Conversations with Writers - Deborah Levy & Josh Cohen

‘If writers really talked truthfully about their process—questions like where do you get your ideas from— you would just get such bizarre answers.’

Our fourth instalment of the Conversations with Writers series occurred last Wednesday. The writer was Deborah Levy who spoke with Josh Cohen about the whole breadth of her work. Having reread her novels in preparation, Josh brought some wonderful questions and interpretations which helped to shape the course of the talk. Levy’s early writing was for the theatre, writing a number of plays in the early 80s, some for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her first novel, Beautiful Mutants was published in 1987 and her second, Swallowing Geography, in 1992. In the early 2010s, Levy published a number of short story collections and novels which gained critical praise and established her as a prominent figure in contemporary British fiction, with both Swimming Home (2011) and Hot Milk (2016) being shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. Her most recent novel  August Blue, was published in 2023. 

Josh began the discussion by asking Deborah if she was in fact writing one long novel. Recognising similarities and threads which run throughout her different novels and short stories. To which Deborah replied that although she was not in fact writing one long novel, she was always pursuing similar ideas, and imbuing each of her works with the same consciousness. Deborah admitted that she often spends months on the first page of her novels. Stating that: 

‘The first page of every novel…that takes me forever. I can spend three months on a first page, because if the voice is wrong, if the mood isn’t right, if the sentences don’t pack in enough…[only] once I’ve got it, I can proceed’ 

The voice of the novel must be right from the outset. However, finding that voice, and trusting it also throws up its own problems. The voice of the text comes from Levy’s first thoughts, the initial feelings, ideas and impulses at the start of the writing process. Yet there is still a strong urge to want to edit and immediately change things if they don’t feel right. An approach which Levy puts down to her early experience working in theatre and hearing one of her lines, ‘die in [an actor’s] mouth’, making her immediately re-write it on the spot. So she had to cut out this urge to edit. Not that her first thoughts aren’t edited and redrafted, but they usually guide the book from the first few sentences. 

From Swimming Home onwards,  her writing process has been a battle between trusting first thoughts and wanting to edit them. Thankfully, trust has been victorious over the doubtful edit, and the spoils are a tightly structured, intricate work. Perhaps this battle behind the scenes produces the doubles which she describes as running through all her works: enigma and coherence, vulnerability and great power. 

‘I kind of want the unconscious of the novel to leap through the pages’

This talk was somewhat different from previous ones in that the discussion was deeply focused on the precise craft of story-writing, and the distinct problems it throws up. Levy says that one of the things that really interests her at the moment is ‘this idea that there are no such thing as minor characters…There are no minor characters in this room, and so what do you do with that, in fiction?’. It is an idea which is so simple and true, yet so problematic and irksome a thought when writing a realist novel or memoir. As we need minor characters and extras for a reality effect, yet in reality, no person is minor. Indeed, this thought gnawed away so much that Levy felt one such minor character in Swimming Home asking for more lines, and that she had to stop him from becoming major. 

The realist novel is a tricky prickly thing. Near the close of the conversation, Levy gave a wonderfully incisive description of her approach:  ‘I’m taking apart the realist novel and putting it back together again, and inserting into it something spectral, uncanny, something I believe to be psychologically true. So I understand that the work has a strange shimmer.’.

For our next event we are excited to welcome our first poet in the series, Hannah Sullivan, whose poetry collection Three Poems (Faber 2018), won the T.S. Eliot poetry prize. The talk will be on the 23rd October, at the usual time of seven. 

Words by Charlie Jameson

Conversations with Writers - Zadie Smith and Devorah Baum

On a balmy evening last Wednesday, Mews Coach works hosted the first event in its Conversations with Writers series. With all the usual tables and ceramics equipment out of the way, the studio hosted around 40 people. Although many of the speakers may have a recent or upcoming publication, the series aims to foster an environment free from the logic of promotion, where writers can talk more broadly and openly about parts of their corpus, the themes and tensions which interest them and the whole arc of the writing process. 

The first guest in the series was locally sourced, the Laureate of Kilburn herself, Zadie Smith. Zadie shot to attention in the literary world around the turn of the millennia for her debut novel White Teeth (2000), for which she won multiple honours. Since then, Zadie has continued to publish novels, short stories, a play, children’s books, and numerous works of essays and non-fiction. 

In discussing her non-fiction, Zadie argued for the importance of speaking in your own, true voice, about what you really feel to be true. If this was said by a lesser writer it would seem like a banal truism, but from someone as aware and sensitive as Zadie, who has been in the public- eye since her mid-twenties, one cannot help but see the importance and necessity of her advice. 

Central to this argument for writing in your true voice, was removing yourself from discourse.   That is, from the hubbub of opinions, debates, often vitriol, which increasingly surrounds us, and which can dictate what ideas and feelings are correct and which are heretical. To Zadie, removing herself from discourse does not mean a hermetic retreat from the world, but rather it begins with silent listening, taking in others opinions, feeling which way the wind blows, without being swept along with it. After this mute removal,  Zadie can ruminate and contemplate on what she truly feels, and then the writing just begins to flow (though after a good healthy bit of procrastination). 

