Articles

Posted by Free Word on 22/2/12

Free Word interviews Richard Beard, novelist and Director of the National Academy of Writing, about publishing, creative writing and how NAW can help writers become 'better at what they're already good at'.

What is the National Academy of Writing and why was it established?

The National Academy of Writing (NAW) was set up in 2000 to enable working writers to share their professional expertise and experience with writers aiming for publication. The Academy is not part of a university, and offers no awards or degrees. It‘s about writers and writing, and everything we do concentrates on the text and being useful to the writer. If it’s not useful, we try not to do it.

This applies to the advanced course we run at the Free Word Centre between April and October each year, where we offer guidance for book-length projects that need revision before being pitched to the market.

We also go round the country showcasing our Masterclass (based on the Masterclass system for musicians) at universities and literary festivals. We're just back from Cambridge University, and last year’s festivals included Cheltenham and Henley.

The Academy is supported by more than 40 writer-patrons who actively take part in our events.

What is your own background, and when did you become involved in NAW?

I’ve published three books of creative nonfiction and five novels (most recently Lazarus is Dead, Harvill Secker, 2011). So I’m a working writer, which is part of what the Academy promises, and I became involved in 2009 when the Academy needed reinvigorating. One part of that reinvigoration was to become an associate member of the Free Word Centre when it opened in 2010.

How do you see NAW's role within, or working alongside, the publishing industry?

NAW has extensive contacts in the industry through the Board of Directors, Patrons and Partners. We all know more about publishing than we do about university regulations for the awarding of degrees. This is as it should be, because we’d like to see our writers’ books published.

We have partnerships with leading agencies who can send us their ‘nearly-but-not-quite’ manuscripts. Agents sometimes read a text that ‘has something’ but is unfinished, and the pressures of agenting and publishing mean that NAW has the privilege of identifying what that something is and helping the writer become better at what they’re already good at.

What are the benefits of the NAW Course, and who can apply?

Anyone can apply (the writers don’t have to be referred by agents). The course takes place in London but we recruit nationally. There is no interview, and places are available to authors of all genres of narrative prose, with no regard to background, age, or previous academic qualifications. Applications are assessed solely on the quality of the writing.

How do you think digital technology is affecting publishing, and how are you responding to new formats such as e-books?

We have a series of visits by industry professionals who come in to talk to the writers on the course, and we make sure that digital experts are a part of that. The experts themselves aren’t entirely sure how the technology will affect publishing, so at the moment the best we can do is keep up with developments as they happen. At the end of each course we publish an anthology as a showcase to agents and publishers, and of course this is also available as an e-book.

What role might self-publishing play in the brave new digital world?

Self-publishing is an umbrella term which takes in so many different types of books and approaches. We have writers who decide to self-publish, and with a certain type of book this makes excellent economic sense. It particularly suits non-fiction books with a clear market and a hook for author talks.

Photo by Birmingham City University

What would you say to those who complain that literature is becoming over-academicised through the rise of creative writing courses?

The National Academy of Writing, despite the ‘Academy’ in its title, is an alternative to ‘academicised’ Creative Writing in the university context. Writer development and studying for an MA are not always synonymous – or so say those writers who come to us after completing a university course.

I’m particularly interested in how Creative Writing can avoid the kind of generalisations that seem inevitable when writing is taught in a modular form. My own view is that writing is mostly about re-writing, and learning to react to a text on the page is of more use than any generalised proscription about ‘character’ or ‘plot’. In this way the Academy can deal with every text on its own terms.

I’m not alone in thinking there’s a better way – various pioneering suggestions (as well as my own) can be found in The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing (eds. Morley and Nielson), published this February.