Poet, playwright and speculative fiction author Paul A. Green talks us through his creative journey
Paul A. Green
Paul A. Green is an English poet, playwright and author of speculative fiction. His plays have been aired on BBC Radio 3, CBC Radio Canada, RTE Ireland, Capital Radio and Resonance FM London, and his poetry has featured in literary magazines, anthologies and in audio formats via alternative radio stations, podcasts and online journals. Paul’s novel The Qliphoth was published by Canadian publishing house Libros Libertad in 2007. He tells us how a day job can provide a wealth of inspiration for even the most surreal tales.
What inspired you to become a writer?
I grew up in a bookish family, was academically “good at English” and started to write poetry at around 17, although I was equally interested in abstract painting and cherished fantasies of becoming a great jazz sax player.
I suppose the triggers included a growing awareness that the Catholic education I’d received couldn’t explain the enigma of existence, the facts of death and pain, the complexity of the universe and so on and so on.
My role models in terms of form and language were the American beats and the European surrealists, rather than most of the Eng Lit canon that I studied at school and later at Oxford. I was also reading a lot of science fiction, which was confronting the future rather than exhuming the past. And I was interested, even then, in magic and the paranormal - maybe a displacement of those metaphysical obsessions.
Doing readings in pubs and getting a few poems and stories published in little mags and student publications seemed to confirm my identity as a writer and by the time I was in my early twenties it was my main focus.
In a way, one is always “becoming a writer” and starting with the blank page/screen from scratch every time, although experience and the accretion of technique means that hopefully one evolves over time. At 17 or 18 it was probably the role that appealed - the wild prophetic poet – the mysterious haunted novelist! I didn’t know then that many of the beats/surrealists had day jobs or private incomes. However, I hope that I’ve grown into the role gracefully.
As an author based in the UK, how did you come to be published by an independent Canadian publisher?
After studying at Oxford I ended up in Canada at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver doing an MA in Creative Writing. This was at the end of the 1960s when there were no writing courses in the UK and not too many in North America, so this was a great opportunity. It was a chance to explore radio drama, experiment with prose, work with audio tape and generally expand my range as a writer to include freelance journalism and broadcasting.
I returned to the UK in the seventies and have survived since through teaching of various kinds, plus a brief stint in the used-book industry, although there were a couple of poverty-stricken interludes as a freelancer. Despite frequent rejections, radio plays were broadcast at intervals and quite a few poems and short prose works appeared in literary mags, anthologies and chapbooks. I did readings and mixed media performances. But I was moving more and more towards longer narrative.
I started what became The Qliphoth in the late eighties and had a first draft in the early nineties, but nobody wanted to know. Eventually I found an agent, who was very keen but suggested a rewrite with advice from his in-house book doctor re structure. The condensed and much improved re-write went out to a major publishing house, where the editor of their fantasy imprint was very enthusiastic - but dithered for a year - and then was made redundant… Finally after a couple more abortive projects, my agent gave me up and then gave up agenting. The book languished for a decade.
Then in 2006 I went back to Canada and met up with old friends, including J.Michael Yates. my professor and mentor from UBC days. He was now consulting editor for Libros Libertad and recommended the book to publisher Manolis Aligizakis. It was released in 2007, with a limited release in the UK - see my thread about selling off UK rights.
Did you face much rejection initially? How did you deal with it?
Well, er, yes. See above. And, of course, rejection is the human condition for writers. It goes on and on, with brief ecstatic moments of acceptance. I have learned to be stoic about it. Sometimes you can learn from an intelligent or constructive rejection. But quite often people have an agenda set for them by senior commissioning editors or, increasingly, marketing departments and are frightened of taking risks. They always say they want “cutting edge” work but don’t want to risk shedding their own blood in the process… As the late Mr Ballard told me, one has to stick with one’s obsessions.
What is it about the speculative fiction genre that appeals to you?
I like a literature that deals with ideas. I like the challenge of creating an alternate world which reflects our own. I like dreams, memories and reflections. I like a form that can embrace both inner-space and the exterior world. I like the opportunities it offers for experimenting with form and language (my DNA, I guess, as a poet).
