Kathryn’s first collection, Sunday at the Skin Launderette won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2008. Her short stories have been published in magazines and broadcast on Radio 4. Her first novel, Love and Fallout was published by Seren Books in 2014. We chat with Kathryn about her book, her planning process and Oscar Wilde. 

Can you tell us about your novel, Love and Fallout and how the idea originated?

The idea for the novel evolved from a short story I was writing about a charity worker who gets a sudden and unwelcome TV makeover. To help fill in my character’s history, I did some research into the Greenham Common peace camp where she’d protested as a teenager, and the more I read the more fascinated I became.

As I looked at film footage of the 1980s demonstrations, particularly ‘Embrace the Base’, when thirty-thousand women joined hands around the military airbase, I wondered where those women were now and what they might be doing. My original story grew: my character had a secret from her past, an old friend of hers turned up, and gradually a novel began to take shape.

What’s your planning process like when writing a novel?

This is my first novel so I don’t have a tried and tested method. Love and Fallout became difficult to control as the story expanded, and mid-way through I had to stop and properly consider the plot. Writing into the unknown is exciting, but I learned that it’s also necessary to have a loose idea of what’s ahead or you’ll write yourself into a corner.

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