Marina Lewycka - live webchat - 8th July, 2009

Marina Lewycka is of Ukrainian origin and was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany, during World War II. She studied at Keele University, and has written a number of books of practical advice for carers of the elderly, published by Age Concern, as well as two bestselling novels. She lectures in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University. Her latest book is We Are All Made of Glue.

On Wednesday 8th July , between 10am and 12 noon, we hosted a live webchat with Marina Lewycka. You can read Marina's responses to readers' questions below.

About We Are All Made of Glue:

From bonding to bondage, from B & Q to Belarus, along with seven smelly cats, three useless handymen, two slimy estate agents, social workers, and a bonker lady, this is the story of a very unlikely friendship. Georgie Sinclair's husband has walked out; her sixteen-year-old son is busy surfing born-again websites; and all those overdue articles for Adhesives in the Modern World are getting her down. So when Georgie spots Mrs Shapiro, an eccentric old Jewish emigre neighbour with an eye for a bargain and a fondness for matchmaking, rummaging through her skip in the middle of the night, it's just the distraction she needs...

Read more about Marina on her author page

Buy the book

Comments

[Marina]

Wow - those two hours have just whizzed by. Thank you so much for your interesting questions - it's been great chatting to you. And thanks to Greg from Waterstones for making it all happen.

Bye for now,

Marina

[Marina]

Rosie asked me a question about titles earlier, and I missed the second part of her question- about my favourite titles. Well, I think The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera is pretty good. But it's trumped by a book called The unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce. Well, I don't think the book is trumped, by the title is.

[Marina]

Hi Jennifer,
I think you have to wait for inspiration with a title, but you can help it along.
We Are All Made of Glue came about because I met a glue scientist, and I thought, golly, that's boring. But then I started to get intrigued. One of the unusual things about this title is that it is a complete grammatical sentence. That wasn't deliberate - I just liked the sound of it.

[Marina]

Hello Claudia
While I'm in the middle of writing, I often prefer to read non-fiction. And since I write so much of the time, I do get behind with my own fiction reading - which is a pity, because I learn so much from other authors. I now approach fiction in rather a hard-headed way, analysing how the writer pulls things off and getting ideas for techniques, but that does take away from the sheer bliss of just being able to lose yourself in a book. That's one of the losses of becoming a writer.

[Jennifer]

Hi Marina - I was wondering hwo important you think the title of a novel is? And whether you've struggled to come up with the "perfect" title for your own books?

[Marina]

Hi Alison

I don't think I'm a very good example of how to write - I just do it over and over again. Once to get the story down, once to get to know the characters, several times because I've had new ideas, or ways of making the story more coherent or things have come up through research - or just through talking to people.
I tend to write furiously, making a note of things I need to check, then when I've finished the 'creative' bit for the day, I go onto the internet or pick up a book to find out the things I need to check for that part of the story.
The most enjoyable part is writing the episodes - being there with my characters, especially if there's love or disaster looming.

[Claudia]

Hello Marina - I was wondering whether you get the time read other authors' books while you are writing your own - do you think this interferes with your own writing process if you do - and what are you reading at the moment?

[Alison]

Hi Marina - great to get an insight into the creative process - I was wondering how important research was as part of your writing process? And which part of writing you enjoyed the most - the "sketching" or the "filling in" - if you don't mind me putting it so simplistically?

[Marina]

Hi Liz,
I was a teacher for years, not just in schools, but also in Adult Education and Community Education, where I met some fantastic people. I had a stint as a journalist and freelance writer, and worked in the public relations office of a local authority, and then went back to lecturing. I do still miss the contact with the students - but what I don't miss is all the marking!

[Marina]

Hello Hannah
The character I really identify with is Maggie in The Mill on the Floss - she's stubborn and headstrong and dreamy and she's always got her nose stuck in a book. And she can't do anything with her hair.

I also love Graham Greene's Aunt Augusta - she must be one of the great elderly characters in fiction. I'm sure we would get on like a house on fire.

[Liz]

Marina - enjoying the webchat - I was wondering what other jobs you'd done before becoming a writer - and which you've found the more difficult?

[Marina]

Hello Mary (are you the same Mary who wrote before, whom I muddled up with Rosie?)
Yes, I learned to read almost as soon as I learned English, when I was about four, and because I was quite a solitary child they became an important part of my life. I used to love the books by Violet Needham and Baroness Orczy, and was deeply in love with Biggles, but the first book I really loved was by Honor Appleton, and it was called Mary Was Five & The Black Rock.

[Hannah]

Hello Marina - one of my favourites aspects of your writing is that your characters are particularly strong - do you have any characters that you particularly love in fiction and are there any that you would like to have "met", given access to the fictional world?

[Marina]

Hi Amy
I do like animals a lot, and i'm concerned about animal cruelty. Many of my friends have very characterful dogs, and I used to have a lovely black cat called Liquorice, but he died a while back (of old age) and I'm now away from home such a lot it wouldn't be fair to get another. My next book, though, will feature a hamster. Many people have been telling me their hamster stories - alas, they are all very sad. Poor hamsters!

