Catholic Chaplaincy at Easter

16 May 2008

James Friel, LJMU's Programme Leader of the MA in Writing, has just returned from a whirlwind five-week tour of Australia.

During his antipodean adventure, Friel, winner of The Ilura Fiction Quest Prize for 2007, attended a series of literary festivals in places such as Adelaide, Brisbane, and Canberra. He also collected an award for his recent novel The Higher Realm at The Melbourne Writers Festival.

Friel has previously produced radio adaptations of such distinguished novels as Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day for BBC Radio 4, Iris Murdoch's A Fairly Honourable Defeat and Orhan Pamuk's Snow for BBC Radio 3.

As well as promoting his own novel, Friel was eager to share his wealth of experience as a successful and acclaimed author in order to set aspiring novelists on the right track. He delivered masterclasses on writing at 12 Australian universities as well as making appearances at bookshops, and giving press and radio interviews.

Friel also researched the range of postgraduate writing courses in Australia, and was suitably impressed. "I saw excellent workshops in Australian universities", he says, "particularly those that were confident in the primacy and value of the subject in its own right in the university curriculum".

Speaking about the writing process generally, he says that the publishing industry has changed in recent years, with publishers now seeking to downgrade their own operations, relying instead on the 'acquisition' of ready-made authors. "What is absolutely the case is that mainstream publishers no longer have a fleet of editors and people working for them, developing manuscripts", he adds.

While creative writing courses have risen in popularity, Friel says that the ability to write a novel cannot be prescribed: "You cannot make a writer, you can only make a writer better".

When judging literary competitions, Friel says that the stamp of a creative writing course is evident in good entries, comparing it to candidates arriving at an interview in a sharp suit. He explains: "You can tell upon opening the envelope whether someone has done an MA in writing because they just present the work better, so instantly you've got a sense of what's good or bad".

The writing of a novel, he believes, is a long and arduous process, involving vast amounts of research, discipline and dedication. "What is vital is having an idea, and actually completing the book", he says. "In the end most novels go unwritten. Kafka said "a writer has to cling to his desk by his teeth". That's the bottom line, no matter what your approach is".