…because I could? Because I had things to say? Because there were stories? No reason really, I just wanted to.
SG: Of your work is there anything that holds a special place for you, or is it always the one that you are currently working on?
SD: It’s always the one I’m working on. But of the Saz books I’m particularly fond of Wavewalker, and of the literary ones I still very much like Eating Cake and Immaculate Conceit – all three being the least well known/least sold!
SG: The Saz Martin books have been firm favourites of the lesbian community for many years, and your highly acclaimed stand alone novels have broken you into the wider mass market? How have you had to change your style or subject matter to reach that wider audience (if at all)?
SD: Definitely not. I don’t see them like that anyway, I never intended the Saz books only for the lesbian community, nor would I expect lesbians only to want to read novels about lesbians – I hope we’re wider readers than that! And in terms of adapting my work to who I think is going to read it … I’m not sure I’d even know where or how to start! I only ever write the next story in my head. And then hope people will want to read it.
SG: How important is it to you to have lesbian characters in your books? Do you consciously work them in or is it just natural because that’s part of your world?
SD: There are lesbians in my life, so they get in the books. Just as there are white, black, Asian and eastern European people in my life ... they get in the books too. I am interested in having a wide range of characters to draw from, I’m not interested in sticking in one of each because it’s politically correct – the characters are there to tell the story. The story matters most.
SG: Your books have several overarching themes - one of the key ones is deception, especially in relationships. Do you think you have a cynical view of people’s motives?
SD: I hope not! Having been practicing Buddhism for 21 years I do try to steer clear of cynicism. I think perhaps it’s more that I truly believe deceit (in any form) is dangerous and damaging, and therefore the outcome of/reasons for deceit interest me.
SG: Parallel Lies is a hugely amusing and somewhat tragic tale of celebrity, set in the Hollywood Hills – a far cry from your previous books. Again deception is a key theme – the Hollywood icon who has multiple skeletons in the cupboard. How did it come about?
SD: I don’t think it is that different – it definitely follows on from Singling Out The Couples for example and Immaculate Conceit probably. And in terms of the lies/truth angle, it’s like several of the Saz books. In terms of starting to think about it, I went to Russia a couple of times (for the British Council) and so became interested in writing a Russian character, I’d been working in California for a bit and was wanting to write about life there, I always think coming out is better than not, and I still work quite a lot in theatre and I know a few people (in UK) in TV and film who still aren’t out and it really annoys me … so all those things sort of came together. Also, I’d written the whole idea as a short story several years earlier, for a German anthology – and it was only ever published in German – I had always thought that whole lies/deceit/not coming out/ménage a trios thing was juicy material and a bit wasted on a short story most people would never read. So it became Parallel Lies. There’s also, I think, a little of those old Hollywood noir-ish movies about it – apparently glamorous lives with a far darker truth beneath. And I love those old films. (Not least for the frocks!)
SG: Having just read Parallel Lies and The Room of Lost Things back to back (and thoroughly enjoying both!), one couldn’t really get two more different novels, other than the themes of relationships and deception. From plot-driven Hollywood to ordinary life in South-East London, The Room of Lost Things does seem to be a new direction for you. The pace is much slower than usual and the cast of characters and voices quite diverse. It feels like a brave departure - were you consciously trying to something different with this book?
SD: Yes, taking the whole thing slower was a departure. And some of that was difficult for me, to slow down my usual pace, to deal more with detail, but it’s what the story required and so it’s what I had to do. I wasn’t consciously trying to do something different – but I was aware while writing it (and re-writing and re-writing it!) that it was turning into something very different than I’d done before. Something darker and more serious perhaps.
SG: How did the idea for the book germinate and who came first?
SD: Our dry cleaner (who has become a friend) said to both Shelley and I, quite some years ago, “You should write about a dry cleaner, we know people’s secrets.” And that stayed with me for ages, setting the seed for the book. There are lots of stories using a shop counter as confessional of course – but the thing about cleaning attracted me. The stains and hidden dirt, the fact that some things can be washed away and others will always leave a residue – it’s a very obvious analogy for life events really. And of course, the things people leave in their pockets! And there’s something about handing over a personal item, a piece of clothing, to a virtual stranger … in most shop transactions, we go in and buy something and take it away. In a dry cleaning transaction, we leave something of our own – soiled, ‘unclean’ – for someone else to make good. I just think it’s interesting. There are layers there that felt, to me, like they were worth following.
