We’re delighted to welcome screenwriter and novelist Philip Palmer to WAYR this week. He’s got some truly brilliant original advice to share today!
Philip has written novels, radio plays, tv dramas and has been involved in projects as everything from a script-doctor to a development person. He’s been running the MA in Screenwriting course at Goldsmiths University in London for some years, and his most recent novel is Hell on Earth, a police procedural with… demons. You can find his full and very enjoyable biography here.
What are you reading right now?
I’ve just started a wonderful book by my friend (and former student) David Bishop – a Renaissance thriller called CITY OF VENGEANCE. But mostly I’m reading a book about Hungarian football in the 1960s – a subject about which I used to know nothing and cared even less. But – it’s research for a radio show I’m writing! Spoiler: Hungary stood a good chance of winning the 1966 World Cup but were tragically knocked out in the closing rounds.
What’s the last great book you read?
WILD SEED by Octavia Butler. It’s a science fiction novel which reads like poetry – rich evocative landscapes, extraordinary visual moments, and a female protagonist who is immortal and can shapeshift into a leopard or a dolphin. Butler was one of the greats in the SFF field and died tragically young – and has now become the new ‘hot thing.
And I’m still stunned and humbled by THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead. It’s shockingly good and astonishing (considering the bleak material) enjoyable and life-affirming.
I’ve already exceeded my quota but what the heck, I’m going to add in a plug for ALL the Bernie Gunther novels by the late and brilliant Philip Kerr.
What’s your best advice for aspiring writers?
Get feedback; either in a writer’s group, or from informed friends, or even on an MA course – there are lots of them around, and indeed I run one. In a difficult media landscape they offer you an extraordinarily intense and collaborative experience, which will stand you in good stead when you encounter the largely lonely and self-motivated life that is being a writer.
Second bit of advice: always have a hyphen. Not just writer-director, or writer-producer, but writer-cinematographer, or writer-marketing executive. Or even writer-barista. The variety is soul-enriching and you can’t beat a good day job. A friend of mine, Nick Darke, had the best hyphen ever. He wrote plays for the RSC and National and the Bush but lived near a remote cove in Cornwall with his own nets to catch lobster and fish; making him as far as I know the world’s only writer-lobsterfisherman.
What’s the most interesting fact you’ve learnt recently?
That North America is not the same as the United States. In fact it consists of two sovereign nations – the United States of America whose president is now Biden, and the Navajo Nation, which spans chunks of the states now known as Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, is larger than ten of the US states including West Virginia and New Jersey, and is entirely self-governing, collects its own taxes, and (presumably) did not vote for Trump.
What’s your favourite song?
‘Autumn Leaves’ by Joseph Kosma, in the version with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, as sung by Frank Sinatra. It’s a haunting poem of love and loss.
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
Thank you so much, Philip! And thank you as always for reading and subscribing. Have a great weekend!