Ask Emma!

[Second Castle]

Hi Emma, I love your writing! Room was a 5-star book for me, but I wish more people had also read your short story collections, such as The Woman who Gave Birth to Rabbits. It is wonderful how you give voice to a whole host of period characters, switching register and tone with such graceful ease. There is something magical in reading the recreation of interesting or defining moments in the lives of famous people in the past, especially literary or artistic figures, who are such colourful people.

I would like to ask: do you enjoy writing novels or short stories more, and will you be writing more of such short stories featuring famous historical figures in future?

[Tara]

Hi Emma,

I've admired your We Are Michael Field & Inseparable. I'm especially appreciative of your ability to write in a style satisfying to both academics and a more general public. I'm curious about your process of selection--Why Bradley and Cooper? and other uncanonical authors? What's the importance of canonizing them? Is this a conscious project of yours, and how do some of your fictional characters work into this project?

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Karin wrote: "Your stories are oftentimes propelled by the idea of escape--will Mary Saunders transcend her lowly circumstances? Will Jack ever get out of the room? Answering these questions lends your novels a ..."

Oddly enough, Karin, I was inhibited by a sense that although I've always enjoyed murder mysteries, I wouldn't know how to write one. 'Literary fiction' writers may sometimes look down on 'genre' writers, but often instead we look up at them in awe at their powerful handling of (and variations on) the codes of their genre. So it was only when a friend told me I was being nonsensical and dared me to write a crime novel that I decided to try, in Frog Music. And I so enjoyed the experience - the challenge of making a plot machine that works to create suspense and satisfaction, while having all my usual concerns for character and theme as well.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Nat wrote: "Hi Emma,
Thank you for the time to read and answer our questions, I hope you had a fun filled Easter with Family and loved ones. I have the opportunity to read ROOM and loved it like so many on th..."

I almost never use music as background when I'm writing, because I literally don't hear it when I'm concentrating. But in the case of Frog Music, I spent quite a lot of my research time hunting down the songs of the day, because I had a feeling that quoting them could be a graceful way to suggest the multicultural melange of 1870s California. I love the apparently casual way that old folk songs can raise such themes as love, death, alcoholism, crossdressing, inter-racial relationships...

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Lucía wrote: "Hello Emma,
I am very keen on your novels. I am writing an article on her postmodern collection of fairy stories 'Kissing the Witch'. Concretely, I would like to ask you about those female charact..."

Yes indeed. I've always liked taking negative stereotypes and playing with them rather than standing round earnestly saying 'We're not like that.' So the witches and stepmothers in Kissing the Witch, the criminal and the whore in Frog Music, the closeted schoolteacher in Hood, the murderess in Slammerkin - they're all characters through whom I explore society's fears.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Jason wrote: "Hello Emma. Room was my first experience with your work and I listened to the audiobook and absolutely loved it! I am listening to Frog Music on audiobook right now and it is great so far.
My que..."

You're ahead of me; I haven't had a chance to listen to the audiobook of Frog Music yet (as I only do that in the car and I'm rarely in the car) but I can't wait. I don't get to nominate individual actors but they sometimes do send me sample clips of the actors before they firm up the casting. I do get to make requests in terms of skills - 'a convincing Irish accent please' or (in the case of Frog Music) 'someone who can sing most of the songs!' I do think a really great audiobook - as in the case of Room - can add so much to the novel that it's halfway to being a radio play.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Rosy wrote: "This question is regarding 'Room'

First of all, I absolutely adore the book, and love the way the characters are motivated and how they react to each other, especially post-liberation. One thing I..."

Ah, a question I deliberately never answered, not even for myself! I don't care what warped Old Nick. I have read too many novels and seen too many films which reflect our society's hero-worship of the lone sicko who captures girls; I just don't give a damn any more. Room, for that reason, is all about the victims (survivors) instead.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Briar Rose wrote: "Hi Emma,

I've been reading your books for many years, and you're one of my favourite authors. I wanted to say thank you for writing such amazing fiction. Kissing the Witch is very dear to my heart..."

Sorry your flood only gets such a paltry reply! Room didn't really change my life, no (since I'd had the great luxury of being a fulltime writer for two decades already when it was published); I do massive amounts of research both in libraries and online (Life Mask was probably the most research-heavy, and significantly the last book I wrote pre-kids!); and yes, fairy tales come up over and over in my books, not only because I read them obsessively as a child but because they are the plot motifs that matter most to us all: if they weren't, they wouldn't have been passed down the generations.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Wendy wrote: "SPOILER ALERT

Hello Emma, Could you please discuss your choice for the reason that Jenny was killed? Did you consider the social context of this choice, given its historic use in many books and ..."

