When you are a kid, a wolf is an amazing sight, so sumptuous. I sort of knew these were splendid creatures, that I was not going to find them outside roaming around. It was like a dog, but not a dog. It was incredible, a god! – Sarah Hall
Language description and metaphors seem readily available. The things I have to work harder at are plot, pacing, and form. – Sarah Hall
I don’t see that books can be written without political context – not if they’re relevant and ambitious. – Sarah Hall
The beauty of interdisciplinary conversation is that the mode of expression is essentially different for each practitioner, even if ideas are shared. – Sarah Hall
Daniel Woodrell has made a name as a master of prose with personality – a densely descriptive, gamey form of storytelling, one might say traditional storytelling – of late rather an unfashionable mode. – Sarah Hall
I don’t like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that’s not really true of life, particularly of people in power. – Sarah Hall
Short stories are often strong meat. Reading them, even listening to them, can be challenging, by which I do not mean hard work, simply that a certain amount of nerve and maturity is required. – Sarah Hall
I’ve always been interested in wolves, since I was a child. There was a wolf enclosure in a wildlife park very close to where I was brought up; they were the main attraction. – Sarah Hall
My favourite pool is located in a remote valley in the eastern Lake District, surrounded by vine-hung cliffs and slippery boulders. It has a torrential sheet waterfall at one end and is almost black in colour, so it appears bottomless, a portal to nowhere. – Sarah Hall
I studied the short story as part of my creative writing course at university but then set off as a novelist. Generally, there is a sense that even if you want to write short stories, you need to do a novel first. – Sarah Hall
Show, don’t tell, is a mantra repeated by tutors of creative writing courses the world over. As advice for amateurs, it is sound and helps avoid character profiling, unactivated scenes, and broken narrative frames. – Sarah Hall
For about two years, while researching ‘The Wolf Border,’ I was a complete wolf bore. I would regurgitate everything I was researching, whether people were interested or not. – Sarah Hall
For every prescriptive idea about the craft of fiction, there’s at least one writer who makes a virtue of the contrary. – Sarah Hall
I tend to research as I write so that the narrative can take priority, which is important for a piece of fiction, I think, finding out facts as and when I need to. – Sarah Hall
The short story is very good at looking at shadow psychologies and how the system breaks down underneath. – Sarah Hall
Writers cannot simply have a go, imagining it’s easier to produce a story than a novel because fewer words are required. Have a go by all means; be intrepid, but be equipped. – Sarah Hall
Writing, and its theatre of operation, is better than working shifts packing frozen sausages; that’s all I need to think about if I’m having difficulties. – Sarah Hall
A lot of my literature deals with these people who are somehow magnetic because they have that ability to step over lines. – Sarah Hall
You are often asked to explain your work, as if the reader isn’t able to work it out. And people always try and label you by your work. – Sarah Hall
Set in a nameless colonial country, in an unspecified era, Katie Kitamura’s second novel tracks the fortunes of a landowning family during the first waves of civil unrest. – Sarah Hall
It’s taken me 15 years to feel I might be able to write and publish short stories, and for the assiduous checks of the industry to allow some through. – Sarah Hall
I don’t reckon there are many writers who start out really expecting writing to be an attainable occupation. Well, I didn’t. It was a pipe dream. – Sarah Hall
I can gabble on now, but I couldn’t when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time in my own head on the moors by myself. It felt like writing was the right way to express myself. – Sarah Hall
