Interview With Author Chris Armstrong
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have had three careers, merchant seaman, farmhand on the Welsh farm where I still live, and information scientist working both in the university and for my own company before I retired to write. I have published three poetry collections, Mostly Welsh, Book of the Spirit and Lost Time, as well as a work of fiction – The Dark Trilogy – and a collection of short stories: When I Am Not Writing Poetry.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The latest book was a collection of poems called Lost Time: Chorus and Other Poems. Although I write fiction – I am just completing another work – my first love was poetry and I have written some 500+ poems. The latest selection brings together poems that relate to place (mostly Wales), the Sea (if not the sea, then the horizon! The sea is always there in my life), Writing, Memories and Time – I love to explore how we live in time.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write mostly directly to the screen of my desktop computer and edit as I go – often changing words, word order line order in poems, or even sentence and paragraph order. Very often I do not plan a story or plot I just sit down and begin typing and somehow the right words find their way to my fingers from my brain!
What authors, or books have influenced you?
A very tricky question – I have read so much! In fiction I would have to reference Nabokov (particularly Ada and Pale Fire), James Joyce, Durrell’s quartet and quintet; poetry is even more difficult with many Anglo Welsh writers such as R S Thomas and Dylan Thomas contrasting with Leonard Cohen and the American beat poets. And T S Eliot.
What are you working on now?
I have just completed a work of fiction called Trystan, which follows the lives and misfortunes of two men through their day in a small Welsh seaside town; both trying desperately to rise above their troubles. The idea was inspired by Joyce’s Ulysses and, like that work, has a background in a classic – in my case, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult – the main chapters being named for and making oblique references to the chapters of the original: an odd phrase, an artefact… but it is in no way a retelling of The Romance. The main chapters are written in the voice of one or other of the two protagonists, Trystan and his friend George. Their individual but interweaving stories are divided by a series of Interlude chapters.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
My blog and website: https://curatedlines.online/
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Just start writing!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Never stop writing!
What are you reading now?
I have about 6 books on the go – works of poetry such as Ruth Bidgood and most recently Zosia Kuczynska, Jo Shapcott and the beautifully written Cairn by Kathleen Jamie – that is the way to use language. Non fiction: Bibliophobia by Brian Cummings, Letters from Wales by Sam Adams, and so much fiction!
What’s next for you as a writer?
I am putting together another collection of poems.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Laurence Durrel’s The Avignon Quintet; James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake; If Only the Sea Could Sleep (Adonis); The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas edited by John Goodby and perhaps something by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
Author Websites and Profiles
Chris Armstrong Amazon Profile
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