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interviews with oh comely writers: jane flett

words anna godfrey

23rd September 2013

We often wonder what Oh Comely writers are up to away from their writing for the magazine. So we got in touch and asked.

Jane Flett is first in our new series of writer interviews. She wrote In Praise of Solitude: Waking up Alone, published in issue 10. The piece explored Jane’s love of languid mornings and the 'peculiar, elbowy, dream logic' that often accompanies the silence of solitude.

What is your job at the moment? Writer.

Where are you most likely to be found at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon? Roller skating down the runway of Tempelhof, an abandoned airport in the centre of Berlin.

What’s been the smallest significant change in your life since writing for Oh Comely? I installed a hammock on my balcony. It has revolutionised everything!

What’s best to drink whilst writing? Champagne. Or, rather, cheap supermarket German Sekt.

Two pieces of advice for the 'you' of ten years ago, one personal, one professional. Personal: Don’t buy the Mitsubishi van and set off into the Australian outback with  no knowledge of engines and that cute boy from Leeds who doesn’t know how to drive. Yes, I know it’s cheap. No, that doesn’t mean you’re getting a good deal.  

Professional: When they offer you a church building in the centre of Edinburgh to do whatever you like with and you end up working 14-hour days, every day of the week, cursing your life - just enjoy it. You’re going to look back on these times as awesome.

Will you still be writing in five years, if so what would you like to be writing? Of course! I will probably be simultaneously working on too many projects: an epic long form poem setting characters from Norse mythology into 1970s Lower East Side New York, a choose-your-own-adventure noir thriller novel in the style of Raymond Chandler and Edward Packard, a second collection of short stories to be published by Penguin with a stylish orange cover, a series of cross-country collaborations with friends who make electronic beep beep noises, and a secret blog documenting every last love affair.

If you could have written one book that’s already published, what would it be? Mary Gaitskill’s Bad Behaviour.

Our current issue is themed around outer space. What would be the pièce de résistance of your fantasy spaceship? The zero-gravity make-out chamber.

Curious about Jane work? Here’s some of her Oh Comely writing: Follow your feet and Waking up alone. Visit janeflett.com for more.