Argh. I just don't know how to answer this without the kind of full spoiler that I'm not willing to put online so soon after the novel's publication. Sorry!

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Emma wrote: "Wendy wrote: "SPOILER ALERT

Hello Emma, Could you please discuss your choice for the reason that Jenny was killed? Did you consider the social context of this choice, given its historic use in m..."

Duh, what I should have said was, email me at emma@emmadonoghue.com and we can discuss it privately!

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Bill wrote: "Hi, Emma! I have a question about Room (yes, sorry, I'm one of the many asking about the same thing): when you wrote Room had you read The Collector by Fowles? Did it influence you? If not, can you..."

I had of course. (First read it in my teens). A powerfully memorable book. It influenced me mostly by helping me make up my mind to keep Old Nick at arm's length from my narrative; I felt that that last thing that was needed was another rerun of the captor's point of view (which has, since the publication of The Collector, become perhaps the dominant motif in television drama).

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Brigitte wrote: "Is "Room" the book you get asked the most questions about in discussions like these?

When can we expect another book like Landing or Stir-Fry?"

Yep, Room out-sold all my other books put together and I am resigned to the fact if I should be lucky enough to have an obituary, Room will be in the first (or perhaps the only) line. If by 'another book like Landing or Stir-fry' you mean contemporary and lesbian themed, I don't know: the next time a really good idea along those lines seizes me!

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Hank wrote: "I have long been intrigued by stories that work real people into the narrative. Going back to "Ragtime" by EL Doctorow, all the way to the recent "Transatlantic" by Colum McCann. Were you inspired ..."

I've been doing fact-inspired historical fiction since the late 90s, so I'm struggling to remember who I'd read by them who was doing that... Margaret Atwood? early Hilary Mantel? Julian Barnes? Rose Tremain?

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Ed wrote: "I loved Room! Looking forward to reading the new book. But, "Frog Music?"

I'm really curious why this book has such a weird title.

DON'T TELL ME!
DON'T TELL ME!

8(|) ribbit!"

Splendid frog-face emoticon, may I say.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Elaine wrote: "Hello from the Oregon coast! I enjoyed your By The Book interview in the NY Times, have you found out if President Obama has read Room yet?

Cheers, Elaine Lynch"

Nope, weirdly enough he hasn't found the time to drop me a line of fanmail. If any of you are having dinner with him this weekend, do ask.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Sarah wrote: "Hi Emma, I am an aspiring writer and I loved your book Room. I wanted to know how you got started with your writing career and how should a rookie, like myself, go about approaching the fiction wr..."

Don't think of it as 'approaching the fiction writing and publishing industry'. It's not like going into business; qualifications and networking will get you nowhere. It's just about writing a really, really good book. After that, an agent will help you sell it, but only you can write the book that may be in you. Good luck!

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Amy wrote: "Hello! First off, I would like to thank the mods and organisers for this opportunity to ask Ms Donoghue questions. I am currently doing a thesis on one of her story, "The Tale of the Shoe" and this..."

That story - the first in the sequence and the first time I tried my hand at a fairytale - is very bare-bones, isn't it? Throughout the collection I was trying to read the magic metaphorically. So if Cinderella's mother is dead from the start, the grief that causes Cinderella can work that bad magic all by itself; we don't need an evil stepmother to do it.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Brok wrote: "Dear Ms Donoghue,

I absolutely loved reading Astray and it has aroused my interest in short stories. My question, therefore, is about the ideas behind writing short stories: Is it ..."

Definitely easier to place them all in the same universe. My collection Kissing the Witch was a doddle to write, partly because I was drawing on the set of classic European fairytales (Grimm, Anderson, Perrault) which have elements and moods and settings in common. My more recent collection Astray was put together slowly over a decade and a half, because each of the stories needed a new time and place, so there were no 'economies of scale' in the research. But then, where's the hurry? It's not about how fast the books come, more like how pleasurably.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Christine wrote: "Emma what's your favorite movie and book and song and tv show and holiday and color and season and food?"

Right now... I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and Great Expectations and I've Gotta Feeling and The Wire and Christmas and red and autumn and chocolate (always)

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Monica wrote: "Your settings vary from modern day all the way back to the 1800's and 1700's...What inspires you to change it up the way you do? Many authors stick with one genre/time period etc...your books are ..."

How come authors who write books set in different countries (such as myself) rarely get asked about that? No, it's always the time travel that startles people. To me it would seem as limiting to stick to my century as to my particular city. With all of history to choose from, why stay glued to now?

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Judy wrote: "Funny story, I was pitching my book to an agent at a writers conference in San Diego, years ago—but all the agent talked to me about was her latest find called "Room", and how she chose it because ..."

