Writing is like relationships: the ideal state is at the beginning

The next performer at our Sounds About Write event on June 28 will be Genevieve Carver, an award-winning writer and performer, whose work has spanned poetry and spoken word, children’s fiction, theatre, music and television. Here is a short introduction to her, but come along on 28th to find out more!

What first got you into writing?

I wrote poems from when I was very young, usually about sea creatures, which is funny because that's what I'm doing again now. My dad is a big poetry fan and I think that's where the interest came from first. But it was never my focus at all until I moved to Sheffield in my mid twenties and discovered a really thriving open mic/grassroots poetry scene. I never would have imagined performing a poem I'd written in public, but once I did it, I was hooked.

You seem to have gradually moved from performance into publication. Has this changed the way you write?

I'm not sure I see it that way. I've been publishing poems since quite early on alongside performing, and I still perform now alongside publishing, but I suppose what's changed is where I direct most of my energy. There was a period when performing was taking everything from me, and I had no energy left to be creative - I think the balance is better now. And yes I do think my writing is changing, in the way you're always developing and learning as a writer. I don't really believe in a hard distinction between 'stage' and 'page' poetry, but a live audience will always be receptive to charisma and authenticity of feeling. You can't get away with that with a reader, you have to make the words themselves work harder to create the empathy response.

What are working on at the moment? How's it going?

I'm just starting a really exciting collaboration with Aberdeen University’s marine biology department. Over the next couple of years I'll be observing their fieldwork into dolphin and seabird populations in Scotland and writing new poems based on their research. I've always been inspired by interdisciplinary work, but in the past it's been more cross-arts collaborations (music, theatre and visual arts). A science-arts crossover is totally new but I'm really enjoying the challenge of creating a dialogue between two very different ways of communicating. Other than that, I've been working on a novel for children (with lots of help from you, Beverley!). I've just completed my seventh draft and started to send it out to agents, so I'm trying to forget about it for now. But if I do think about it, it sends me headlong into a pit of despair … what if I did all that work for nothing? I think for me writing is like relationships - the ideal state is to always be at the beginning of a project, before the disappointment sets in.

What's your advice for aspiring writers?

Read a lot; meet other artists and collaborate; don't wait for people to ask you to be involved in things, be proactive and set up the projects you want to do.