Lisa Collyer

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
After twenty-two years of teaching in schools, I left the Education department to become a full-time writer. I still tutor individual students in English to earn supplementary income. I’ve been working on writing full-time for four years and have just had my debut poetry collection, How to Order Eggs Sunny Side Up, published with Gazebo Books.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B? 
I’ve always written since a young child but as a working-class kid never saw it as a career option. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I realised that university was an option when I started dating a middle-class man who went to university. Not being a parent was one of the pressing ideas that I wanted to communicate in my writing, that is, a representation of womanhood that wasn’t a mother or a nurturer.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
Inspiration comes to me, then I pursue them by researching around it which eventually develops into a poem. Sometimes it’s a memory of something that I’ve held in my body for a very long time, sometimes it’s a feeling, other times it’s an image I’ve witnessed that I then connect to other things.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
Firstly, I am inspired. Then I research that topic and any other random connections that I make with it. I then do some exercise and read something completely unrelated. I then sit down and draft. And/or, I do ten-minute writing bursts with a friend once a fortnight based on inspiration from a piece of literature. These all follow lots of edits.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
It’s given me a platform which I’ve never felt I had, as many of my feelings and ideas fall outside of expected norms and social conversation. It gives me joy as I’ve produced and created something of value.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
I feel vindicated that I’ve expressed how I feel and am worthy as a woman that isn’t a mother, however I have noticed that the outside world has not changed, as a result, but I think maybe individual perceptions have at least thought about it if they’ve heard or read my book.

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?
I have had a good reception from people who have found my work quite challenging but inspired by it as a powerful piece of writing. I’m not sure everyone has felt this way as some people seem to look at me strangely (perhaps quite confronted by my work) but this could just be my paranoia. I feel stronger than ever.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
I think this is a growing area but it’s a very long history and deeply embedded representation in culture and who is valued. It is very under-represented in literature but perhaps slowly diversifying.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
That we are constantly being silenced, othered, ignored and seen as abject, un-women with less value than mothers.

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10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?

I’ve written my second manuscript which looks at women in the workforce, in competition and in politics. I think the third manuscript may look at creative women but I’m still in the immersion/inspiration phase for that one.