Robert came first. And Robert and Akeel needed to be the central story, so that the others can spin out from the shop, from the hub of the crossroads – it’s also a very geographical piece, I like all the stuff about London geography, not only what’s north and south but what’s east and west as well.
SG: The central relationship between Robert and Akeel is a very touching one – what did you want that relationship to represent?
SD: Ah … God, I don’t know - I don’t think like that while writing! But in retrospect, looking at what I did with the subsequent drafts - friendship I suppose. Old Britain and new England. The possibility of cross-generation and cross-culture lives. Changing society. That friendship might be possible. The hope of friendship – and kindness, generosity, warmth – is there in all the characters I think. I was also delighted to be writing a young Muslim man who is NOT a terrorist. There’s only actually been half a dozen young British Muslims who’ve perpetrated anything that might be considered terrorism, that has had a tangible effect – which is not at all to say it doesn’t matter – but in truth, Britain has still been affected far more in the past thirty years by IRA acts than by those enacted by British Muslims - and yet every TV series and film and most books just now seem to have at least one young Muslim terrorist, if not a whole cell, plotting and planning. I simply don’t want to buy into that whole culture of fear and distrust, I don’t think it does any of us any good. Dialogue is what makes change, not turning a whole generation of young men and women into the bogeyman.
SG: London feels like another character in the book - how important is setting to your writing?
SD: Enormously. Setting matters in all the books, but in this one quite possibly most of all. I loved writing about London – and even more about South London, my part of South London, that is usually overlooked and more often than not, people are rude about it. It’s not all that pretty, and it’s very mixed and very urban. That’s what I like about it. That and the foxes and squirrels and magpies and crows and thrushes and hidden rivers and massive old trees – all the natural life people so often miss when they just look at the buildings and the people and the traffic.
SG: What does your writing process look like?
SD: Make notes. Answer emails. Make notes on scraps of paper. Answer more emails. Make notes on white board (I love my whiteboard). Direct a play. Write fifty words. Do a rehearsed reading as an actor. Bake and ice 67 fairy cakes for god-daughter’s naming. Write five thousand words. Do some interviews. Teach a few workshops. Do a library event. Wish I got to stay at home and be a writer more. Answer some more emails. Do the garden. Host an LGBT event for some governmental organisation. Write five hundred words on a train going to another library event. Go for a walk. Make chutney. Plan a single week-long holiday for the whole year and when that turns into just three days write on the plane there and back. Answer some more emails. Prune fruit trees. Babysit for friends. Babysit for friends again. Make dinner. Do another interview. Teach another workshop. Watch TV. Watch more TV. Write a play. Write five thousand words. Write a short story. Read and comment on 15 plays for a new theatre company. Write a thousand words and cut two thousand. Update website, do another interview, do another library event that takes ten hours to get there and back and five people turn up, but they’re five very kind people and so it’s worth it, get home very late and answer some more emails. Go to some book launch parties and wonder how other writers do it. Laugh when people say how lovely it must be to be a writer and just stay at home all the time and create.
SG: Who are your preferred writers and who do you think has influenced your writing?
SD: Too many to name and invidious to list my friends! But I’d start with Shakespeare and Euripides.
SG: What ideas are you currently working on?
SD: My first historical novel. A new play commission. A radio story. Looking at new plays to direct. Rehearsing some readings as a performer.
Stella Duffy: Stella. Writer/performer mainly. Director/presenter occasionally. Improviser sometimes.
SG: When and why did you start writing?
