Louise O’Neill in Conversation with Amy Webb and Tanita Patel

Today’s episode is brought to you by the READ ON project, a scheme supported by the European Union’s Creative Europe fund. The READ ON project gets young people reading, writing, and interviewing authors, both in their own country and across Europe. In this week’s podcast, two of our young presenters, Amy Webb and Tanita Patel, interviewed bestselling author Louise O’Neill about her latest book After the Silence, discussing the cultural preoccupation with true crime and stories about young women, feminism and the urgency of the climate crisis.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 5: Louise O’Neill in Conversation with Amy Webb and Tanita Patel 

Kit de Waal
Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents...podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Today’s episode is brought to you by the READ ON project, a scheme supported by the European Union’s Creative Europe fund. The READ ON project gets young people reading, writing, and interviewing authors, both in their own country and across Europe. In this week’s podcast, two of our young presenters, Amy Webb and Tanita Patel, interviewed bestselling author Louise O’Neill about her latest book After the Silence, discussing the cultural preoccupation with true crime and stories about young women, feminism and the urgency of the climate crisis.

Amy Webb
Welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival 2020 and to our podcast with the writer Louise O'Neill. My name is Amy and I'm part of a project called Young Presenters. I'm from the city of Birmingham in England and I'm 16 years old. In September I am due to start at University College Birmingham studying health and social care.

Tanita Patel
My name is Tanita and I am also part of the Young Presenters project. I'm 16 years old from Wolverhampton and about start Sixth Form in September to study psychology, RS and English Literature.

Amy Webb
Over the last three years Young Presenters have trained young people to run events at the Birmingham Literature Festival. The project is part of Read On, a scheme supported by the European Union's Creative Europe fund.

Tanita Patel
This year's Birmingham Literature Festival is being run online. And we are so pleased to be here to interview the writer Louise O'Neill. Louise, welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival.

Louise O’Neill
Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Amy Webb
Louise, we have quite a few questions for you. But before we start, could you please tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
   
Louise O’Neill
Yeah, well, I'm from Ireland, I'm from a small town called Clonakilty in West Cork, which is in the south of Ireland. And I have been writing for, I’m trying to think how many years now, I think it's seven years. And so, my first novel was called Only Ever Yours, and that was published in 2014. And that's a dystopian novel, set in a world in which women are no longer able to have daughters. So they can have sons, but their bodies have sort of naturally evolved to reject a female foetus in the womb. So faced with the extinction of the human race, a decision is made to create these schools where girls are bred for their beauty and then trained to be subservient to men. My second novel came out in 2015, and that was called Asking For It. And that was about a young woman called Emma O’Donovan, who is the victim of a brutal sexual assault. My third novel was for adults, so we probably won't be talking about that here, but my fourth book was a feminist retelling of the Little Mermaid for young adults, which was called The Surface Breaks. And, actually, my fifth novel is due to be published next week.

Tanita Patel
Thanks Louise, that's really interesting. However, our first question isn't actually about your writing, we would both like to know, what have you been up to in lockdown?

Louise O’Neill
Oh, God! Um, that is a very good question. And I really wish that I could tell you that I, you know, was emerging from lockdown clutching a piece of art in my hands. But I am not. I think when Taylor Swift came and said that she had written and recorded an album during lockdown, I felt immensely guilty. And just a great deal of shame about my lack of productivity. But I think to be honest, when it was called, when everything happened at the beginning, I was really just scrambling. I felt incredibly
anxious, I think it was difficult not to pick up on the anxiety and the fear. That was just so like the atmosphere was thick with it really. So, for the first month, I think I just felt completely paralyzed. I was unable to, to write I was unable to read, I couldn't even watch Netflix. So, I think it took me a little bit of time to come out of that fog in a way. And just try and adjust and try and kind of, and I hate using the term the new normal, but I suppose trying to adjust to this new way of living and figure out a way of doing it that felt, I don't know, comfortable I suppose, for me. So that's kind of been what I've been doing with my lockdown is just trying to adjust to the madness.

Amy Webb
Definitely. I agree with you there, a lot of people have struggled in similar ways and we've got to try and accept the new normal. As you mentioned earlier, you have a new book just published called After the Silence. Could you please introduce the book for people who have not read it?

Louise O’Neill
Yeah, of course. Well, it's going to be published on September 3, so it's only a week out. And it is set on an island off the coast of West Cork called Inisrun. And an incredibly glamorous wealthy family called the Kinsellas have set up, a world-renowned artist retreat centre on the island. And the youngest Kinsella son Henry has married a local woman called Keelin. And it's at Keelin’s 36th birthday party that this violent storm engulfs the island, you know, the power goes out and it's completely cut off from the mainland. And the next morning, the body of a young girl is found. No one can get on the island. No one can get off the island. So it has to have been someone on Inisrun who did this. And then 10 years later, the murder of the beautiful Nessa Crowley still haunts the Irish people. And so, a team of documentary makers have arrived on to the island to find out exactly what happened on Inisrun that night. So that's it, After the Silence in a little nutshell.

Tanita Patel
Thank you for that great explanation. Whilst reading it, I thought it was really powerful book. Are there any experiences or stories that have influence...