Lou Godbold

About Me

I write narrative non-fiction, not memoirs, I've discovered. To sell memoirs you need a 'platform.' I'm busily constructing one in the back yard out of orange crates, but apparently that's not good enough. Paris Hilton has a platform; I have 'auto-biographical narrative non-fiction' if I ever want my work to be published!

I used to write poems and fiction but it was all a little too dream-like for me. Not tethered to reality the way my account of being married to a Mexican heroin addict turned out to be. Of course, I now have the problem that everyone assumes this Cambridge educated (well, for two years anyway), polyglot and quasi social scientist could never have been so stupid as to actually get herself into the situation she describes - prostitutes and drug addicts? Drug lords and gang members. Surely not!

I'm afraid it's all true. What some writers will do for material.

Why do you write?

Because nothing else makes sense.

Any favorite authors? Books?

I read Laurie Graham for wry British humor and excellent dialogue (I loved 'Future Homemakers of America' - unfortunately 'Ten O'Clock Horses,' 'Dog Days, Glenn Miller Nights' and 'The Dress Circle' are out of print but are well worth poking about for in used book stores). Kate Atkinson provides a 'jolly good read' and wonderful asides - it doesn't matter which genre she writes in, I would collect cereal packets if she wrote the blurb on the back. I read Elizabeth Berg when I want to feel it's okay to be me, Anne Tyler when I want an American 'jolly good read,' and Jane Hamilton when I want to be reminded of the calibre to which I aspire (but only if I'm reading a humorous book at the same time). Sandra Cisneros ('Caramelo') is my favorite Chicana author; 'Mountains Beyond Mountains' (Tracy Kidder) probably has had the most profound effect on my life; Alan Bennett is a genius; Mesdames Zoe Heller and Zadie Smith are also favorites; but if you want a real undiscovered gem, read the books by the anthropologist Nigel Barley. They are excellent training for social scientists and novelists alike.