Squidsquatch. A new interview (almost) every day. A single question. The subject one day becomes interviewer the next.

← Previous | All squidsquatch | Next →

Robin Pen: Martin, you recently spent a year in another country on a grant to be a writer. Can you describe the process by which you obtained the grant and tell us a bit of your experiences there and how you feel now about having had that opportunity?

Martin Livings: The whole of 2006 is a bit of a blur made up of stuff that I never really expected to happen. There’s not much to tell about how I got the Australia Council grant; I applied for it and received it. I had some excellent advice on completing the application from people who had both worked on the council and received the grant previously. Probably the biggest help was Brendan Duffy, a past recipient of the same grant I was applying for, the New Work (Emerging Writers) grant. He sent me a copy of his application, and gave me the single best piece of advice there was - to go for it and ask for the maximum amount available, rather than playing it safe and asking for less. I followed his advice, used his application as a basic template to write my own, and sent it off. I never expected to get it, to be perfectly honest; it was more for gaining experience in writing applications for things like this, though of course I HOPED I’d get the grant. I’m still not entirely sure why I got it, what I did or said that convinced the council that I was worth pouring money into, but I’ll be eternally grateful to them for the opportunities the grant afforded me.

The trip to London itself was going to happen either way, but thanks to the grant I didn’t need to work while I was over there, which gave me my first real taste of the life of a full-time writer. And, frankly, it didn’t suit me that well. I got bored and lonely, especially being so far away from my family and friends and comfort zone. I had my partner, of course, but she was at work earning the bread, while I stayed home and avoided writing wherever possible! But one huge plus of having the grant was the impetus to actually produce something. Without it, I kind of suspect I might have just spent my days watching UK daytime television, walking the streets of Camden Town, and generally having a bang-up jolly wizard time, eh what? But having that money - and the expectations that came with it - really forced me to knuckle down and write a book. It was great having that hanging over me, it gave me the motivation I desperately needed!

My actual experiences in the UK are still clarifying at this point, even months after returning; it’s like a glass of water drawn from the Thames, all cloudy and murky, but give me time and the silt will settle and I’ll be able to make some sense out of it. But I can already feel that it’s changed me, if not my writing. Mark Twain once wrote that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”, and he wasn’t wrong. Until this trip, the longest I’d ever been overseas was a fortnight, so although I’d vacationed, I’d never really TRAVELLED. It wasn’t even my idea to do this trip; it was something my partner had wanted to do for many years, and I went along for the ride. I’m very glad I did so, though, and I think EVERYONE should do something like this, not just writers wanting to boost their creative juices. It’s telling that George W. Bush had rarely been abroad until he became President; in fact, at the time of his inauguration, he supposedly didn’t even have a valid passport. It’s this international experience that is so essential to accepting other people, other cultures and races, as equal to our own, as the SAME as our own, rather than as some demonised faceless Other. I suspect my experiences in the UK and Europe will be informing not just my writing, but my whole philosophical outlook for the rest of my life. And now, having just bought a house here in Perth, I’m already starting to think about where our next big adventure could be!

Martin Livings is the author of Carnies, a novel that has the rare distinction of being nominated for awards in both horror (Aurealis and Ditmar awards) and crime fiction (Ned Kelly Awards). Martin believes his “second greatest achievement was writing a computer game review to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody.” He still wonders why it never made it to print. Martin’s website is martinlivings.com.