Claire Carroll’s Shelf Life
Claire Carroll is a writer and PhD researcher based in Somerset, whose work explores how experimental short fiction writing can reimagine how humans relate to the natural and non-human world. Her short stories have been published by journals including The White Review, The London Magazine, Gutter, 3:AM, Lunate, and Short Fiction Journal. Her debut collection, The Unreliable Nature Writer, was released in June 2024 by Scratch Books.How and where are you?
How and where are you?
In a local sense, I’m at home in Somerset. It’s early morning and hot outside, the local birdlife is kicking off a bit due to the recent arrival of my partner’s cat. I woke up and found myself in a state of suspended animation. My book has just come out and I’ve been going all over the place doing events to promote it, and in between coming home to remind my child and my dog what I look like. But this morning has presented itself as a nice in-between moment, where I am by myself and I don’t have to go anywhere or use my brain for a bit.
In a broader, global, universal sense I am perpetually worried, to the point where the anxiety is just a dull hum, about the state of the world, I’m sure many of us are. I’m also very aware of how lucky I am; my loved ones are, for the most part, relatively happy and healthy. I have just voted in the 2024 general election.
What are you reading right now?
My reading is all over the place at the moment which is shameful because I am mid-way through a creative writing PhD which means I essentially live in a system of caves made from the towers of books I am reading. I am savoring an advance proof of Eley Williams' new short story collection Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good, about which I will have much to say, so won’t spoil that here! I obsessively love Williams’ writing in a way which probably makes me look like a bit of a stalker. I’ve also been enjoying Rita Bullwinkel’s 2016 collection, Belly Up, which is weird and tangential and offbeat. Next on my list in Han Smith’s debut novel Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking. I’m typically very bad at reading novels, but I am excited for this one.
And, of course, watching or listening to?
I feel like I need equal parts stimulation and sedation from the telly. So, for the former I am working my way through the Lanthimos / Filippou movies, but, for the latter, I am also re-watching Friends for the 20th time. Intellectually, I justify rewatching sitcoms for the dialogue, I think it helps with writing dialogue far more than reading it. Friends is dreadful and wonderful in so many ways, but it's nostalgic and there's something very comforting about having it on in the background while I put away laundry or whatever.
This week I have been listening to Ex-Easter Island Head’s new album, Norther, which is very good, and some old Gwenno and some even older Shirley Collins.
What did you read as a child?
I was a book nerd as a child, and this sounds a bit on the nose, but I really loved short stories. Some of my earliest memories are listening to fairy stories and fables on cassette. My favourite book - still one of my favourites, actually - is called The Chewing Gum Rescue and Other Stories by Margaret Mahy. Everything that Mahy wrote is infused with this very specific brand of the supernatural - not quite allegory, not quite magical realism - that I still find so deeply affecting even now.
Which books and/or writers have inspired and influenced you?
So many, too many, all the time. Old lads include Mansfield, Chekov, Woolf, Kafka. I’m actually a cringeworthy Kafka softboi, I’m afraid (becoming less and less embarrassed about admitting that, which is definitely a bad sign…).
Contemporary influences include George Saunders, Irenosen Okojie, Anna Wood, Ben Pester, Ruby Cowling, Lauren Groff, Camilla Grudova, and Elly Williams. The list goes on and on and on getting wider and more sprawling all the time, but I'm generally into weird futures, bold surrealism that pierces the everyday, bodily grotesqueness and abject yet hilarious pathos.
What’s the worst review you’ve ever received?
Luckily I'm too under the radar to have received any bad reviews! Although I did get a very funny rejection from a (rather large) publisher when my agent was sending out my short story collection, who declared quite angrily, in an email that ‘this novel is completely incoherent’.
Tell us a little about your creative process.
I write best very early in the morning or very late at night, unless I’m on a deadline when everything goes completely out of the window and I write all day, but weirdly and badly. Generally I'm not great at writing between 2pm and 8pm.
I can’t plot. I'm a bit anti-plot, really. But writing short fiction means that you can reject plot quite happily. I start with an image or an idea, or a voice and expand from there. A lot ends up on the cutting room floor that way, but I scoop stuff up and repurpose it now and again.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
“Write about whatever you want, but make sure to do it brilliantly.” Which is total ludicrous really, but forces you to set high standards for yourself, I think
Another one that is almost a cliché now, is to furnish yourself with like-minded writers to share your drafts and dreams and disappointments with. I am very lucky to have a small, brilliant group who I speak to every day, and a relentlessly energetic partner who valiantly scrutinizes my new writing. They are less like friends or even family, at this point. The relationship is more like one you'd have with your limbs, or your memories or something. Quotidian, vital and precious.
What are you working on right now?
I am working on a new collection. It's set in Jersey, in the channel islands, where I spent exactly half of my childhood. It's a strange place, in lots of ways, but very beautiful too. Politically it's like Nigel Farage fell asleep watching The Truman Show, but the coastlines are breathtaking. The book will be weird, sweaty and watery when it's done.