Wales Literature Exchange interviewed our Bookshelf author Emma Glass, about her writing and her influences.

1. What first inspired you to be an author and where do your ideas come from?
Writing is something I feel compelled to do, it is an ultimate release of feelings and experiences that I have no other way of expressing. I write about emotions situations I have experienced that require depth of exploration in order for me to process them and lay them to rest.

2. How would you describe your writing?
Lyrical, raw, short.

3. Which authors have influenced you the most?
Gertrude Stein, Susan Hill, Ann Patchett, Kazuo Ishiguro

4. In your opinion what are the biggest challenges that writers face today – and do you think these challenges have changed since you started writing?
I think a lot about the competitive nature of publishing, how challenging it can be to get your voice heard in the sea of millions of other voices, to make your story stand out, whilst trying to appeal to publishers. Balancing a full time job and writing is a struggle and having to bat away the perception that because you have books published, you have loads of money is tiring. Most writers I know are grafters, they write because they are compelled to, they write with the knowledge that it is a long hard road to publication. We write because we love it.

5. What are the hardest and easiest parts of being a writer?
Finding the time is hard. Finding the words is easy.

6. Which writer from Wales would you recommend to readers and why?
Thomas Morris - he writes with heart and hilarity.

Rest and Be Thankful was selected to the Wales Literature Exchange 2020 Bookcase, our annual selection of recent Welsh literary works which we recommend for translation.