SD: I wrote plays and sketches at school, for myself and others to perform. Then the same at university, then again in the first theatre company I worked with, but I didn’t really call myself a writer – always assumed you had to be at least middle class, if not posh, to be a writer! When I came back to the UK in 1986 I couldn’t get the kind of acting work I wanted to do, so I started in standup in ‘87/’88 ish, so that was kind of writing (but horrible!), then I started doing impro, which is definitely writing (but, usually, live on stage) and that led me to writing ‘properly’ – i.e. sitting down in front of a computer! I started working on Calendar Girl in 1991, and when that was published in 1994, I guess I then felt like I could call myself a ‘writer’. But by then I had actually been doing it for a long time.
As to why…because I could? Because I had things to say? Because there were stories? No reason really, I just wanted to.
SG: Of your work is there anything that holds a special place for you, or is it always the one that you are currently working on?
SD: It’s always the one I’m working on. But of the Saz books I’m particularly fond of Wavewalker, and of the literary ones I still very much like Eating Cake and Immaculate Conceit – all three being the least well known/least sold!
SG: The Saz Martin books have been firm favourites of the lesbian community for many years, and your highly acclaimed stand alone novels have broken you into the wider mass market? How have you had to change your style or subject matter to reach that wider audience (if at all)?
SD: Definitely not. I don’t see them like that anyway, I never intended the Saz books only for the lesbian community, nor would I expect lesbians only to want to read novels about lesbians – I hope we’re wider readers than that! And in terms of adapting my work to who I think is going to read it … I’m not sure I’d even know where or how to start! I only ever write the next story in my head. And then hope people will want to read it.
SG: How important is it to you to have lesbian characters in your books? Do you consciously work them in or is it just natural because that’s part of your world?
SD: There are lesbians in my life, so they get in the books. Just as there are white, black, Asian and eastern European people in my life ... they get in the books too. I am interested in having a wide range of characters to draw from, I’m not interested in sticking in one of each because it’s politically correct – the characters are there to tell the story. The story matters most.
SG: Your books have several overarching themes - one of the key ones is deception, especially in relationships. Do you think you have a cynical view of people’s motives?
SD: I hope not! Having been practicing Buddhism for 21 years I do try to steer clear of cynicism. I think perhaps it’s more that I truly believe deceit (in any form) is dangerous and damaging, and therefore the outcome of/reasons for deceit interest me.
SG: Parallel Lies is a hugely amusing and somewhat tragic tale of celebrity, set in the Hollywood Hills – a far cry from your previous books. Again deception is a key theme – the Hollywood icon who has multiple skeletons in the cupboard. How did it come about?
SD: I don’t think it is that different – it definitely follows on from Singling Out The Couples for example and Immaculate Conceit probably. And in terms of the lies/truth angle, it’s like several of the Saz books. In terms of starting to think about it, I went to Russia a couple of times (for the British Council) and so became interested in writing a Russian character, I’d been working in California for a bit and was wanting to write about life there, I always think coming out is better than not, and I still work quite a lot in theatre and I know a few people (in UK) in TV and film who still aren’t out and it really annoys me … so all those things sort of came together. Also, I’d written the whole idea as a short story several years earlier, for a German anthology – and it was only ever published in German – I had always thought that whole lies/deceit/not coming out/ménage a trios thing was juicy material and a bit wasted on a short story most people would never read. So it became Parallel Lies. There’s also, I think, a little of those old Hollywood noir-ish movies about it – apparently glamorous lives with a far darker truth beneath. And I love those old films. (Not least for the frocks!)
SG: Having just read Parallel Lies and The Room of Lost Things back to back (and thoroughly enjoying both!), one couldn’t really get two more different novels, other than the themes of relationships and deception. From plot-driven Hollywood to ordinary life in South-East London, The Room of Lost Things does seem to be a new direction for you. The pace is much slower than usual and the cast of characters and voices quite diverse. It feels like a brave departure - were you consciously trying to something different with this book?
SD: Yes, taking the whole thing slower was a departure. And some of that was difficult for me, to slow down my usual pace, to deal more with detail, but it’s what the story required and so it’s what I had to do. I wasn’t consciously trying to do something different – but I was aware while writing it (and re-writing and re-writing it!) that it was turning into something very different than I’d done before. Something darker and more serious perhaps.
SG: How did the idea for the book germinate and who came first?
