Jeanette Winterson will be the second author to join us for a live webchat from A Room for London. For four days each month an author, invited by Artangel, takes up residency in the boat which teeters on the edge of the Southbank Centre, London, enjoys the peace and quiet, writes a specially commissioned piece and on this occasion, puts aside an hour to answer your questions.
Jeanette needs no introduction, she is published and loved the world over. This is your chance to ask her all those questions you might have about Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Sexing the Cherry, The Passion, Art Objects, her latest book Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal or any one of her novels children's or plays. In her blog, Jeanette writes:
'I am glad I am going to be locked away for a week. I am more tired than I can say – and not far off doing a huge USA tour – so I have to be all right for that. I don't know why I am so tired – I am even taking extra vitamins and doing all the neurotic Virgo health things that Virgos do.'
So you may also want to ask her about her upcoming US tour and if the boat is having the restorative effect she was craving.
Jeanette will be here answering your questions between 1pm - 2pm (GMT) Friday 24 February. Leave your questions in the thread below and then come back on Friday lunchtime to join the conversation.
We have posted the conversation here to make it easier to follow.
Tuss asks:
How do you like the boat Janet? What's your favourite bit of the boat? What's it like living in the boat? What have they given you to read in the boat? How much time do you spend looking out of the window? Is it dark enough to sleep in there? What keeps you awake in there? Have you entertained visitors? etc!
Jeanette Winterson replies:
The boat is splendid and solitary and very noisy! It is perched right over Waterloo Bridge. There are plenty of books and I pretty much stay up all night reading and working. I am allowed out for food - and i have discovered a Fitness First gym on Hungerford Bridge so I bend the rules a bit and go there in the mornings followed by porridge and fruit and coffee and then back to the strange feeling of preparing for a voyage
staypositive asks:
Hi Jeanette,
I met you briefly back in 2000, at a meet'n'greet meal your publishers held for booksellers to promote 'The Powerbook'... I've never met anyone before or since so openly in thrall to romance. Are you still as besotted by Love?
Jeanette replies:
Love? I wrote a piece for The Guardian on Valentine's Day called OCCUPY LOVE. Not schmaltzy hollywood love but difficult demanding love - nothing worthwhile is ever less than difficult and demanding. The older i get the more love matters - friends, my girlfriend of course, but a more diffuse love too, for the stranger we meet and for the stranger in ourselves
just4dust asks:
Sexing The Cherry had me agog, a gorgeous book I enjoy rereading. Was also recently very touched by Weight, funny too. What novels are you reading at the moment Jeanette?
Jeanette replies:
no novels at all! I am reading John Burnside Black Cat Bone and Carol Ann Duffy The Bees. And Paul Mason Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere (about OCCUPY and the new global fightback). Last night tho I re-read Iain Sinclair and Angela Carter all at once
peenum asks:
Do you believe in the gay gene?
Jeanette replies:
I don't believe in the gay gene. Genetics is so fashionable right now - it's like Calvinism for atheists. He was the one who believed in pre-destination - so it didn't matter what you did - you were either saved or damned anyway. All you could do was work hard and be as miserable as possible. I don't care why people are gay - I just want gay people to be live proud and productive lives and not have to think about bloody gayness all the time. And I hope one day we will live in a world where we can love across the spectrum - women or men, as seems right to us at the time. Love is a democracy.
AlainAfflelou asks:
What with the oranges and the cherries, are you often engaged by persons wishing to discuss other fruits?
Jeanette replies:
I have given up the fruit stuff. I am into Veg now
LouiseHolman asks:
've just finished the power book. I'm left with some fundamental questions....
Is LONGING for someone a natural and even healthy part of being human?
Or is it a strong indication of a maladjusted childhood?
Can fantasy ever be truly realized without becoming mundane?
Thanks,
Louise
Jeanette replies:
longing? It depends on your nature. I have a passionate and restless nature, and I had an odd childhood. The point of life is not what's wrong with you but what you do with it
zolie568 asks:
Are you religious?
Why did you write oranges are not the only fruit?
Jeanette replies:
I think you will have to catch up a bit! x
LindseyP asks:
What books do you most enjoy reading? What is your favourite book of all-time? And which books, if any, do you feel have inspired your own writing?
Jeanette replies:
I read all the time - there are plenty of readers who are not writers but no writers who are not readers. I like to have poetry and non-fiction going at the same time and I read novels in groups. I just had a Dickens and Angela Carter festival all by myself. Good writers always inspire me. I don't have to like what someone writes - but if it is good, I can use it. Without books I am nothing
imidurski asks:
Your writing is wonderful and I've enjoyed it for 20 years plus. What inspired you to start writing children's literature?
Jeanette replies:
My Godchildren. I love them and I was no good at knitting. So i wrote them stories instead.
Janey40 asks:
Hi Janette, do you remember giving a reading from The Passion many years ago in Hertford Library?
Jeanette replies:
No - but you do - which is a worry. I hope I didn't arrive dead drunk or insult the librarian.
JamOnBread asks:
A couple years ago I purchased The World and Other Places from a used bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It proved to be just the right book for me to read at that time and only later did I discover the copy also had your signature inside it.
