{"id":160536,"date":"2022-02-09T10:03:05","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T23:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=160536"},"modified":"2022-02-11T15:50:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T04:50:04","slug":"ten-terrifying-questions-with-imogen-crimp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2022\/02\/09\/ten-terrifying-questions-with-imogen-crimp\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Terrifying Questions with Imogen Crimp!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Imogen<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Imogen Crimp studied English at Cambridge, followed by an MA in contemporary literature from University College London, where she specialized in female modernist writers. After university, she briefly studied singing at a London conservatoire. She was born in 1989 and lives in London. A Very Nice Girl<\/a><\/strong> is her debut novel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Imogen Crimp is on the blog to take on our Ten Terrifying Questions! Read on …<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\"Imogen<\/a>

Imogen Crimp<\/p><\/div>\n

1. To begin with, why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself \u2013 where were you born? Raised? Schooled?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born and raised in London, where I also went to school, before studying English at Cambridge. I moved back to London after my degree and have mostly lived here since. <\/p>\n\n\n

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve pretty much always wanted to be a writer; I was one of those children who spent my spare time covering page after page with scribbled \u2018novels\u2019. There was a period in my early twenties when I stopped writing at all because I was worried I wasn\u2019t any good at it, and I basically stopped reading at that time too. Instead, I briefly studied classical singing, but I kept finding that the main aspect of opera and song that really interested me was the text. In my mid-twenties, I did an MA in modern literature to rediscover my love of books, and I started writing again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you don\u2019t have now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I actually really wish I\u2019d had more strongly held beliefs at eighteen. In particular, I wish that I\u2019d had more confident opinions on feminism and gender politics, and that I\u2019d had the courage to stand up for myself. At university, there was a lot of behaviour and language amongst the boys that really shocks me now, and I wish I\u2019d had the strength and conviction then to challenge it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. What are three works of art \u2013 this could be a book, painting, piece of music, film, etc \u2013 that influenced your development as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean Rhys\u2019 1934 novel Voyage in the Dark<\/a><\/strong><\/em> directly inspired A Very Nice Girl<\/em>, so she\u2019s definitely first on my list. I love the combination of the spare and lyrical in her writing style; her close focus on the interiority of a female protagonist; and the boldness of her depiction of relationships between men and women, which was way ahead of its time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also find the writing of Doris Lessing incredibly inspiring, and her 1962 novel The Golden Notebook<\/a><\/em><\/strong> is one of my all-time favourite books. I admire Lessing\u2019s sheer intelligence, the engagement with political issues in her fiction, and her brilliant story telling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, when I was developing the idea for A Very Nice Girl<\/em>, I listened to Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u2018If I Didn\u2019t Have Your Love\u2019 on repeat. The song describes, with plaintive conviction, the experience of needing another person \u2013 a loved one or possibly God \u2013 to give your life meaning. I love the melancholy tone of it, and it coloured my thinking at the time about the obsessive need for someone and how all-consuming that can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘I think you have to maintain the joy in writing \u2013 the sheer excitement I found in covering the pages when I was a child \u2013 if your writing is also going to be enjoyable to read.’<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

5. Considering the many artistic forms out there, what appeals to you about writing a novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the honest answer is that it\u2019s never occurred to me to try another type of writing \u2013 it\u2019s the form I\u2019ve always been most drawn to, and the type of art I most enjoy consuming myself. I really enjoy the flexibility of novel writing \u2013 the combination of dialogue, description\/action and interiority. It gives me a huge amount of freedom. I also think that that combination \u2013 alongside the fact that (if you\u2019re writing in the first person) you can show your reader the world through the eyes of one single character \u2013 is as close to experiencing what it\u2019s like to be someone else as you can get in art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Please tell us about your latest novel!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Very Nice Girl<\/em> is about a young woman training to be a singer in London. One night, in the hotel bar where she sings jazz, she meets Max \u2013 an older, much wealthier man. The story then follows Anna\u2019s growing obsession with and dependence on Max, and the impact this relationship has on her fledgling singing career. It\u2019s a novel about the ways our different desires can come into conflict with one another, and the dangers of obsessive, misplaced love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did think about specific ideas I wanted my readers to take away from A Very Nice Girl<\/em>, but I also really wanted to write a book that would be enjoyable to read. So I\u2019d say that I most hope people reading my work will have found it pleasurable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Who do you most admire in the writing world and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really admire Edna O\u2019Brien for her insight, wit and the daring of her artistic choices \u2013 from her first books, the trilogy collected as The Country Girls<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, which were banned in her native Ireland, to the sensitive way she dealt with the subject matter of her two most recent books, The Little Red Chairs<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and Girl<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. I\u2019m also in awe of the fact she\u2019s still publishing such brilliant novels in her nineties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My ultimate goal is to be able to keep writing novels and to keep enjoying the writing process. I think you have to maintain the joy in writing \u2013 the sheer excitement I found in covering the pages when I was a child \u2013 if your writing is also going to be enjoyable to read. I hope that writing always brings me pleasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think one of the best lessons I learnt was the importance of having the courage to give up on a project and start over with something new. I wrote another book before A Very Nice Girl<\/em> which just wasn\u2019t working, and I\u2019m really pleased that I decided to give up on it, rather than fiddling endlessly. You learn to write by doing it, and that means you\u2019ll always produce material that you don\u2019t use \u2013 but no writing is ever wasted, because the process of doing it always makes you a better writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for playing!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014A Very Nice Girl<\/a><\/em> by Imogen Crimp (Bloomsbury Australia) is out now.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hear from the debut author of A Very Nice Girl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":160567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6676],"tags":[14313,954,9445,1974,14312,5184],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ImogenCrimp-Social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160536"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160781,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160536\/revisions\/160781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}