As it was, I got to go along to listen as Philip Pullman talked with John McLay, about story-telling, and writing - Pullman said that he thought about telling stories, not about being a writer or a story teller - he started telling stories to others, including his younger brother, when he was very young, sometimes retelling things he had read or heard, other times making stuff up, and that at some point he then realised that people who write books get paid to do so...
He talked about the idea of a story as a path through the woods, which is one used on several of his essays; the path may interact with many other paths, other stories and other versions of the same story. He gave the example of his story I was a rat! which is a path which touches the 'path' of cinderella . . but went on to say that you can't give people a required reading list before they read your work, so you can't be sure whether or not people will recognise the 'paths' which cross with yours.
He also lauded the benefits of habit for a writer. His ow practice is to write 2 pages a day - if your sentance ends on the top of page three you've 'won' for the day, and if you make it a habit it gets harder *not* to write. His comment was that more books are written out of habit than talent, and that if you work, ad work, and try, and fail, and try and work more, you get somewhere, and then the reward is to be described as a 'born story teller'!
He spoke, a little later, about how writing is a dictatorship, but reading is a democracy - each reader has their own talents, understanding and expectations, and that the writer's view about what it means is no more or less valid than that of any reader.
He talked about research, and how the knowledge and familiarity with the writing of others feeds into his own, commenting on how surprised he always is when teaching writing courses, and finding how little (some) of the students read, and how many don't have much familiarity with (for instance) poetry.He spoke about how important this had been to him, and what a deep impression poems heard and learned early in life had on him, and that he felt that one has to know in order to create - he was passionate about the benefits of knowing stories, or poems well, and being able to tell, rather than simply to read, them, to children.
The question of religion came up. Pullman described himself as a 'Cultural Christian', having been brought up with regular churchgoing (his maternal grandfather was an Anglican priest). He spoke about how religion is about asking big, important questions, about where we come from, whether there is anything after death and so forth, and that those questions are an important part of being human.
He was also very clear that he doesn't dislike or disapprove of or disparage people who are religious: But what he is wary of is religious bodies or organisations gaining political power - it always ends badly, whether it results in the Spanish Inquisition, Blasphemy trials and witch hunts, or whether it results in the Taliban (Or the current situation in Rohingya)
In the Q and A section of the event he was asked about the proposed cuts to libraries in Bath, and gave a passionate response, saying that it is a National disgrace that libraries are being defunded. "Libraries are such a gift from a nation to its citizens, and politicians who allow it to be taken away should be pilloried..A nation which provides free books is one not afraid of its citizens".
It was a very interesting event, and at the end, I did wait and got my copy of 'L Belle Sauvage' signed.
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