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Pulp.net Interview




Writewords talks to Alistair Gentry, Pulp.Net (writer, artist and member of board at Pulp Net).

What’s your background? Can you tell us all about Pulp Net and how and why it began?

I’ve been a working artist and a writer for about seven years. I’m the author of two novels (currently writing a third), and one of Pulp Net’s board members. Pulp Net — www.pulp.net — is for publishing good short stories. It also carries information about workshops, events in the London area, a small review section and a sort of literary rant page masquerading as a Top 10. Readers’ stories and reviews are published every month, alongside a small amount of commissioned work.

What kind of submissions/themes are you interested in?

Pulp Net is interested in the voices and observations of intelligent and accessible writers who are often excluded because their access to commercial channels of publication is restricted.

One of the factors restricting access is the fact that there’s so many fish chasing the same bait, in London more than anywhere in the country. Of course, there’s the usual things as well, the stuff that limits everyone’s equal and fair access to the benefits of our culture and society: their origins, class, where they live, not going to the ‘right’ school or university, ad infinitum. Yes, I’m talking about myself as well, and I mean right now. Many writers and artists struggle just as much once their work has been accepted (in any sense) and produced. Second novels (and albums), for example, are notoriously difficult.

Anything that’s even vaguely half well-written or original stands out immediately if you have the time and resources to look for it, but the sheer quantity of published and unpublished crap always threatens to overwhelm the quality stuff. There’s no single standout thing. You can’t sit down one day and tell yourself you’re looking for something original, because originality only becomes obvious when a unique work’s staring you in the face.

Being on the outside looking in — expressing a sense of difference — is the only common Pulp Net theme that immediately leaps out. It doesn’t necessarily exclude any others.

Who are your favourite writers/writing (any medium) and why?

J.G. Ballard, because he seems obsessed with writing the perfect novel, even if it means he has to write essentially the same one repeatedly. Also, he’s kinky for an old fella. Chris (“Brass Eye”, “Jam”) Morris, because of his ear for the way people really talk, for his invention and craft, for his gleeful darkness, and for inventing the word “twunted”. Philip K. Dick, because he wrote and wrote through the best and the worst times, had the courage of his (by his own admission, mad) convictions, and the power and prescience of his ideas eclipses his occasionally slapdash writing. William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, and anyone else from that period who was into ruffs and multiple stabbings, because they wrote about the unfairness and brutality of life with great beauty and wit. Work that transcends genre but don’t insult or demean it, because sometimes the best way to tackle an issue directly is to go around the houses.

Novels that are hardly novels at all, like Danielewski’s “House of Leaves” or “The Age of Wire and String” by Ben Marcus.

Any writer who refuses to go with the flow.

The thousands of anonymous or semi-anonymous people who post amazingly piercing revelations and observations on discussion sites, blogs and email, or help strangers out with a perfectly crafted phrase and succinct advice at exactly the right time.

What excites you about a piece of writing — what keeps you interested?

Insight and craft.

Powerful emotion and issues handled skilfully and without sentimentality, vulgar sensationalism or self-pity. Intellectual rigour, wit, an awareness of the beauty of the English language and of individual words. Erudition, education and reading worn lightly, self-knowledge, good ears and eyes. Honesty.

A sense that the writer is challenging and questioning me, treating me as their emotional, moral and intellectual equal (or making me realise that I’m not, but with kindness and affection for their subject).

And what turns you off — any big obvious no-nos? ... sign up to WriteWords to read more

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