Where Stories and Self-expression Overlap: Rachel Cusk and Benjamin Wood at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
Whilst they sit on stage it is not entirely obvious to see why acclaimed, award-winning author Rachel Cusk is collaborating with the relatively youthful, fresh-faced Benjamin Wood at an Edinburgh International Book Festival event. Cusk’s twenty years of experience writing in comparison to Wood’s two novels does give room for us to question this fusing but once they start discussing the thematic strands of Outline and The Ecliptic it starts to become clear. Delving even further into the writing experience and process, before and after publication, the audience are given an even richer insight into the act of creating, and insular livelihood which is incremental to its yield.
Rachel Cusk, with seven novels published and two Whitbread Awards, one of which for The Last Supper, discusses the processes that went into the creation of Outline, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2015. Wood, who presently lectures Creative Writing at Birkbeck University, captured the attention of reviewers with his first novel, The Bellweather Revivials and has created a stir with new novel The Ecliptic.
Both get the audience to think about the introverted, insular life of the writer and the process of writing a book, both before and after. Chaired by Serena Field, BBC Arts Producer, we are given an insight into their acclaimed works, with the focus being on artists, exposure and writing retreats.
Rachel Cusk informs the fairly hefty but enthused crowd that with Outline she, “wanted to find a form that would describe a devastated landscape and conceiving that took a long time.” The Ecliptic, which is about a young Scottish female painter, Elspeth, in refuge, Portmantle, and works back to how she gets there. Benjamin admitted that a great deal was drawn from his own experience as he had a residency to live in Istanbul, writing for three months. “Istanbul’s absorbance of culture took over me,” Wood highlighted. He also alluded that there was a lack of interference from the publisher, editor, the outside.
Cusk exclaims on the notions of creative retreats: “I do need that shelter, I need to shut away and write” as she reflects on her time in Helensburgh. She elaborates that what she, “felt was that being among these people things you would have to justify, to be with your own kind where you don’t have to explain yourself.”
Wood’s view on the pre and post writing process highlights the vast differences in experience for the author: “intense experiences of solitude and those of participation can be quite brutal” Serena effectively plays devil’s advocate on the concept of creative retreats, “strange idea that art can be created in isolation as art is your translation of the world.”
Wood advocates however that it is unquestionably understandable and productive for creative people to work amongst other creative minds. If nothing else Cusk and Wood both hit home the impact that writing and publicity can have on them as writers, which in itself is highly interesting: “the work that you do is very insular and then you are expected to go out, talk about it.”
Evidently, both Cusk and Wood draw significantly upon their own experiences rather than research when it comes to the foundation and crux of their work, with Cusk exclaiming, “If I have not seen it, not done it, then it is not what I do.”
Outline by Rachel Cusk is published by Faber & Faber. The Ecliptic by Benjamin Wood is published by Scribner UK and, both are available from bookshops and online.
