Victoria Firth

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
My career has largely been in arts management, having run several theatres and arts centres. I always wanted to be an actor but wasn’t confident enough to pursue this until later in life - by which time no-one would have employed me. I began writing to create opportunities for myself. I first made performance as a live artist and then a theatre piece called How to be amazingly happy! which explored questions around becoming a parent, infertility and reinventing yourself as a non-mother. It was told from my perspective as a queer woman. I also write blogs, poetry and stories.
 

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B?
I always had a strong career work ethic, and this combined with being gay, meant I was never perceived as maternal or wanting children and the internalisation of this held back my fertility journey for a long time. When this was unsuccessful there seemed little left to lose and so I took the risk of revisiting my lifelong secret desire of being a performer. To create something to perform in, I wrote about my experience. I realise now that I’ve always written but never considered myself a ‘writer’ till very recently. So I guess it’s always been part of my creative identity but now I’ve chosen to use the label and pursue things that make me happy - even if that can be a bit scary.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
I write to make sense of life, particularly the underbelly of human experience. To date this has been from my own experience, but I don’t pursue an idea unless I know it has the potential to resonate with others. I’m interested in exploring empathy, embodiment and connection – getting under the skin of things that lots of us feel but no-one talks about. This often makes for slightly perilous work and so finding humour and playfulness is important. There’s so much potency in bringing things into the light.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
Perhaps because I’m a performer I often tell the story in my own words before I try and craft any writing. First I imagine it. Then I make a few notes. Then I read it aloud into my phone and send the audio recording to a trusted friend, or two, to see how it speaks to them. If it’s got legs then I start writing properly (after a reasonable amount of procrastination!). Things come out pretty well formed although I can always make improvements if I put drafts to one side and come back to them. I’m not very good at doing lots of drafts but I’m learning the value of this.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
A way to externalise my experience, to express myself and have agency, a way to relate with audiences.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
Yes significantly so. I kept my IVF attempts secret for fear of failure and judgement, but also because I felt so vulnerable. I was left with a lot of shame but in sharing the experience I have started to own it and realised how universal it is. There’s been great comfort and community in connecting with others and I’ve found inspiration for how my life is now and could be in future.

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?
It’s mixed. Some still don’t understand the significance of it, for others I think I’m more approachable and have a point of commonality with people I might otherwise have not got to know. Generally I’ve had a lot of support and affirmation for sharing my story which has encouraged me on. Less so now, but there were moments when people walked on eggshells around it in a way I found excruciating, but then there was a time when I needed that level of sensitivity.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
I get VERY angry about the trope of flawed or villainous characters not having children. The correlation that being childless equates to bitterness, or propensity to heightened emotion, or dramatic behaviour. It’s reductive and offensive.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
That there’s a whole kaleidoscope of stories to be told and that they are stories that people want to hear.
 

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I’m working on a new play called Batty! which looks at our need for wildness and magic and how our identity is affected by ageing. It returns to some of the questions in How to be amazingly happy! but from a different perspective and life stage.