Writer friends

Don't ask to be on my podcast. Do ask me to hold your hummus.

Curtis Sittenfeld interview, the Guardian

Hello Team CCC! How are you? I’m back from book tour - I loved seeing you and hanging out with you in Margate/Malvern/Stockport/York/London/Leeds. I’m in Herne Bay, Kent on Thursday 27th Feb at The Little Green Bookshop - tickets here - and at Dubray Books in Dublin on 6 March with

Louise O’Neill

- tickets here. Huge, huge, HUGE thanks to everyone who has been reading and supporting READ YOURSELF HAPPY, the response to the book has been absolutely joyous! If you’ve not picked up your copy yet, you can get it here.

I’ve recently LOVED being on

Caroline Donahue

’s Secret Library podcast - listen here - and

Penny Wincer

’s Not Too Busy To Write - listen here. And we recorded a special edition of You’re Booked with Nina Stibbe, at Ink 84, and you can listen here.

Some words on Writer Friends, and hummus…

‘I knew that others at the party might perceive me as Curtis the writer, but Erin and I were close enough that she knew that at certain moments – in fact, at more moments than not in this life – my highest purpose was to be a hummus plate holder.’

A beloved friend shared this interview in the group chat, over the weekend, and this is the part I can’t stop thinking about. Sittenfeld also says ‘I mostly have my shit together as a writer, which mostly makes talking about being a writer feel peripheral. I want to talk with my friends about the areas where I don’t have my shit together.’

This particular group chat is composed of writers. (I find whimsical collective nouns a little tedious but perhaps we’re ‘a composition’ of writers.) We talk about writing and reading, a lot of the time, and I treasure those conversations – maybe because I don’t feel as though I have my shit together as a writer, I don’t know. But it’s a safe space to applaud and commiserate. I know I can come to the group when I’m bitter and butthurt, and when I’m obnoxiously cheerful. It’s rare and precious to find friends who truly understand and empathise with minor but infuriating work irritations. It’s rarer still to find friends to celebrate with, when things are going well. And we also talk about pastries, and swimming, and SNL sketches, and tarot, and utter, utter nonsense.

I’ve spent my thirties making friends with writers. I love writers. A writer can channel Victor Meldrew and Doris Day, within the same sentence. A writer will send you an exquisitely written paragraph of pure, exhilarating pettiness, framed by dry, self-aware, self-deprecating sentences, finished with a surprising sign off. (‘Anyway, got to go, I’ve just seen a pheasant.’) We write because we seek to see and understand, and we dream of being seen and understood. We make friends for these reasons, too.

Admittedly, I’ve also spent my thirties falling out with writers too – or rather, mistaking ‘work stuff’ for intimacy and friendship. This is on me. One old (writer) friend said ‘Sometimes, it’s as though you show up at someone’s house with a full roast chicken dinner. They might be very grateful, but they didn’t ask for the chicken dinner. And they’re not going to come to your house with a roast, no matter how much you think you deserve one.’

I didn’t know this about myself ten years ago: I’m an autistic woman, and while I’ve spent a lifetime learning social cues and trying to figure out ‘normal’, some of that information has come from unreliable sources, like Jean Rhys novels and articles from forty-year-old editions of the Readers’ Digest. When I was younger, I struggled to make friends. As an adult, I often tried to kickstart friendships with resources that weren’t mine to give freely. Time, emotional energy and attention. Metaphorical roast chickens. I often did a needy, creepy thing – instead of asking people for what I wanted and needed, I gave it away in the hope that it would come back to me. This brought me quite a lot of friends – but ultimately it didn’t work because I was trying to fast-track intimacy, to rush to the hummus holding stage.

My craving for intimacy may be what led me to journalism. I’m nosy, I love finding out about people, but most of all, I long for connection, and giving someone an hour of focused attention and conversation is a way to kickstart that connection. However, a good, true journalist doesn’t come to make friends. They want information.

I’ve hosted an interview podcast for almost eight years, and I’ve lost count of the number of live interviews I’ve chaired at events and literary festivals. It’s hard work, and I hope I’ve learned to make it look easy. It’s not just a conversation between two people, it’s about creating and establishing a kind of intimacy that includes the people in the audience, or the people who are listening while driving, or doing the washing up. Guests, listeners and your host all want to feel as though they’re among friends.

Many of the conversations have been nourishing – but a handful have been disorientating, or debilitating. In order to make the podcast work, I’ve burned through resources that aren’t being replenished. Sometimes, I’ll be at a work party, chatting with someone in a friendly way, and they’ll invite themselves to appear on the podcast. I have to bite my tongue very hard and say things like ‘We’re on hiatus right now,’ or ‘I’m not sure if we’re booking guests at the moment.’

What I really want to say is ‘We barely know each other, and you’re asking for a big favour. A big self-promotional favour. You don’t want to be my friend. I don’t think you’d ask me to lend you a dress or feed your cat while you’re on holiday. My understanding is that you’ve never engaged with or even acknowledged my work before. We’ve been talking for ten minutes. I’ve been politely asking lots of questions, and you haven’t asked me a single thing about myself. Frankly, I don’t know where you get off, calling yourself a writer, because the single qualification is curiosity, and you are the least curious person I have ever met. So, no, I don’t want to spend another hour of my life asking you questions and then asking my producer to spend several hours editing those questions for broadcast.’

Kathy Burke has recently announced that she’s stepping down as the host of the podcast Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake. ‘I’ve been doing it for two years. I’m a gypsy, darling. I’m a gypsy at heart. I need to do other things. I need to be creative and stop reading other people’s f**king memoirs.’ This is a sharp, generous, funny and stylish way of expressing the sentiment I’ve been struggling to articulate for years. I’ve been investing my attention in all the wrong places. My curiosity has run out of road. We want to be generous, and make space for other people’s stories, but not when it means there’s no space for our own. That space is a kind of love language. Anyone will be your friend if you give them unlimited airtime. A great friend is one who understands that you need just as much space as they do.

I suspect I’ve still got a lot to learn. I’ll struggle to set boundaries. I’ll be uncertain about what I can ask for and I’ll give too much away. But I’m going to do my best to observe the Sittenfeld rule of literary friendship. We need to find the friends who make us want to see and understand, while making us feel seen and understood. And if in doubt, we can ask ourselves ‘Would we hold each other’s hummus?’

Love

Daisy x