We Talk to Tom Vowler
Tom Vowler is a former journalist, prize-winning author and creative writing lecturer. His fiction has appeared widely, in dozens of literary journals and magazines, and his debut collection of short stories, The Method, won the Scott Prize in 2010. Two novels, What Lies Within and That Dark Remembered Day, received critical acclaim. He has an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Plymouth University, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Commonwealth Prize in 2017 for a collection of stories called Dazzling the Gods. He’s even written the odd article (not odd as in weird, as in occasional) for the Totnes Pulse.
Totnes Pulse: Hi Tom, When did you start writing?
Tom: Relatively late. I was off sick from work and thought, How hard can it be to write a novel. Turns out, it’s pretty hard.
TP: Ha! Do stories come easily to you?
Tom: Oh, yeah, sure. I’m paraphrasing, but basically you just sit with your typewriter and open a vein. I’m suspicious of anything that comes too easily. Time contemplating what you’re going to write is well spent, but eventually you have to jump in, write your way to the thing, through it. What emerges rarely resembles the story you envisaged.
TP: What would you say are your biggest influences?
Tom: Well, they say the best gift a writer can receive from his or her parents is a dysfunctional childhood. I’m a big lover of cinema, especially Totnes’s, and film was perhaps my first influence as storyteller. Too many writers to mention. Probably not the ones you’re thinking of.
TP: You have books translated and available as audiobooks – is that a thrill?
Tom: It’s funny reading one of my novels in French, with, say, a Cornish town or a character name mid-phrase in English. Audiobooks are weirdly unsettling – I can’t listen. The actors’ reading somehow changes the text, the voices not as I’d imagined.
TP:Lord Byron or imposter syndrome?
Tom: I rarely, if ever, say I’m a writer when asked – I’ll lean on another noun from my passport: ‘editor’ or ‘teacher’. Not necessarily from imposter syndrome, but just to prevent the inevitable reply, ‘Oh, I have a great idea for a novel.’
TP: Ok, scratch that next question. Your work has been described as “impeccably researched, with precision-layered structure” – do you have post-it notes over 2 walls or is it in your head?
Tom: Thanks for the quote, Mum. Notebooks are my catnip.
TP: James Joyce, Kafka or McDermid
Tom: I love that Kafka insisted his agent not publish his work in the event of his death. Guaranteed sales. I should have tried that one. Obviously, like everyone, I’ve read Ulysses. Honestly.
TP: What would you say are your biggest influences?
Tom: You’re big on influences, aren’t you.
TP: oh yeah, Sorry, bad notes there… Do you write for yourself or for others?
Tom: Great question. TP: (Ah Shucks) Tom: Of course, I consider the reader at every stage, but I suspect that’s not quite what you’re getting at. I guess I write for an imagined, perfect reader, one who will relish the subtle shifts across an entire work, bask in the metaphors and allegories, sense the foreshadowing, nod at the recurring motifs. As long as a reader’s not indifferent. I must impact them in some way, perhaps hold a mirror up to their life, let them know they aren’t alone, have them question the world. Shock or eviscerate a little. Unsettle.
TP: Do you always work alone and have you collaborated on any works – if so, is co-writing difficult?
Tom: Funnily enough I’m co-writing a story at the moment, an experiment where we alternate sentences. I’ve no idea how we will edit it.
TP: Remove every other line? How much of an effect does living here have on your work?
Tom: I moved here last February. Seems there are a few cafés to work in. I wish there was less to do, fewer distractions.
TP: Flash Fiction – What is that?
Tom: A rather crass term for a wonderful and very challenging literary form, usually short stories less than a thousand words. Here’s an example: https://fictivedream.com/2023/01/27/accordion/
Check out more from Tom on his website here: www.tomvowler.co.uk