I am honoured and delighted that multi award-winning author, Joanne Harris, took time from her busy life and agreed to my request for an interview.
Biography
Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) was born of a French mother and an English father. She studied Modern and Mediaeval Languages at Cambridge and was a teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels, including Chocolat (1999), which was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche.
Her many books are now published in over 50 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. She has been a judge for the Whitbread Prize, the Orange Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Prima Donna Prize and the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022. She is a passionate advocate for authors’ rights, and is currently the Chair of the Society of Authors.
Her hobbies are listed in Who’s Who as: “mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion of the system”, although she also enjoys obfuscation, sleaze, rebellion, witchcraft, armed robbery, tea and biscuits.
Interview
Geoff: What do you see as the role of stories in the twenty-first century, and do you think their essential function has changed much since before the technological age?
Joanne: The telling of stories is something that all cultures and civilizations have shared throughout history. It’s a way of connecting with others; of understanding our culture and heritage; of sharing our lived experience, our dreams and our need for catharsis. As such I don’t believe their function has changed significantly. In spite of the various new methods of delivering stories, we’re still essentially cavemen, sitting around a campfire, waiting for reassurance that monsters can be overcome, that love can sometimes save us, that happy endings sometimes exist, and that we are not alone.
Geoff: Which is your favourite of your novels?
Joanne: I don’t quantify these things. All my novels are different, and have a different focus. But I do think that my novella Orfeia might be the most personal thing I’ve ever written, and for that reason I do have a special soft spot for it.
Geoff: You seem to express your opinions quite freely on social media. In the public domain, can writers play a role in influencing society?
Joanne: Writing is all about the free exchange and discussion of ideas. Any writer who doesn’t believe their words can make a difference should perhaps question their reasons for writing at all…
Geoff: Do you attempt to get messages across to your readers in your novels? Are you trying to challenge their perspectives or beliefs?
Joanne: Not especially. I like to show readers things in ways they might not previously have considered, or encourage them to question their assumptions about the world, but on the whole, I’m much more interested in asking questions than providing answers.
Geoff: You are active across several social media networks, particularly Twitter. How important is it for you to connect with your audience and other writers in this way? Did it help having this community when fighting cancer?
Joanne: I generally use Twitter for fun, although I’ve also used it to link up with people professionally. It’s my virtual water-cooler, where I go to check on the news, to reconnect with people I don’t see often enough, and to talk about anything that interests me. During lockdown when I was diagnosed with cancer, it became my main window onto the world. But it’s a two-way window; I found that coming out about my diagnosis helped a lot of people who were going through the same thing feel less alone. And I use it to tell stories, because that’s really the way in which I process things…
Geoff: You have accumulated many awards. Which one(s) means the most to you and why?
Joanne: It’s hard to say. It’s nice to be acknowledged, but awards generally feel quite remote and abstract, in comparison with the immediate, spontaneous response of an audience. (However, I’ll always remember the letter I received from an 80-year-old man who told me he’d been put off reading when he was at school, and had only just started again because of one of my books…)
Geoff: Did you get to visit the set and meet the cast during the filming of Chocolat? If so, how was that experience? Were you consulted on any aspect of the story?
Joanne: Yes, I visited the set for a couple of weeks, and I did get some degree of consultation (though not much; most authors don’t have anything to do with the filming of their books). It was fun, though. (There’s a lot more about this on my website; or this article I wrote here at: http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/v3site/books/chocolat/chocolatfilmarticle.pdf)
Geoff: When you started your fifteen year career as a teacher, was it your ambition to become a full time writer? How did the transition between vocations come about?
Joanne: There wasn’t really a transition, as such, because I’d never expected to be able to afford to write full time (although I sometimes dreamed I might, if ever I won the lottery). With an average yearly income of less than £10,000, most professional writers don’t get to earn a living just from writing, so I settled down to writing in my spare time, and found a routine that suited me. During my time as a teacher I wrote and published three books (including Chocolat) without earning enough to give up my day job. When Chocolat became more successful than anyone had anticipated, and it looked as if financially I might have a chance, I gave up teaching to try writing full time. I’m still trying to figure it out…
Geoff: How do you feel about the other aspects of being an author: promoting your work; book launches; readings; literary festivals; travel?
Joanne: Most of it’s a lot of fun. I get to meet readers, booksellers, other authors – although I do sometimes worry that the business of being an author takes up more time than the actual authoring…
Geoff: Do you travel overseas much to promote your books? If you have time to sight see, which is your favourite country to visit?
Joanne: I do on occasion, but there’s rarely much time for sightseeing. Sometimes I get a free day somewhere, but publishers do like to get their money’s worth, so I’m often kept very busy throughout my visit. Foreign festivals are usually very welcoming, though. I’ve especially enjoyed my Australian visits, as well as the Kolkata festival and the Celsius SFF festival.
Geoff: Can you remember one single circumstance that was the major factor that first inspired you to write?
Joanne: Learning to read! I’ve been telling stories ever since.
Geoff: What prompted you to start the hashtag and book Ten Things About Writing?
Joanne: I get a lot of questions about writing on Twitter, and it seemed easier to answer them on a hashtag than to keep repeating myself. Then, when lockdown happened and a lot of people on furlough had time to explore the idea of writing, I put the book together and published it as an e-book, so it could be available straightaway.
