Interview with Lucie Mcknight Hardy

Which author would you love to meet and what would you want to ask them?

I’m lucky enough to have met my two writing heroes – Andrew Michael Hurley and Alison Moore, who are both incredibly lovely, as you would imagine. If I could meet anyone, it would probably be Mo Hayder, who very sadly died in 2021 suffering from motor neurone disease. Her fiction inhabits darker places than most authors would dare to go, but despite this, I think she would be a lot of fun, and I would love to take her for a pint and pick her brains about her novels, and how she created such a brilliant blend of crime and supernatural fiction.

Is there a foodie scene in a book that inspires you? Or makes you hungry?

Early on in Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory, Frank and his father have a meal of soup together. I have no idea why this scene, involving pretty much the most mundane of foodstuffs, has stuck in my mind so well, but I think it just works perfectly to demonstrate the characters’ relationship. Reading this scene, it occurred to me that a meal is a gift for a writer – there are so many opportunities to demonstrate your characters’ personality traits through their approach to eating: food choices, manners and mannerisms, and of course, the conversation that happens over a meal. I enjoy writing about food – in another life I would probably be a restaurant reviewer – and my next novel has quite a few scenes which involve the characters dining together.

What is essential for you to sit and write? Which conditions are necessary?

Silence. I can’t listen to music while I’m writing, so tend to shut myself away to write. Likewise, I’m not one for writing in cafes – I just find it too distracting. Other than that, I’m pretty flexible. I like to have a vat of strong, black coffee, and to know that there are snacks in the house – I won’t necessarily eat them, but I find it distracting if there aren’t any. I also have a penchant for a fine biro for making notes – ideally a Livework pen with black ink.