I wrote to you at the time, and you included in your response the lovely statement, "books occupy a place that the clock doesn't own, so we find them them we need them." I know I have found this to be true in my life on a number of occasions and have been curious to know when this has also been true for you. What books have you found (or what books have found you?) when you needed them?
Safe travels to the U.S., Jeanette! I hope to see you in Chicago.
Jeanette replies:
I once found a copy of Edouard de Pomiane's Cooking in 10 Minutes when I had no money and no oven. I found Susie Orbach's Fat is a Feminist Issue when I was 19. 30 years later I found Susie Orbach. So you never know where a book will take you
mabeline22 asks:
After reading the wonderful Why be Happy . . . your writing makes so much sense in terms of capturing the story telling and the drama of the Bible and all things Godly and the emotional explosions you experienced.
Can I ask if your relationship with Suzy particularly her focus on counselling and the indivicual influence your current writing?
Another quick question - are members of your biological family interested in your writing and do you talk with them about it?
Good luck with your tour - I also tour - in a much less glamourous way - and find fresh fruit, good books and a cozy dressing gown essential for hotel life.
Jeanette replies:
The thing about writing - like all the rest of life unless you are a psychopath - is that it is a highly porous activity. The solitary genius/ivory tower/muse/inspiration stuff has just enough in it to make us ask questions about creativity - and answer them differently. The writer is in the centre of life, not aloof from it, and everything that happens to that writer affects the work - and then the work affects some of the things that happen.
The family? Yes they read my book.
Susie? I am too close to answer - but Why Be Happy owes her a lot.
coracles asks:
Have you come across Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept? If so, what do you think of it? If not, it is a lovely bejewelled thing...
Jeanette replies:
it is a perfect book
mabeline22 asks:
Dear Jeanette
How relevant do you think feminism is to women's lives today, particularly young women?
Jeanette replies:
Without feminism we are fucked. Did you see the pious piece in the FT yesterday about getting women onto boards? All that crap about career and expertise? Woman haven't yet had the vote for 100 years. There is so much to do. I LOVED Caitlin Moran How To Be A Woman. Meanwhile Susie Orbach is off to the UN next week battling for women and body image. Self-hatred - our most profitable fashion and beauty label.
kmasuga says:
"Poems are not written by influences or movements or sources, but come from the living hearts of men." [and women]
~ Herbert J.C. Grierson, 1921 (Introduction to Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of the 17th C.)
Jeanette replies:
They do - and men and women live in the world - not dangled above it
Suejamble asks:
I absolutely loved Weight & wondered how you came up with the brilliant ending with Atlas & Laika.
Jeanette replies:
Aw shucks thanks. i have been worrying about Laika and the Sputnik since I was 6 years old. I had to rescue the dog. Who says literature is not an intervention?
footlight asks:
I loved reading 'why be happy when you could be normal' and my therapy group are now reading it because it has such a lot to say about the response to personal crisis and personal growth
I was intrigued by some of the bits of 'madness' as you describe it, that you left out of the book
Am I right in thinking that you are now doing more autobiography, and will you be including more of that?
Jeanette replies:
I don't call Why Be Happy a memoir and certainly not an autobiog - I missed out 25years in the middle! I think of it as an experiment with experience. life is always a cover story - and a cover version - the facts are the facts but how we interpret them changes everything. I am sitting above the Thames and the tide returns ome things and takes so much away. I am doing what I can with what I have
Thybria asks:
I remember reading a book about the 12 dancing princesses. I am desperate to read this to my daughter - but cannot remember the volume - be so kind to remind me! She has read tanglewreck and loves your style but I struggle to get her to read since she finds children's literature dull in general!
Jeanette replies:
Sexing the Cherry. You can read her The battle of the sun!
Jeanette asks:
Hey Hannah - shall i carry on or can I run over to Fitness First on Hungerford Bridge?
Hannah replies:
Run to Fitness First! Thank you so much for a wonderful hour. Enjoy the rest of your time on the boat
jellen asks:
Regarding Why Be Happy - a fabulous story beautifully told - but is it all true? I wouldn't mind if it wasn't.
Also, have you considered writing about a love triangle that didn't include a married woman? You're giving us a bad reputation.
Jeanette replies:
The facts are true - yes indeed. I think I have given up married women so I will have given up the love triangle. but don't blame me - blame Madam Bovery
JoMarie157 asks:
The Southbank Centre is lovely isn't it! I'm trying to get into writing, what's the best piece of advice you can give on how to get your work seen?
Jeanette replies:
You can Blog it. BUT you don't have to get into writing - it's not like a pair of jeans or a room behind a locked door. The only way to write is to write - the rest may or not follow. Good luck
nicbouskill says:
That does it. I've been avoiding gym membership for 25 years... but I can put it off no longer!
Jeanette replies:
Do it now - it is Lent. Give up your couch potato ways and join the gym. I am really looking forward to watching afternoon TV with no headphones on the Cross Trainer. Then i am coming back to read HEART OF DARKNESS before I leave tomorrow.
batfunck asks:
How is your Hammer book coming along?
Jeanette replies:
It is called The Daylight Gate. I am just revising it now - well not now - next week. But the Woman in Black - that is SUCH a good horror book. I really admire what she did there.
Jeanette:
Right that's it then - Off i go - thanks for having me! Love JW x
