Writing to Champion Women and their Stories

Susan is a Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at St Andrews University, FRSA, and Senior Associate of Lucy Cavendish College. In this interview, she discusses her inspirations for writing and her newly published book.

When did you get into writing? 

I loved reading storybooks as a child and in my early teens started scribbling stories of my own. I don’t have any formal qualifications for writing, though I did study literature at university which taught me to look closely at how a text is made. I wrote a dissertation on Virginia Woolf whose diaries were a revelation. She describes the writing process with such honesty – her exasperation at her slowness, her fear of failure, her exhilaration when a problem is solved. She taught me never to wait for inspiration and that writing, like any skill, benefits from practice. 

What do you love writing about?   

I always find myself wondering what makes people act as they do. Fiction is a perfect medium for this because it allows you to explore a character’s inner world of thoughts. I am old enough to remember a time when women were discriminated against and under-represented – almost all the authors I read at school and university were male. I think this made me want to champion women and tell their stories. My novels so far have all had strong women characters at their core, usually inspired by real-life women.

What is your new book about?

My new novel is about the extraordinary Russian dancer, Lydia Lopokova, her love affair and marriage to the British economist John Maynard Keynes, and her explosive relationship with members of the Bloomsbury Group – especially its women Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. One of my inspirations for writing was to tell Lydia Lopokova’s incredible story and to unravel why she caused such controversy. Fiction seemed the ideal way to do this because it allows you to hypothesise and imagine in the gaps of what we actually know.

What is your affiliation with Lucy Cavendish College?

I am a member of Lucy’s senior combination room and have given guest lectures. I love the fact that Lucy is so friendly and inclusive. In her famous feminist essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’ Virginia Woolf describes a visit to Cambridge in which she is refused entry to various university and college buildings on the grounds that she is a woman and shouted at for walking on the grass. I like to think that if Lucy had existed in the 1920s, Virginia Woolf would have had a better experience.

Visit Susan’s website

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