[Marina]

Hello, Sharon - Well, my fourth book is taking shape in my head, though I've only written about three pages so far.
I can tell you that it's an inter-generational saga, where credit cruch meets hippy commune. I'm currently busy researching the world of finance, which is really much stranger than fiction.
There are no Ukrainians or vehicles - at this stage. But as with my previous books, there are animals - in this case a hamster.
I think that's all I can say for now!

[Mary]

Hello, Marina - really interesting to read your comments - have books and reading always been important to you, and were there any books you read as a child, for example, that made you want to write your own fiction?

[Amy]

Animals seem to often play quite important parts in your novels like the dog in Two Caravans and the cats in your new novel - why is this? And do you have dogs and cats yourself?!

Amy

[Marina]

Hello Tom

I really love books which make me laugh, and top of my list is What A Carve UP by Jonathan Coe. White Teeth by Zadie Smith had me laughing, too. Charles Dickens is full of laughs, too, as are Jane Austen and George Eliot.
On the screen, I think no one has ever surpassed Fawlty Towers - except possibly Black Adder. Or Monty Python. There's a great tradition of British Comedy going back to Shakespeare and Chaucer and probably even before.
I even love the bad jokes you get on the internet!

[Marina]

Hello Andy,
I think I write best in the mornings, while I'm still in bed. Once I get up and start looking at my emails and listening to the news on the radio, the creativity quickly evaporates.

[Marina]

Hi Kate

Oh, I've a great long list of people I admire. Margaret Attwood, Jonathan Coe, Sarah Waters, Philip Roth, Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, Sebastian Barry, Jenny Diski, Pat Barker, Helen Dunmore, ... I've left lots out. I could go on and on. And I owe a lot to Angela Carter, who, sadly, isn't contemporary any more.

[Marina]

Hi hg

The involvement with Age Concern started when I was asked to write a series of handbooks for carers. I interviewed a lot of people - and what I found is that old people are really interesting - they have lived so long, and have many fascinating stories to tell, but somehow our generation is not so good at listening.

[Marina]

Hi Claire
They're all different, but I guess if I have an overriding theme it's the need for human kindness - something like that. But maybe that's more of an approach than a theme.

[Sharon]

Marina - I know your third novel is only just coming out but are you already working on anything else at the moment? And if so could you give us a sneak preview of what it's about?

[Marina]

Hi Louisa
My Ukrainian ancestry was directly important in my two previous books, but in this book there are no Ukrainian characters. Though there is a background character from Belarus.
But in a way, having a foreign ancestry does shape my writing because it makes me a bit of an outsider - and that makes one very watchful and observatnt, which is always a good starting point for a novelist.

[Tom]

Marina - there seems to be a strong element of humour in your novels - which novels have made YOU laugh?

[Andy]

Hello Marina - do you have a favourite time of day and favourite place to do your writing?

[Marina]

Sorry - I have Mary and Rosie muddled up - the last reply was to Mary's question, so this is to you, Rosie.

I do think titles are important, but you can't force them - you have to wait for them to come to you. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was a gift from my father, who really was writing a History of Tractors. And it was short. And it was in Ukrainian.
So when it came to Two Caravans I thought I'd go for something simpler - and I love caravans - they're so cosy and remind me of faily holidays.

The new title came about because someone I met - a reader, in fact - was a glue scientist. When he told me, I thought, golly, that's boring. But then I started to get intrigued, and that's how it all started...

[Marina]

Hi Rosie
Thanks for your comment. The characters in my books are often 'amalgams' (sorry - that sounds a bit dentisty!)of people I come across or people I know - when I know I'm going to write about someone I go to great trouble to disguise their identity. In this case, though, the inspiration for Mrs Shapiro, the main character in my new book, is a little old lady who used to live in my road, and who died a few years ago. I never knew her, but after she died, the house clearers put all her stuff in a skip and...I have to confess, I had a good rummage. Well, We Are All Made of Glue begins in a skip - but the story is rather different.

[Kate]

Marina - hello - I was wondering which other contemporary novelists you enjoy reading, and which other authors, if any, you see as having had a major influence on you?

[hg]

How did you come to be so involved with Age Concern? It is a great charity, but not one that is in the public eye very much.

[Claire Bennett]

Hi Marina,

What would you say the overriding themes of your three novels have been?

Claire

[Louisa]

Hi Marina

I've very much enjoyed both of your novels to date - how important would you say your Ukrainian ancestry has infromed your writing - it seems to have been a key factor?

[Rosie]

Hi Marina,

The titles of your novels are all very recognisable - how important do you think a title is to the success of a novel and do you have any personal favourites?

Rosie

[Mary]

Hi Marina,

I have loved your two previous books and am very excited about reading this new one too. Where did you get your inspiration from for the characters this time?

Mary

[Marina]

Hello everybody. I'm really looking forward to this chat - not sure I've pressed all the right buttons to get up and running.