- By Catherine Kurtz, an MA Creative Writing & Publishing alumni

Can you tell us a bit about your book Feast? What inspired you to write it? 

Feast is the story of Minha, a girl with an extraordinary sense of taste, who is pitched into the French aristocracy at the very end of the 1800s.

My character Minha is mixed race, like me, and I wrote Feast to explore what it means to be an unconventional woman in a man’s world. And at a time when bigotry and misogyny feel ever-present, I wanted to tell some emotional truths about navigating life’s dangers, what might happen, and about thriving in all one’s unique complexity and difference.

We should not have cause to ask; what does the world do to our wonderful vibrant girls? What does it make of diversity and difference? But we do. So, we must. 

You were recently featured in the rights section of The Bookseller, tell us about this, how did you feel etc?

When the acquisition of my book by Dialogue Books—a division of Hachette—was announced in The Bookseller I felt overjoyed, and a bit overwhelmed too. Not all deals are announced publicly like that, and it was a wonderful vote of confidence in me by the publisher—for them to be proud to acquire the book in that way. Equally, as publication gets closer, more real, I am terrified as to whether readers will like it! Will I justify this faith in me? I am crossing everything!

What was the most rewarding part of the writing process? Were there any challenges you didn’t expect?

I am a person in love with the blank page. I am never happier than alone in my studio filling pages with words, or pictures. So it was all very rewarding. In terms of the journey to publication; it was very cool to have six agents at once requesting the full manuscript, calling meetings with me. A process which allowed me the luxury of choosing my agent—Abi Fellows is a superstar, a woman with experience, great emotional intelligence, and priorities absolutely aligned with mine. I am very happy and grateful to be represented by her now.

I have also had a fascinating and wonderful time editing the book with publisher (and my creative editor) at Dialogue, Christina Demosthenous. She is an astonishing woman, with tremendous insight and vision, who has helped me see the particularity of my writing, how to value it and make peace with it. Preparing the novel for publication with her has been a privilege and a joy. I have relished all of it.

How did you keep your motivation alive during the more challenging parts of the writing journey?

I’m a very full immersion person—once I’m in, I’m in. So I don’t really struggle with motivation. A creative life presents huge challenges, so I think you can only really keep going if you truly want and need to do the thing itself, make the art, write the story. If not, it is too dispiriting, given all the uncertainty the life involves.

Did you have a previous career? What made you realise you were passionate about writing and what made you decide to write a novel?

I have a continuing parallel career. I am an artist, a painter, as I have always had that need to express myself. But it took me far far longer to believe I had any right to use words, or any aptitude. I am represented by The Redfern Gallery in London, and in many ways pictures rather than words feel more accessible to me. Now I could not imagine being without either, they are both necessary to me.

Like most artists, even those well represented, I have also needed extra work to make ends meet. My other job is rather eccentric; I am a chocolate expert. I taste it, judge it, and teach others how to do so, and I write about it and lots of different food besides. Which came about because I discovered I have a good palate. As an artist I am generally awake to my senses, I notice things. And my sense of taste has also obviously hugely informed my upcoming novel. It is in the title; Feast.

I’m not sure I ever made a decision to write a novel. I just started writing more and more, stories were pressing at my temples and demanding that I pay attention and let them out. Once I realised that I was making things that might be real, that might become books, I set about doing it in a more focused fashion. But the writing itself is compulsion, rather than decision.

How important is setting or environment in your book? Did specific places or locations shape the story in significant ways?

The London of my story, and the château in France where much of it is set, are vitally important. Evocation of place allows the reader to walk those streets, stand in the corner of the rooms watching it all unfold. The château is inspired by a place I have explored at length in the Touraine, somewhere with a particularly fantastical stables, and a sense of the unreal about it. So I have fictionalised it, and made it a different kind of real, hopefully allowing a suspension of disbelief in the reader, so they can get lost in my Château de Bellefalaise.

I would also say that the food in the book is a big part of the setting, the world of the book. And that is hugely important. If you can’t taste it, then I haven’t done my job!

How did your time at West Dean College and the MA in Creative Writing and Publishing influence or shape your book?

West Dean is a place with stories around every corner, and packed with people who care about them, and to talk to about them. Being at West Dean is dwelling in a space that invites you to think, an idea-generation overload.

The idea for Feast in particular grew out of a conversation with Creative Writing subject leader Mark Radcliffe. We were discussing Patrick Suskind’s novel, Perfume, and magic realism in general. It made me go back to that novel and reread it, revisit the impression it made on me and the ideas it sparked when I was very young and first read it. Those ideas needed to be interrogated and revisited. And that became Feast.

I was fortunate to meet, in my year group of fellow writers, in the course tutors, and among visiting writers in residence, like-minded and inspiring fellow creatives. Many have become friends, and we continue to engage with each other’s work. West Dean isn’t a place you leave behind, I don’t think. It is a place whose influence stays with you.

How has your creative process evolved since studying at West Dean? Are there elements of the course that continue to shape your writing today?

Signing with my agent during my second year at West Dean, and my publisher the following year, means that I have been on a journey into all the parts of novel writing that come next. In many ways my process otherwise has been as it has always been. I follow my instincts, and I show up at the desk, or easel. The difference, since West Dean, is that I have a lot more perspective on what that process and practice is. I know who I am now, and can do it on purpose (to misquote Dolly Parton—thank you Dolly).

What advice would you give to aspiring writers or students who want to pursue their passion of writing? 

Read a lot, write a lot, read some more, write some more. Reading is vital food for thought, for fuelling the love of it. If you don’t love books and reading, then you need to ask yourself the question; ‘do I really want to write? Or do I just like the idea of being a writer?’ If you really want to write, then do. Write anything and everything that takes your fancy, anything that comes to you.

Try to shut your inner critic in some distant room where you can’t hear him, even if he screams. And then get down to it. Don’t worry about what it is, just do it. What it is, the shaping, the categorising, are of secondary importance to your drive, your desire. They come later.

If you are worried about rejection—and it is horrible, and an inevitable part of the journey—then just refuse to let it derail you. When you get a knock, or something doesn’t go your way, you might want to quit. But the only certainty is that if you quit then you won’t get there, you won’t make the thing you long to make. And if you continue… there are always beautiful ideas waiting for you. Seeds that will plant themselves into the fertile soil of your imagination, and some of them will grow. And you will have given them the chance to become tremendous awe-inspiring oak trees that will keep you shaded on the fiercest of days. So keep going, that is all there is to do.