“As much as discourse is fun and entertaining and I like to argue about it, I would really like to know what I feel to be the truth.” 

Josh Cohen delivering a joyous introduction

Zadie argues that freeing your writing from discourse is about not using the language of discourse, or the words of others. For, despite describing herself as ‘a political idiot’, she states that politics is done in language, a point which she makes clear in her recent piece for the New York Times. 

 “The language makes the argument, if you use the language of other people, social media etc. you’ve clearly lost the argument. Once you say ‘Cultural Appropriation’ its game over.”

But of course, as a writer, things are never so clear cut, and Zadie was keenly aware of the challenges and problems which can befall anyone attempting to undertake such an exercise. For although she argued for the importance of writing sincerely and about your own beliefs, you can’t make yourself the centre of your writing. 

“The argument cannot be, “I’m a really good person, so this essay is amazing”, (said in a mocking American accent). You’ve got to take the rhetorical self out of it.”

Smith said that she is trying to get away from, and unpick  the idea that non-fiction and the essay are fundamentally about you, what it says about you and your person. For it hinders non-fiction to think its just an expression of your identity. In keeping with one of her heroes, James Baldwin, she knows that this standpoint is unfashionable and runs counter to the beliefs and ideas about writing held by many.  

A little feature in the Evening Standard!

These two pieces of advice can seem somewhat contradictory and restrictive. If your writing can’t come from discourse, or from a place of self-expression, then where can it? But what Zadie is aiming for is free, sincere expression, where your words don’t come from others, or aren’t making some performance for your public identity.  On that latter point, Zadie gave the amusing but wise advise that it helps to be loved outside of your writing so that you don’t try to be loved from it. 

In some ways, Smith’s argument comes back to the origins of the essay itself. Deriving from the French infinitive essayer, “to try” or “to attempt”, the term was first used by Michel De Montaigne (1533-1592) who characterised his works as attempts to put his thoughts to writing. The art of good essay writing is about how you say what you think, not necessarily what you think. As Smith said: “Essays are easy, everyone has opinions”.

The event was an excellent start to the Conversations with Writers series. With all the digressions, contradictions, anecdotes and unfiltered expressions, the flow of the conversation felt refreshingly casual. Deborah Baum skilfully responded to Zadie in a way which allowed the discussion to progress and expand organically, without bluntly changing tack. After questions, the space was swiftly re-organised and drinks and pizzas were served, allowing audience members to mingle and converse (or network, if so inclined). Perhaps on account of the arrival of good weather, it was relaxed, light hearted and enlightening evening. It provided a fitting template for future talks in the series and fulfilled many of the aims we had in creating this series. For news of upcoming events in the series look out for any emails, or check back on this website for updates. 

Words by Charlie Jameson

A Room of One's Own - By Nicole Douglas- Morris for Inigo.com →

“I wanted to build an interdisciplinary community of artists, so that people could nourish each other by the noises of their industry – perhaps causing some kind of cross-pollination,” says Abigail Schama, a ceramicist based in Kensal Rise. Originally trained as a painter, Abigail found ceramics after becoming a mother of three sons, and now her pieces are stocked by Imprint and Maud & Mabel, among others. Her vessels are refined, distinct; their surfaces “wear the experience” of her painting and are re-fired in the kiln until they reach her vision.

When we meet her at the Mews Coachworks, the studio she co-founded in 2018 with Sarah Jameson, she is – unusually – alone. Two writers, a creative seamstress and six other ceramicists work here, along with a coterie of night students. How did they find such a space? Miraculously, Abigail spotted the studio on Gumtree and “sat outside until someone appeared”. Enamoured by the building’s “light, sense of history and patina”, she was chosen by the owner, a metal sculptor, to take it on after he saw her process of making.

The style and mood of the space can be captured in one word: repurposed. Abigail and Sarah spent barely any money on decoration, so pieces that have gathered here have done so over time. A wooden cocktail cabinet now housing Abigail’s pots was found on the street, bookshelves were cut from old scaffolding and ladders were left by Antanas, the previous owner. Traces from his time here can be found everywhere: phone numbers written in marker on the wall, used post-its, his son’s name carved into one of the wooden beams.

The kitchen is a vintage find from Ardingly antiques fair, with a copper ship’s basin that “barely fit through the doorway”, while the old front door has been removed and turned into a coat rack. Like Abigail’s work, which is always in evolution, the studio transforms, gathering detritus from events held here. Fairy lights still hang from a Christmas dinner, blossoms remain from Abigail’s birthday party, and one of her pots is suspended above our heads from her show for London Craft Week last year.

There is a subtle interplay between the space and Abigail’s vessels. One of the first pieces she created here was a plate she made by pressing a porcelain slab into the floorboards, taking its impression along with flecks of metal from the previous occupant’s work. She shows me the plate, rubbing the iron grains embedded into the clay, submerged beneath the milky glaze.

The studio’s “natural palette”, too, is that of her ceramics: “flaking white brickwork, an earthy brown ladder and an occasional fleck of something bright, like a book spine or flower”. Glass skylights give the space a “romantic, biblical light”, as bold shafts come through and illuminate Abigail’s vessels. She often uses recycled clay – that is, leftovers from other pieces or whatever ends up in the trap below the sink. The resulting clay composition is unrepeatable, somewhat like this studio’s interiors, where nearly every item has a history.