What inspired the story of The Qliphoth?
A concatenation of things. The alternate universe hypothesis, which has been a trope of science fiction for years - but I felt I could twist it into a new shape; the qabalistic concept of The Qliphoth - the rogue energies driving chaos and destruction in the universe; 80s urban living as a supply teacher; the aftermath of the 60s; madness in old friends; sex, drugs & rock’nroll; what Ballard called ” the kindness of women.” The various elements didn’t all come at once. They emerged, blinking, into the light…
What are the biggest challenges of writing?
Time, time, finding the time to do it and to concentrate and evoke whatever daemon is waiting to be evoked. And I have found structure a challenge. Too rigid a structure and it dies on you. But you have to create a narrative pattern that takes the reader through the text. She/he may not understand what you mean. But he/she has to grasp what you’re saying.
What do you enjoy most about it?
Surprise. The moment when the narrative comes alive in an image, a line of dialogue. And, with radio ans stage drama, the moment when you let actors and directors loose on it, and the world of the play comes to life. Even if it isn’t quite what you expected.
I also enjoy collaborations. I did a lot of jazz poetry with the late Vincent Crane, I’ve done video with Jeremy Welsh and for years I’ve done techno-jazz poems and audio micro-dramas with the Canadian writer/muso Lawrence Russell, over the web. I record the voice tracks, he adds the soundscape.
Whose writing do you admire?
I distrust hero-worship but I loved J.G Ballard - a hero for his writing and the force that carried him through POW imprisonment, ereavement, solo parenting etc to create the definitive postwar fiction; William Burroughs - not sure about him shooting his wife, but a unique dark visionary and prophet. His cut-up method opens up narrative; Michael Moorcock for the Colonel Pyat sequence and for Mother London, which cheers me up when I’ve OD’d on Burroughs; M John Harrison – a brilliant SF writer; Iain Sinclair - one of the few writers I know personally who’s escaped the day job on his own terms; Ken Edwards - a genuine innovator in poetry and prose; Aleister Crowley, whose poetry and fiction were over-ripe, but his writings on magick had a big influence on the Qliphoth and he’s a character in my play Babalon; J.Michael Yates - my old mentor…
I could add many more - Angela Carter, Snoo Wilson, Dan Rebellato as radio dramatists; Thomas Pynchon, Don De Lillo as novelists; Nigel Kneale as a screen-writer (”Quatermass, the food burns!”); good old Colin Wilson for being a great survivor…
Where do you usually write?
At home in the spare room with lots of books, my Mac, the radio. Sometimes on trains or in cafes, with a notebook and an espresso.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
In 2005 my play Babalon, about the occult rocket scientist Jack Parsons was performed by Travesty Theatre in the studio theatre at RADA in London to a packed house of hard-core magicians, sorcerers and warlocks, who applauded enthusiastically.
Reading at the South Bank Centre in 1991 - a poetry reading that paid money…
And it was good to see The Qliphoth in print at last and get feedback.
What advice would you offer an aspiring writer?
Keep aspiring. Use the web. Build an on-line presence. You’ll get readers and once in a while you’ll get a lucky break. As for money - there are perhaps only a few hundred writers in the UK earning real money. Get used to working around the day job - it can be inspirational in unexpected ways. I teach part time - media (including film) - to blind and VI people in a specialist college. Quite apart from meeting some extraordinary individuals, it’s really made me think about narrative, story and so on.
What are you working on now?
A follow-up to The Qliphoth
One of the Radial City stories has already appeared in Brand Magazine and there are more in the pipeline. Plus looking for a new agent. And more readers…
For more on Paul, please visit http://qbsaul.blogspot.com/
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That was an interesting read and the things you say about keeping going despite rejection were encouraging. I’m currently teaching Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ at school which she also labels as ’speculative fiction’. It was something new to me as I hadn’t really come across the genre. I wondered if I’d see Atwood in your list of authors, especially as you’ve been published by a Canadian house, but she wasn’t there.