Annie Kirby

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I’m a writer living on the south coast of England with my partner and a menagerie of small furry animals. I’ve been writing and (intermittently) publishing short fiction for almost twenty years and, in 2022, my debut novel The Hollow Sea was published by Penguin Michael Joseph.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B? 
Writing was definitely part of my Plan A, but also then became my Plan B too! I’ve always written stories, ever since I could pick up a pen, and being a published writer was a childhood dream for me. When I finally accepted, in my early forties, that I was never going to be a mum, I was overwhelmed with grief, and I was unable to write. It was a bit of a double whammy. Not only could I not create a child, but I could also no longer create stories either, something I had been doing my whole life, an important part of my identity and a way in which I processed my feelings about what was going on in my life. I honestly thought I might never write again. But as I began to recover, I did start scribbling down a few tiny scraps and phrases about my grief and other emotions relating to childlessness. This grew into poems, paragraphs, a few articles and, eventually, a novel. I think my experience of childlessness forced me to evolve in different ways as a writer. Not becoming a mother was such a defining event in my life that I almost think everything that comes after has to be part of Plan B, because the experience made me such a different person.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
In terms of ideas and inspiration – well I have a head full to the brim of stories, more than I’ll ever have time to write down, and I’m not entirely sure where they’ve all come from. Usually, for me, stories begin with a character and a problem that they have, rather than with a broader idea for a plot. I’ve been inspired by dreams, people I’ve observed on a train, historical figures, myths and legends, and my own experiences.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
I like to spend a long time – months or even years – thinking about stories before I write them down. Plotting out events in my head, nurturing a character, imagining a landscape. That’s a very joyful part of the process for me – having the freedom simply to daydream about stories before I attempt to translate my imagination onto the page. The stories are always perfect when they’re still in my mind. The actual physical process of writing down a story tends to vary from project to project. Sometimes I might plot out a whole novel scene-by-scene before writing anything. Sometimes I just sit with a blank page and see how the words fall. Usually, it’s somewhere on the spectrum between those two extremes – a little bit of planning and then just sit down and write.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
Certainly writing The Hollow Sea was a very healing process for me. It helped me to process my personal grief around childlessness and I think it was much healthier to do that on the page or through my characters, rather than trying to keep it all inside me. More generally, I find a good writing session can be quite meditative – I can just get lost in the tap of the keyboard, the words filling up the page. The process of translating the version of a story I have in my head onto the page is always a challenge, but in a good way, like completing a puzzle or a crossword, trying to untangle a big jumble of thoughts and ideas into something that’s coherent on the page. I suppose, like doing a puzzle or going for a walk or reading a book, it’s a way to get lost, to forget the real world for a while.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
I’m proud of the book I wrote and very happy that I was lucky enough to get a publishing deal but I don’t think it’s really changed the way I see myself or my NoMo status.

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
One of the best parts of publishing a novel about childlessness is childless-not-by-choice readers getting in touch to let me know that reading the book helped them in some way, or that the experiences of the characters in the book represented experiences of their own, in ways they hadn’t found in other books. I’ve also had a positive reaction from mothers and childfree readers too, some of whom felt the book had given them valuable insights into the experience of being childless not by choice. It was always important to me that readers could enjoy the book even if they weren’t particularly interested in childlessness – that it told a compelling and satisfying story in its own rights, so it’s also been lovely to see reviews from people who primarily enjoyed the mythology and mystery elements of the book because even if the childlessness themes weren’t their main reason for reading, I hope it sort of sneaks childlessness representation in without people noticing.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?

I think, historically, it’s been pretty poor. Childless or childfree characters, especially women, have definitely been portrayed in literature in very one-dimensional ways – either as deviant or wicked in some way (witches, child-stealers or frosty career women) or as tragic heroines whose childlessness or childfreeness gets 'resolved' in some way – a miracle child or adoption. It’s obviously a negative thing for all non-parents to only see themselves
represented in literature in stereotypical ways, but I think it’s particularly harmful for childless-not-by-choice people who are trying to come to terms with a life path they didn’t want or expect to not be able find accurate and nuanced representations of their experience in literature, and to not see positive depictions of people coming to terms with and living childless lives. Things are improving, but the pace of change, especially for fiction, is slow. I think it’s an issue not just for writers who are non-parents, but for all writers, to educate themselves about the stereotypes of childless and childfree characters, and to create more nuanced representation of childless and childfree characters in the future.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
Publishing tends to try to replicate successful books, and there are more of those about motherhood than there are about childlessness and childfreeness, which can push new books on those topics to the margins. I also think that even when childless and childfree stories are being told, they’re not necessarily marketed as such, so can be hard to find. I definitely noticed with The Hollow Sea that the marketing tended to focus more on the mythological elements of the book than on the childlessness, and I understand the reasoning behind this, but I also think publishers would be pleasantly surprised by the demand for childless and childfree stories – not just from readers who are non-parents, but from all readers whether they have children or not.

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I’m currently writing my second novel, which is a historical ghost story based on the real-life story of a childless, Italian noblewoman who was assassinated in the late 16th century. After that, who knows?