Tony Hawks’ previous bestsellers have been very much based in reality, not least Round Ireland with a Fridge and Playing the Moldovans at Tennis.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this
00:06afternoon to speak to Tony Hawkes who is bringing his Persistent Wind to Petworth Literary Festival.
00:12Now, Persistent Wind, your debut fiction, your debut novel. How come fiction has grabbed you
00:18at long last then? Well, it's an interesting one. I suppose as people are always saying,
00:25you know, will you have a go at this? Will you have a go at that? And I've resisted it for a
00:28long period and been quite scared of doing it, to be honest. But then I had this story in my head
00:36buzzing around that I was going to write up into a screenplay. And a friend of mine said,
00:42don't write it as a screenplay, write it as a novel. If you write it as a novel,
00:45it'll have a better chance of actually becoming a film. So I did it for that reason. I did still
00:52have the outline of the screenplay. And then I started to write the fiction, thinking I might
00:58do a few weeks and give up. And it flowed and I really enjoyed it. In fact, I wrote it much,
01:05much more quickly. You were saying in some ways it was daunting, more freedom when you're writing
01:09fiction. Yes, I did. I found it scary having, when I'd written nonfiction, I'd come back from,
01:16usually from doing a trip or some sort of adventure. I'd have notebooks and photographs
01:21and I'd piece it all together. And I'd know what my overall aim was to tell this story.
01:28And I'd have to stick to those facts, either write them or drop them. I could drop a whole
01:33section. But with fiction, of course, you can go, well, maybe I'll have this happen. Maybe I'll
01:41have him win the pools. Maybe I'll have him blown up and maybe meet somebody else. And this person
01:47could be one legged. And so the freedom of everything, I did find a bit daunting. But
01:54because I knew what my story was, I'd kind of got this outline of a screenplay.
01:59I thought, well, I'll stick as close to that as I can. And I enjoyed, I enjoyed the process.
02:07And it sounds like fiction has grabbed you, but you want to go off in a different direction next.
02:12Well, yeah, it has grabbed me. But it's like, if the publisher says, do you want to do another one?
02:19And it's like, you know, Persistent Win 2. I'm not that interested in that. I mean,
02:24there is an idea I could pursue. But I have other ideas that are completely different.
02:32And I'm not sure how appealing that will be to publishers who have to have one eye on a
02:38commercial market. And so I'll see. I'm kind of on hold at the moment with what happens next.
02:45Absolutely. But if there is an award for the best title,
02:49you'd surely, surely win it, wouldn't you?
02:53We hope so. Maybe you could start that award.
02:57Absolutely. Yes, yes. With one category. Brilliant. We're really lovely to speak to you,
03:02Tony. And you're coming to the Petworth Literary Festival in October. Hope you have a great time.
03:08Good to speak to you.
03:10Very much indeed.