Toby Litt

Toby Litt is the acclaimed author of the novels Corpsing, Exhibitionism, and the soon to be released King Death. In 2003 he was nominated by Granta magazine as one of the 20 “Best of Young British Novelists.” Litt has recently written an interactive short story as part of the Penguin We Tell Stories project and is currently a lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. His Joyland contribution, the mercilessly observed "Alice and Alex," can be read here.

JL: You teach creative writing. What’s the most important idea you try to get through to your students?

Litt: If I had one simple message it would be “There are no short cuts.” This is something I’ve had to learn and re-learn myself so many times that it’s almost a daily ritual of realization.

JL: What have you learned about writing from teaching?

Litt: I think it has brought home to me how important sensibility is. I know it’s an old-fashioned word. But what it means is an individual approach to every problem that presents itself, in writing. And, in the greatest cases, a wholly individual set of problems.

As a teacher, you can guide people towards realizing they have a sensibility – through pointing out (for example) that someone has a gift for comedy, through recommending books that might be a positive influence.

But if there isn’t an original sensibility there, most of your work will be on technical improvements. Technical improvements that a really original sensibility would question and probably junk.

JL: Your book titles are alphabetized. You embrace ideas of genre. This suggests there’s a bit of a gestalt going on, that you’re writing your own library. As for the individual books, how much does conceptualization play into the writing?

Litt: Clearly, I’m going to have my own concept of what kind of conceptualization you mean.

I’m taking it to suggest that the overall form of the Alphabet is likely to influence individual books. And this certainly has been the case with some. Hospital grew out of the letter H. The signifier came before the signified.

But each book also has a concept, which is related to its genre or genres.

JL: Your “K” book is due out soon. What can you tell us about “L”?

Litt: L is Life-Like. It’s something in between a book of short stories and a novel. It picks up with Agatha and Paddy, who I wrote about in Ghost Story.

JL: What’s the most disastrous advice you’ve ever been given about writing?

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

No, fuck off, stupid.

JL: What’s your cheapest writing trick?

Litt: Getting laughs out of showing really bad parenting.

(Interview by Brian Joseph Davis)