Geoff: How much has the publishing world changed since the publication of your first novel?
Joanne: There have been a lot of changes to do with e-books, deep discounting and celebrity-written books, all of which have made it harder for new, unknown authors to be traditionally published, and for existing authors to earn a living writing, but with the rise of self-publishing, there are options that didn’t exist when I was starting off my career. On the whole I think it’s harder for people, especially writers of niche or non-commercial fiction, but the industry is in a constant state of flux, so who knows what the next twenty years will bring?
Geoff: Can you write anywhere, or do you have to be in your shed to produce your best work?
Joanne: For me, it’s more about headspace than physical space. I’ve trained myself to find my headspace wherever I go, which means I can write pretty much anywhere at all, although I still prefer the silence and seclusion of the Shed…
Geoff: Your shed tweets – a daily vision of your writing shed in many fantastical guises – are a popular and uplifting literary morsel for your followers’ minds to breakfast upon. How long does it take you to come up with one? Have you ever been completely stuck?
Joanne: Tweeting about the Shed is a kind of automatic-writing exercise that gets me into the work zone; my Shed tweets never take more than a minute to write. I don’t get stuck, exactly, but on a couple of occasions, (eg, the death of a friend, etc). I’ve just written: “This morning the Shed is just a shed.”
Geoff: You have collaborated with the fabulous artist, Bonnie Helen Hawkins, to illustrate some of your books and to produce the wonderful Shed Calendar. How did this relationship come about?
Joanne: I first came across Bonnie’s work by chance, when she sent me a poster of one of her artworks. She wasn’t a professional illustrator at the time; but as it happened, I was looking for an illustrator for A Pocketful of Crows at the time, and her style was just what I’d been looking for. I got in touch with her, and we’ve been working together regularly ever since.
Geoff: You are also a musician. In February you and your Storytime band played a gig with the John Hackett Band in London. How was that experience?
Joanne: It’s always nice to share a stage with John and the band; we’ve played together a few times already, and I think we work well together. But it’s also nice to have the chance to do a full set, which means being alone: shared gigs don’t really allow us to play any of our longer pieces…
Geoff: What are the biggest influences on your writing?
Joanne: The weather, the light and my general state of health all affect my output. I write much better and more readily in the summer months, and when the light is good, but I get SAD in winter.
Geoff: What do you read for pleasure? Any particular genre or authors?
Joanne: I read across a wide variety of genres. I like to discover new authors, but I often re-read books I’ve enjoyed. Right now I’m reading a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, but I also like graphic novels, popular science, crime, horror, literary fiction, poetry and nature writing.
Geoff: Your new book Broken Light is due out in May this year. What can you tell us about it? Which themes does it explore?
Joanne: It’s a kind of riff on Stephen King’s Carrie, but examining what might have happened if Carrie had lived until middle age, and developed her psi powers at menopause instead of puberty. So it’s mostly about relationships, and isolation, and gender, and male violence, and women’s rage.
Geoff: What’s next?
Joanne: Who knows? J
Find Joanne Here:
Website: http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Joannechocolat
Tumblr: https://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joannechocolat/?hl=en
Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/@joannechocolat
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoanneHarrisAuthor
Bibliography
The Evil Seed (1989)
Sleep, Pale Sister (1993)
Chocolat (1999)
Blackberry Wine (2000)
Five-Quarters of the Orange (2001)
The French Kitchen, A Cook Book (2002)
Coastliners (2002)
Holy Fools (2003)
Jigs & Reels (2004)
Gentlemen & Players (2005)
The French Market (2005)
The Lollipop Shoes (2007) (US title: The Girl With No Shadow, April 2008)
Runemarks (2007 in the UK, 2008 in the US)
Blueeyedboy (1 April 2010 in the UK)
Runelight (September 2011 in the UK)
Peaches for Monsieur le Curé (May 2012) (US title: Peaches for Father Francis, October 2012)
A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String (October 2012)
The Gospel of Loki (February 2014), as Joanne M. Harris
The Little Book of Chocolat (March 2014), with Fran Warde
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller (October 2014). Doctor Who novella.
Different Class (2016)
A Pocketful of Crows (2017) a folklore-inspired novella
The Testament of Loki (2018)
The Blue Salt Road (2018)
The Strawberry Thief (2019)
Orfeia (2020)
Ten Things About Writing(2020) a self-help book for writers.
Honeycomb (2021)
A Narrow Door (2021)
Awards and Honours
Creative Freedom Award: 2000
Whitaker Gold Award: 2000
Salon du Livre Gourmand: 2000
Scripter Award (2001)
Author of the Year: 2002
WH Smith Award: 2002
Premio Grinzane Cavour: 2003
Golden Ladle: 2005
Glenfiddich Award: 2006
Hon. doctorate: Huddersfield University (D. Litt) 2009
Hon. doctorate: Sheffield University (D. Litt) 2010
Whitaker Platinum Award: 2012
MBE: 2013
Hon. fellowship of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge: 2017
Jasmine Award: 2017
Pink News Ally of the Year: 2022
OBE: 2022
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature: 2022
Geoff King 