Nicola Griffith is a native of Yorkshire, England, where she earned her beer money teaching women's self-defense, fronting a band, and arm-wrestling in bars, before discovering writing and moving to the US.
Her immigration case was a fight and ended up making new law: the State Department declared it to be "in the National Interest" for her to live and work in this country. This didn't thrill the more conservative powerbrokers, and she ended up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, where her case was used as an example of the country's declining moral standards.
In 1993 a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis slowed her down a bit, and she concentrated on writing. Her novels are Ammonite (1993), Slow River (1995), The Blue Place, (1998), Stay (2002), and Always (2007).
She is the co-editor of the Bending the Landscape series of original short fiction published by Overlook. Her non-fiction has appeared in a variety of print and web journals, including Out, Nature, and The Huffington Post.
Her awards include the Tiptree Award, the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Lambda Literary Award (six times). Her latest book is a memoir, And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer's Early Life. She lives in Seattle with her partner, writer Kelley Eskridge, and takes enormous delight in everything.
I was recently involved in a huge discussion about whether Stephen King should win the Nobel for Literature, which in turn led to a discussion on literary value. What are your views on popular fiction and merit?
The best writers are popular because they combine a brilliant sense of story with a talent for the craft, for example, Mary Stewart. She is hugely under rated. But she's a better storyteller, a better wordsmith, a better craftswoman than half, more than half, the winners of the Nobel or Booker or Pulitzer Prize.
Unfortunately, not all popular writers can write.
Some are good sometimes, but bad most of the time. Some are superb at one length and merely good at another. Stephen King, for example, is, in my opinion, a truly talented novella writer. Most of his novels, though, fall to pieces at the end—and his short stories are gimmicky. I think Le Guin, too, is best at short novel length.
So many best sellers are writing so fast—a book a year—they don't give themselves time to make art. They give good story, and journeyman craft, but no absolute mastery. True artists are very, very rare.
What's the scariest thing about the world right now?
The same it's always been: impatience. So much of the world's culture (I'm not talking about demographics, but culture) is young. People, institutions, aren't prepared to relax and study a situation before leaping in with some solution that they think will be an instant fix. There is no such thing as an instant fix. Many of the world's problems--water, wealth imbalance, disease, the environment—will require very patient planning and long-range strategising. The world requires a certain dispassionate attendance from its leaders. I'm not seeing that. I'm not sure, given the current incarnation of capitalism and democracy, it's possible. I imagine we'll find out.
People would be surprised if they knew Nicola Griffith is…
Allergic to cheese. And likes, very occasionally, to wear a dress.
Why can writing make a difference?
Good writing changes the reader. Readers are people. People change the world.
Read more of what Nicola thinks on a host of other topics here.
Lynne Jamneck - Lynne Jamneck lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Short listed for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda Awards, she has published short fiction in ...
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