SD: Our dry cleaner (who has become a friend) said to both Shelley and I, quite some years ago, “You should write about a dry cleaner, we know people’s secrets.” And that stayed with me for ages, setting the seed for the book. There are lots of stories using a shop counter as confessional of course – but the thing about cleaning attracted me. The stains and hidden dirt, the fact that some things can be washed away and others will always leave a residue – it’s a very obvious analogy for life events really. And of course, the things people leave in their pockets! And there’s something about handing over a personal item, a piece of clothing, to a virtual stranger … in most shop transactions, we go in and buy something and take it away. In a dry cleaning transaction, we leave something of our own – soiled, ‘unclean’ – for someone else to make good. I just think it’s interesting. There are layers there that felt, to me, like they were worth following.
Robert came first. And Robert and Akeel needed to be the central story, so that the others can spin out from the shop, from the hub of the crossroads – it’s also a very geographical piece, I like all the stuff about London geography, not only what’s north and south but what’s east and west as well.
SG: The central relationship between Robert and Akeel is a very touching one – what did you want that relationship to represent?
SD: Ah … God, I don’t know - I don’t think like that while writing! But in retrospect, looking at what I did with the subsequent drafts - friendship I suppose. Old Britain and new England. The possibility of cross-generation and cross-culture lives. Changing society. That friendship might be possible. The hope of friendship – and kindness, generosity, warmth – is there in all the characters I think. I was also delighted to be writing a young Muslim man who is NOT a terrorist. There’s only actually been half a dozen young British Muslims who’ve perpetrated anything that might be considered terrorism, that has had a tangible effect – which is not at all to say it doesn’t matter – but in truth, Britain has still been affected far more in the past thirty years by IRA acts than by those enacted by British Muslims - and yet every TV series and film and most books just now seem to have at least one young Muslim terrorist, if not a whole cell, plotting and planning. I simply don’t want to buy into that whole culture of fear and distrust, I don’t think it does any of us any good. Dialogue is what makes change, not turning a whole generation of young men and women into the bogeyman.
SG: London feels like another character in the book - how important is setting to your writing?
SD: Enormously. Setting matters in all the books, but in this one quite possibly most of all. I loved writing about London – and even more about South London, my part of South London, that is usually overlooked and more often than not, people are rude about it. It’s not all that pretty, and it’s very mixed and very urban. That’s what I like about it. That and the foxes and squirrels and magpies and crows and thrushes and hidden rivers and massive old trees – all the natural life people so often miss when they just look at the buildings and the people and the traffic.
SG: What does your writing process look like?
SD: Make notes. Answer emails. Make notes on scraps of paper. Answer more emails. Make notes on white board (I love my whiteboard). Direct a play. Write fifty words. Do a rehearsed reading as an actor. Bake and ice 67 fairy cakes for god-daughter’s naming. Write five thousand words. Do some interviews. Teach a few workshops. Do a library event. Wish I got to stay at home and be a writer more. Answer some more emails. Do the garden. Host an LGBT event for some governmental organisation. Write five hundred words on a train going to another library event. Go for a walk. Make chutney. Plan a single week-long holiday for the whole year and when that turns into just three days write on the plane there and back. Answer some more emails. Prune fruit trees. Babysit for friends. Babysit for friends again. Make dinner. Do another interview. Teach another workshop. Watch TV. Watch more TV. Write a play. Write five thousand words. Write a short story. Read and comment on 15 plays for a new theatre company. Write a thousand words and cut two thousand. Update website, do another interview, do another library event that takes ten hours to get there and back and five people turn up, but they’re five very kind people and so it’s worth it, get home very late and answer some more emails. Go to some book launch parties and wonder how other writers do it. Laugh when people say how lovely it must be to be a writer and just stay at home all the time and create.
SG: Who are your preferred writers and who do you think has influenced your writing?
SD: Too many to name and invidious to list my friends! But I’d start with Shakespeare and Euripides.
SG: What ideas are you currently working on?
SD: My first historical novel. A new play commission. A radio story. Looking at new plays to direct. Rehearsing some readings as a performer.
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