This Much I Know: Niamh Campbell's idea of bliss is 'as much time writing as I like'

Niamh Campbell on life as a writer and what it was like to launch a book during lockdown

Niamh Campbell: "If I don’t enjoy doing something I simply don’t do it. That has caused me a lot of problems with employment."

I was an odd child.

I was bookish but I wasn’t shy. I was very chatty and enjoyed performing. I always loved to read and wanted to write from about the age of six.

I loved primary school but didn’t like secondary school so much. I chafed against the rules. Back then, in the early 2000s, I felt there was too much focus on creating 'good' girls rather than intelligent people. I became a rebellious teen and didn’t go with the flow.

I’m not from a particularly academic or artistic family. I’m from the first generation of my family to go to college. I studied English at UCD and did a masters in writing in Trinity and then a PhD — but couldn’t get a job in academia back then.

My idea of misery is doing alienated labour. I did a Civil Service job for two years.

The people I worked with were lovely but I was doing monotonous data entry — opening envelopes, scanning the contents. I started to get really ill. I thought it was 'sick building syndrome' but turns out I had clinical depression. Being awarded a Next Generation bursary from the Arts Council in 2016 changed everything.

Lockdown has been very strange. I won the Sunday Times Short Story Award and launched my novel, This Happy,during lockdown but there were no panel discussions or talks and it was all weirdly muted. I was still in my room in the house I share with others in Dublin.

Being a writer can be isolating so it has certainly been nice to get the opportunity to talk about my work. I have learned a lot about my writing from talking about it.

My idea of bliss is having the freedom to spend as much time writing as I like.

I’m a lark. I work best between 6am and 11am. I spend time working every day although I don’t always write. I might read. I’m working on my second novel.

The best advice I can give aspiring writers is about the importance of artistic autonomy. That is the main thing.

The biggest challenge I’ve had to face is how to make things work on a financial level. Winning the short story competition has made things a lot easier. The prize was bigger than the advance I got for two books.

If I could be someone else for a day I’d be Rudolph Nureyev in the early 80s in New York. The arrogance. The courage.

Talent is more important than ambition.

My biggest fault is that if I don’t enjoy doing something I simply don’t do it. That has caused me a lot of problems with employment.

The trait I most admire in others is a comfort with intimacy.

The trait that irritates me most is insincerity.

For physical fitness, I walk, jog and do yoga, I also meditate daily. Generally, I do it lying down, with music, about an hour or so before I go to sleep. It helps with letting off steam generally. I’ve been doing it since 2016 when I did a ten-day silent retreat.

If I could change one thing on the School Curriculum, since my own school days, I’d make dance and movement compulsory, so that students can have a better relationship with their bodies. I’d swap dance for the weekly PE classes which, for me, were just about being mortified in front of a group of teenage girls.

My biggest fear is that there is going to be another world war.

I do believe in an afterlife. I’ve seen some funky things over the years.

If I could change one thing in our society, I’d like to see a detachment between Art and the economy. I believe in state funding, without condition, for creative work.

So far life has taught me that you can fix a surprising amount of things by just accepting them.

• Join writer Niamh Campbell; UK agent Kate Nash; publisher Ivan O’Brien of O’Brien Press; and many others online for a whole host of sessions at this years International Dublin Writers Festival until September 13
• https://internationaldublinwritersfestival.com/