Wales Literature Exchange interviewed our Bookshelf author Dylan Moore about his writing and influences.

1. What first inspired you to be an author and where do your ideas come from?

I’ve been writing since I’ve been able to. The first story I vividly remember producing was about a colony of robots living on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, when I was seven. I wrote it all in capital letters because I thought that made it look like it had been printed by a computer. The same goes for editing magazines. Around the age of ten or eleven I used to buy a football magazine called Big Shots because it was mainly pictures, which I could cut out and write the stories myself. So I’ve always written, both fiction and journalism, it’s just the subject matter that has changed. And in terms of that content now and where ideas come from, it’s life, isn’t it? Experience is inspiration. You meet new people, go to new places, and then – for me, at least – it just has to come out in writing somehow. The only mystery is what form it will take.

2. How would you describe your writing?

As someone who reviews a lot of other people’s books, it feels awkward to be asked to describe your own. I’ll defer to Suzy Ceulan Hughes, who described my first book Driving Home Both Ways as having ‘an intimate, intelligent voice’. I suppose the reason I’m really happy with that description is that it covers off two huge areas that I think are pertinent in just two words. ‘Intimate’ implies that I write from a position that is close to the reader, in the sense that I’m quite open with my thoughts as I would be with a friend, and humorous not in the sense of being laugh out loud funny, but kind of quietly self-deprecating. I also take it to imply empathy, and that’s certainly what I’m trying to do with all of my writing, whether it’s fiction or criticism, travel or journalism: attempting to get beneath the surface of things; under the skin of a character or behind the scenes of a place. And ‘intelligent’ is important too. Not in an academic sense, but if a piece of writing is going to be of lasting value, it has to be at the very least informed and offering new insights. Anything else is going to be tomorrow’s chip paper, or gathering dust.

3. Which authors have influenced you the most?

George Orwell used to have a column in Tribune called ‘As I Please’, and his Collected Essays is probably the book – other than the Bible – that I return to most frequently. It includes his own manifestos about the purpose of writing and commitment to truth-telling that have always served as touchstones for me, as well as pieces linked to his time fighting with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War that sparked my love affair with Spain, sending me off to live there for a while.

For similar reasons, Ernest Hemingway has always also loomed large, not so much for his famous writing style, more for the life he lived – the way he got about. There was a phase in my life it seemed wherever I pitched up there’d be a bar there where Hemingway once drank. If nothing else, I think lots of my writing has inherited a certain twentieth century sensibility from these writers, an atmosphere that pervades even when my attention is fully fixed on the present.

And a quick list of other writers I think have been important in shaping my work also reveals I like literature that moves between the fields of journalism and travel and cultural criticism and philosophy without showing you the joins. Albert Camus, Orhan Pamuk, Ryszard Kapuściński, Pico Iyer, Edward Said, Jonathan Raban, Paul Bowles, Zadie Smith, Geoff Dyer, Rebecca Solnit, Eduardo Galeano all do this.

And the same qualities are evident in Jan Morris, of course, with the added distinction of her work being absolutely rooted in Cymru. That dynamic between home and elsewhere, Wales and the world, has been – at heart – what’s animated all of my writing.

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?

Time. You can’t write without it, and it’s always been a struggle – amid the everyday challenges of holding down the day job to pay the bills, and bringing up a family – to clear enough of it to really devote yourself to a project.

There are ways and means – I would not have been able to write Many Rivers to Cross without saving up and paying for a master’s course – but despite all the schemes and grants and courses, you do have to learn how to navigate bureaucracies to get hold of these things, and so it probably is getting more difficult, especially for working class writers, to find time to write seriously. If there are any old fashioned patrons out there, let me know!

5. What are the hardest and easiest parts of being a writer?

The easiest thing about being a writer is not having to apply for the job. You don’t need to seek anyone’s permission, you just summon the chutzpah to call yourself a writer and get on with it.
The hardest part is getting on with it.

6. Which writer from Wales would you recommend to readers and why?

I’m not going to single out an individual; there are too many great writers in Wales, emerging and established, for that to be fair. Instead I’m going to recommend readers take out subscriptions to support our national media and literary magazines. This is where most of us started out, and where lots of talented newcomers are cutting through today. My Cymraeg learning journey is still at a relatively early stage, so forgive me for focusing on English-language publications.

The National Wales is less than a year old and already a home for original journalism from a Welsh perspective; Nation.Cymru has also quickly established itself as a go-to for strong opinions, and its book reviews offer great coverage for writers who don’t always get reviewed everywhere. Of course, Wales Arts Review began fixing this problem ten years ago, and Planet is still going strong after half a century.

And of course, as I edit The Welsh Agenda, I am not going to let the opportunity pass to encourage people to join the Institute of Welsh Affairs, or to read some of the ‘new voices’ we publish in the magazine and online. These are Wales’ stars of tomorrow.

Many Rivers to Cross is selected to the Wales Literature Exchange 2021–22 Bookcase, our annual selection of recent Welsh literary works which we recommend for translation.