Creative Hour this Sunday

Plus, adventures at book festivals and new interviews with writers.

I hope you’ve had an excellent week. Last night I went to the Guildford Book Festival to interview Patrick Grant, who I first crossed paths with when we were both working in the fashion industry. He is now best known as a judge on BBC One’s Great British Sewing Bee and for founding Community Clothing (which is a clothing rather than a fashion brand, in the sense that it’s designed to last a long time). Patrick recently published Less, a book about the disastrous state of modern manufacturing and why we should all be buying less.

Here we are last night – they set up a little living room for us on the stage, which I liked very much, and the crowd were really kind (as you’d expect from people who watch Sewing Bee):

It’s a fierce and eye-opening book. You’d probably guess that it’s about the damage that fashion is doing to the planet, and it is partly about that, and it’s horrifying (around 30% of clothes made now are never even sold, making their way almost directly to landfill). But it’s full of other points that I hadn’t really considered before, like the fact that only a couple of generations ago, household items and clothing were expected to last a very long time before they developed faults. You bought a frying pan and you used it for the rest of your life. Now, we barely expect things to last a few years before they have to be replaced – and the reason is that they’re made more cheaply now, with lower quality materials, less skilled workers and more automation, because that allows for a larger quantity of things to be sold and a larger profit margin (with that profit often going to very rich people who don’t even live in the same country as their customers).

It’s all quite depressing, but there is hope. People miss having craft skills – my generation wasn’t really taught them at school, but I know so many adults who are now learning woodwork or pottery-making or sewing. The more we understand these skills, the better we get at spotting badly made products, and the less willing we are to buy rubbish – even if it’s cheap. So maybe the tide is turning towards owning less stuff – I hope it turns quickly.

It was great to interview Patrick and to see what a book festival crowd is like (the answer is: delightful) before I start doing events around my own book… which was by the way on sale IRL for the first time last night, and sold a dazzling *one* copy! I think this is good going, considering that nobody in the audience knew what it was or who I am. Thank you to my dear friend

Tor Freeman

for comfortingly describing it as one of the ‘rites of passage’ of being an author. And also, thank you Tor for being the person who bought that copy. What a pal!

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Meanwhile, the In Writing podcast continues with some great conversations on the writing process – if you’ve missed any of the new episodes, do check out Naomi Klein, Donal Ryan and Bella Mackie and let me know what you think!

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I’m going to host a Creative Hour this Sunday 20 October at 5pm on Google Meet (timezone converter here). Please come along! I’d love to see you. Paid subscribers will get the link in your inboxes on Sunday morning.

Until then, good luck with your writing!