Catherine McNamara is an Australian/Italian author living in northern Italy after many years in West Africa. Praised by Hilary Mantel, her short story collection The Cartography of Others is currently a finalist in the People's Book Prize 2019/2020 (U.K.), and was awarded Grand Prize in the Eyelands International Book Awards (Greece), and listed on the Literary Sofa's Best of 2018 Reads. Pelt and Other Stories was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor Award (Ireland) and semi-finalist in the Hudson Prize (U.S.A.). A flash fiction collection Love Stories for Hectic People is out in spring 2020. Catherine was a finalist in the Royal Academy/Pin Drop Short Story Award (U.K.), and has been shortlisted in the Hilary Mantel/Kingston University Short Story Competition, the Short Fiction International Short Story Competition (Plymouth University Press), the Willesden Herald International Short Story Competition, among others. Catherine's work has been Pushcart-nominated, short-listed and widely published in the U.K., Europe and the U.S.A., appearing in Lunch Ticket, Flash Fiction Magazine, Literary Orphans, Vestal Review, Jellyfish, Ellipsis Zine, Moonpark Review and Connotation Press in the U.S.A.; Ambit (U.K.), Structo (U.K.), Southerly (University of Sydney), Two Thirds North (University of Stockholm), Short Fiction (University of Plymouth), Litro (U.K.), and Trafika Europe, among others. She is Litro magazine's flash fiction editor. Catherine lives in Italy where she runs tailored writing residencies in the summer.
Her Stories, "As Simple as Water" and "The Woman Whose Husband Died in a Climbing Accident," appeared in Issue Eighty-Six of The Rupture.
Here, she talks with interviewer Dana Diehl about ravel, the joys of hosting a writing retreat, and using a first sentence as a springboard for a story..
Please tell us what inspired your stories, "As Simple as Water" and "The Woman Whose Husband Died in a Climbing Accident." Where did these stories begin for you?
The first story came when I was in a bad mood over Christmas, inspired by catching trains in Athens and feeling a little lost there. I wanted to be the guy in this tricky situation of betrayal, abandonment and sex. And I like hotel rooms. Athens is a favourite city.
In the second story I wanted to explore the dynamic of an established couple, a nasty guy, and an accident in the mountains. I've done a lot of hiking in the Dolomites in Italy and seen some awful, unthinking things occur. A friend has climbed a few of the less commercial major peaks across the world, and I find this seeking out of extreme hardship absolutely fascinating.
It sounds as though I actually plotted these stories but they rushed out of me and there was no prior planning, just the springboard of the first sentence. For me, the act of writing is absolute liberty and invention, threaded through with instances and effects from the great bank of sensations that is the subconscious. I have to say that I am protective of my many stories and uneven background.
The characters in these two stories feel very worldly, unrestrained by borders. How have your own experiences with travel shaped your writing?
When I was 21 I left Sydney and ran away to Paris to write, and ended up in West Africa running a bar. I was shy and brainy as a kid, so as soon as I left my environment I began to veer out of my comfort zone, which entailed learning languages (and feeling foolish!), and learning to feel at home in places where one might feel estranged or isolated—the Other. I quickly had to detach from the way of thinking I had absorbed, and to observe and respect everything around me, trying to understand different mindsets, an essential skill for the writer. I worked in diverse environments—from Paris to Mogadishu, from Milan to Accra—and in different economic circumstances (from the sublime to the ridiculous, a friend used to say), and also travelled through places that are now racked with instability and war, a lot of mad road trips and situations where I saw normal lives, humbling stuff. I also ran a business, gave birth in different countries, caught illnesses; spending ten years in Ghana and several decades in Europe, mostly Italy where I now live. I love listening and watching, hearing stories, seeing into people. I steal a lot of details and settings. The door is always open.
What appeals to you about very short fiction?
I began with very short fiction when I was stressed out by two factors: a long wait for news from my agent about the submission of my short story collection The Cartography of Others and a difficult teenage son! At first an exercise to commit to my creative self in a compressed time frame, the attempt to write effective short pieces became a lesson in the essentials of story. I learned to cut to the chase, discard, invent. I've always loved beginnings and endings but this form allowed me to play with the substance in the middle, extract true meaning and learn to suggest, toss out back story, and employ the present. It also cleaned out any excesses in my language. For almost a year I worked on what has become a flash fiction collection called Love Stories for Hectic People, which includes these two stories and is coming out in the UK in April 2020.
Can you speak about the writing retreat you host in Italy? What do you love most about hosting writers? How has it changed you as an artist?
I've been hosting writers from various countries for a few summers now and I find it fulfilling on many levels. Firstly, I live in a country house where the winter is long and challenging, so the summer is a celebration of heat and flowers and long starry nights and outdoor life that I enjoy sharing with others. My kids have left home now and as I once ran an art gallery in Ghana the rooms are many and filled with traditional art, cloth, sculptures and photography, which creates an inspiring environment for writers. Some enjoy the detachment and unlocking of ideas simply through the surroundings, while others rarely surface from their desks. I enjoy this variety. It is also a picturesque area with no shortage of villas, landmarks and nature—including nearby Venice and Verona—so I like to tailor each visit to the writer's interests and preferences. This can mean a hike in Petrarch's hills or Campari-sipping in a Venetian piazza. The visits leave me refreshed and ready to throw myself into my own work again, with a lovely network of new and encouraging writer friends. So much of our work is uphill, and in solitude, so it is also food for me.
How has your writing evolved and changed since The Rupture published these two stories back in 2016? Or, alternately, how your writing not changed?
"As Simple as Water" was the very first story written in Love Stories for Hectic People and governed the arc of the collection, with its interest in the many facets of modern and intercontinental love. As above, I worked for around a year with the flash fiction form, which also combined well with my job as Flash Friday editor for Litro Magazine (UK & USA). The collection came to a natural ending after around thirty pieces—I knew I was through with the shape and themes, and most of the pieces had been published (these two stories were also among the Wigleaf top 50 in 2017). It was my dream to have this book published but I had to put it aside as my short story collection had been accepted, so I began work on editing and, later, promotion. This takes a lot of time and energy! Over the past year and a half I've been writing a novel, but I am convinced that the lessons learned from producing very short pieces have been valuable in teaching me which questions to ask—ceaselessly—while engaging with the reader and mapping the work.