Beginner’s Pluck

By Sue Leonard

Kevin Smith

After university, Kevin went into journalism. “I sub-edited in Belfast, and freelanced in Edinburgh, before working for the Belfast Telegraph. Then, I went off to Bucharest, which was absolutely fascinating. I loved wire journalism. It was adrenaline-burning, but fiction writing is where the real fun is.” He had failed to finish several novels, before his debut. “I wanted to write about that time when you leave university with an arts degree and no clear career path ... When I realised funny was the way to go, I wrote to make my wife laugh. If she laughed, it stayed in; if she didn’t, I took it out. That was my editing process.”