Voice is important to me, always, but frankly I think I get too much credit for the voice of Jack in ROOM. There's a long tradition of child's-eye fiction (I grew up on The Go-Between and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha) and an overlapping tradition of first-person narrators with weird dialects (from The Clockwork Orange to Flowers for Algernon to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime) so I wouldn't put Room on any top-ten lists for that. I suspect it's Jack's situation that moves people, rather than his voice in itself. Voice-wise, he's just an ordinary five-year-old with a few oddities due to being hyper-home-schooled (e.g. he can parrot what adults say) or due to the peculiarities of his small universe (e.g. his tendancy to see key objects in the room as characters with a capital letter and a gender). But of course I'm glad so many people like the way I made him talk! (Others, of course, found it unconvincing and/or irritating. You can't please everybody.)

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Morgan wrote: "Hi Emma! I absolutely loved Room. I was wondering if you ever revisit your characters after you have finished their book. Do you think about what became of them after the last page? Do you ever wan..."
I do idly wonder about them, but I've only revisited them on a couple of occasions; I let one character from my first novel Stir-fry make a cameo appearance in my second one, Hood, and then many years later when I was writing a third Dublin novel I thought it would be fun to let a different character from Stirfry come back so we could see how the changing times had changed her.

[Karen]

Briar Rose wrote: "Hi Emma,

I've been reading your books for many years, and you're one of my favourite authors. I wanted to say thank you for writing such amazing fiction. Kissing the Witch is very dear to my heart..."

Love these questions, Briar Rose, and I too would like to hear what success of Room did to/for Emma. Does it push her in new directions? Or invite her to use themes or characters similar to such a successful novel?

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Yamilé wrote: "Hi Emma. I just wanted to say, I love your witty, smart answers to all of the questions... They sound truly honest as well :)
And it's really nice of you to spend part of your day answering admirer..."

Very much, Yamilé! I'm just sorry I don't have enough time to do it regularly, but I've found that to get the books written, it's necessary to stride right past other duties, whether that means vacuuming, cooking or answering email...

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Giant Bolster wrote: "Hi Emma, I love your writing! Room was a 5-star book for me, but I wish more people had also read your short story collections, such as The Woman who Gave Birth to Rabbits. It is wonderful how you ..."

I absolutely love writing not just short stories but short story collections (planned and conceived as a whole, so the stories speak to each other, as it were). But right now I don't have one on the go or even on the horizon... Not sure why, it's just that the ideas that have been besieging me have all been novel-sized.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Tara wrote: "Hi Emma,

I've admired your We Are Michael Field & Inseparable. I'm especially appreciative of your ability to write in a style satisfying to both academics and a more general public. I'm curious a..."

The We Are Michael Field book was a commission but a wonderfully open one: a biography of any lesbian/gay person who interested me. For me it had to be somebody obscure, so I could feel I was contributing something new to our store of knowledge. But Inseparable is full of canonical authors as well as more obscure ones; I didn't care who wrote the stories, I just wanted to track their long tail across the literary sky.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Morgan wrote: "Hi Emma! I absolutely loved Room. I was wondering if you ever revisit your characters after you have finished their book. Do you think about what became of them after the last page? Do you ever wan..."
My least favourite part of the process is all the career-administration stuff that seems to be necessary to be a writer. Sometimes entire days go by and I don't get to write a word because I'm so busy with publicity/event arrangements... If I'm actually writing, it's all good!

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Haseeb wrote: "My name is Haseeb. I really enjoyed reading Room. It was a very moving and amazing book written from a unique perspective. My question for Emma is "Will you be coming to Austin, TX, for a book sign..."

Maybe for the paperback! I'm sorry I can only get to some of the places where I've got wonderful fans. I deeply appreciate all of you.

[Emma, Author of Frog Music]

Have to go read The Wombles to my kids now. So sorry I didn't have time to answer all these wonderfully interesting questions, and please don't feel insulted if I didn't answer yours, it's just a matter of time... Any of you are welcome to email me at emma@emmadonoghue.com if you'd like an answer at more leisure!
Warm wishes all and thanks for reading -
Emma

[Jill]

Hi! Loved Room - any chance there is a prequel or maybe a movie in it's future?
Thanks - can't wait to read ALL of your books!
Jill

[Stasha]

Easter Sunday I finished Frog Music and I wanted to flip to the first page and reread it. What a heartbreaking story! Do you believe that John Jr. survives his own tragedy? If so, do the parents survive their part of covering it up?

[Jennifer [Jenny]]

Hi Emma! My name is Jenny and I have a question for my favorite book Room? Who or what inspired you to write a book about the topic?