THE ART OF SURVIVING
Danielle McLaughlin speaks candidly about her leanings towards anxiety and how immersing herself in reading and writing is a positive way to deal with it. “As someone prone to get lost in the darker currents of my own head I’ve found it healthier to get lost in a book,” she tells Martina Devlin in the latest City of Books podcast.
Danielle switched from law – where she had her own successful legal practice – to fiction after falling ill. In 2009 she had a rare reaction to medication prescribed by her doctor. As she recovered, she started writing. It led to the acclaimed short story collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets, and now her debut novel The Art of Falling, published by John Murray. It deals with art and infidelity.
“I quickly became quite obsessed with the writing of fiction,” says Danielle, acknowledging an obsessive streak which had previously focused on the law – drilling down for the telling details which shine a light on legal disputes. “It is not always a good thing. It hasn’t always served me well, that compulsive, obsessive part of my psychology,” she says.
“But that’s the great thing about fiction. There is a real focus needed, an obsessive quality needed, for a writer to stay deeply with a story for the length of time to get it written. “So fiction is a good way to channel that obsessive part of my personality.”
For more on The Art of Falling https://www.johnmurraypress.co.uk
Listen to Danielle’s interview here: CITY OF BOOKS