How does the studio influence and facilitate her practice? “The space gives me freedom physically. My only restriction is the kiln size.” The room also establishes a “separate sphere to the domestic space”, which is “not the place for a let-go”, as she calls it. Abigail works experimentally, using materials such as seaweed, oyster shells or wood ash in her glazing. This eclecticism is reflected in her surroundings, which hold a number of sentimental objects: an unusually shaped stone Abigail found when mudlarking under London Bridge, for instance. “My foreshore finds have been an influence in shape and form,” she adds.

Practical items, such as a captain’s chair, the spotlight lamps that perch on the wheels and a rattan stool, have been sourced from Stirling & Sons. There are Japanese straw brushes on the wall from nearby Retrouvius, and a great sum of books to peruse from Abigail’s painting years, bought from charity shops and the bookshop her son Ethan worked at. A writer’s desk on the mezzanine was made from another huge repurposed door; “this is where the clean people live”, Abigail says with a smile as we stand up there. We ask about some ochre metal shelves holding pots against the brick wall. “Oh those! Chloe was chucking them out downstairs.” The result of this spontaneous approach to interiors is surprisingly cohesive – it may be diverse but it is also finely considered.

There is a rare vitality here, expressed through Abigail’s elegant but joyous pieces, as well as through the space itself. The studio’s position by a railroad means the light is unobstructed, so “anything that grows outside the studio door is giant, triffid-like”. It seems that people, objects and plants thrive here. As we chat, we listen to the patter of her rescue dog, Bonjella, her son’s radio show, which is playing saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders’ and the rumble of passing trains. “I draw tremendous energy from the trains going by. It’s like a hum or heartbeat that informs my work,” she says.

We ask about the terracotta necklace strung around her neck, glinting from behind her navy boilersuit. “When I went to Scotland with my husband, I brought some clay back in a Tupperware and made these tiny beads. I don’t usually like doing fiddly things, but after a while I always miss the touch of clay.”




Photography by Lesley Lau





Raku Firing Day at The Clay Studio

One recent Sunday, we Mews Coachworkers had the pleasure of zooming down the motorway to the Clay Studio in East Sussex. A long awaited Raku firing awaited, shrouded in mystery for most of us who had never done one. We arrived with a couple of bisqued pieces each and fell into Eunice and Helen's experienced hands for the day.

Raku firing is a wild sort of alchemy, originating in Japan in the 16th century. Pieces are removed from the Raku kiln while red hot and then traditionally allowed to cool in the open air, though 20th century studio potters developed a Western version where works are placed into a container of combustible materials to provide a reduction firing environment. Pieces are then plunged into cold water, abruptly halting the firing process. Results are spontaneous, unknown, mad.

On this day, we glazed our work in special Raku glazes and Eunice and Helen loaded the kilns, grouping pieces by colour. We watched as the kilns rapidly fired up and were soon cracked open to reveal our bright orange forms, almost translucent with heat. Medieval-looking tongs took hold of them one by one and plunged them each into a metal bin full of sawdust. It was sweaty work in the May sun for Eunice and Helen, who have been Raku firing together for many years. They work in a flowing synchronicity despite the heat, the eager audience and the various temperatures to control. We wondered and waited and lusted after our pieces, hoping for some brilliance.

The resulting works were iridescent and unexpected, shimmering through the water as we rinsed the clumps of sawdust off in buckets of water. We cooed and compared between ourselves, turning the forms this way and that to reveal new lines snaking their way across the surface, or coppery tints, or how the pearly glaze glinted in the light.

We returned to London clutching our favourite pieces, or at least I did, fitting my thumb into a shiny hollow in a curvy little dish I had made.

By Nicole Douglas -Morris

Expanding our Coachworks Community in Covid - April 2020

As the reality of lockdown hit in March 2020 , we all missed our studio community, and wanted to keep ourselves inspired and together. Initially, one of our writers offered creative writing classes via zoom. Thee idea blossomed to include a pool of over 60 people attending our virtual workshops. Covering drawing, culinary skills, skincare and of course ceramics. We were fortunately had a wonderfully talented satellite community around us, who volunteered to take workshops. Itamar from Honey & Co showed us how to to debone a chicken and in return enjoyed our daily creative writing classes with Margie Orford. We explored the culinary flavour of Babylon with Linda Dangoor, made strawberry jam with Alvaro Picardo, and watched Yael Simon bake her Babka. We drew ourselves with Amy Gadney and carved Kurinuki with Abigail Schama. From LA to New York, from Portugal to Putney a diverse gang gathered on screen to create a fabulous feeling of community.

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Free writing with Margie Orford

Morning Pages Creative writing workshop

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Kurunuki with Abigail Schama

Ceramics class

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Making Babka with Yael Simon

Culinary workshop

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Flavours of Babylon Linda Dangoor

Culinary workshop

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Drawing yourself with Amy Gadney

Self Portrait workshop