Meet Our Tutors: Joy Persaud

Joy Persaud is a biographer and a highly experienced journalist. She is the author of the forthcoming book Where Are You Really From? which tells the life stories of 45 people who work for, or worked for, our NHS. Joy teaches on both the Life Writing Programme and Creative Writing Programme. Here she talks about her writing life.

When do you first remember wanting to be a writer?  For as long as I remember, I have been a storyteller – whether that’s narrating the things around me in my head (a strange thing I used to do as a child!) to creating little collections of stories and poems. Reading took me to worlds far away from mine and the idea that I, too, could create new worlds has always been appealing.

Your book Where Are you Really From is coming out this year. It tells the stories of the lives of 45 people who work or worked for the NHS. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind this book and its route to publication? During the early days of the pandemic, I was chatting on the phone to a doctor friend (a former schoolmate) who asked if I’d be interested in writing a book about people of ethnically diverse heritage who work for the NHS. The idea was to tell the stories of the people who do so much for us but whose voices and life stories are rarely heard. It was at the time of Brexit, George Floyd’s murder and BLM, and covid was associated with the deaths of many healthcare workers from the global majority. I jumped at the chance.

Our chat morphed into a title, a theme and a plan. As the world closed down, I set about contacting people who work, have worked, or whose loved ones worked for the NHS. Among the dozens of people interviewed were a helicopter emergency medicine doctor, a hospital security officer, an ambulance paramedic, maxillofacial surgeons, a paediatric brain surgeon, an occupational therapist and GPs. The process, conducted entirely remotely for obvious reasons, was awe-inspiring, intense, emotional, challenging and at times felt like a rollercoaster. 

After two years, the book was complete, and we scheduled our first run, which was funded by monies raised by my friend. Sadly, he had a serious stroke before the book was printed and, while he has come on in leaps and bounds from the devastation caused by the stroke, he has not been able to read it, so we hit pause while he recovers. That said, the goal – as it always has been – is to get the book out into the world via a wider distribution, and we are working on a plan B to make this happen. 

You are also a ghostwriter and have penned the memoirs of various well-known people. Could you tell us about the process of ghost-writing and how you get people to trust you with their stories and then write them in their voices? The first step is to demonstrate your trustworthiness, openness and make clear that what you hear will not be shared (until it’s ready), or judged. Listening, and listening well, with as few preconceptions as humanly possible, is crucial. You have to put your ego and experiences aside – unless sharing something in common moves the storytelling forward – and focus actively on what you hear. 

The process, and active listening, can be tiring – indeed, it will be, if you are fully engaging. I find that a lengthy conversation can really travel and cover terrain you would never see coming. Yes, you have questions prepared, but you have to be flexible enough to know when to delve deeper, when to pick up a thread and when to make a note of something to revisit at a later juncture. You will likely end up with an overwhelming amount of information but if you go in with a flexible skeleton structure and are able to pick out themes as you go, the writing becomes a little easier.

When writing a biography, or ghostwriting an autobiography, I strongly believe the person’s voice should come through so that the reader can ‘hear’ them and so that someone the subject knows would recognise their turns of phrase and the cadences of their speech. I achieve this by tuning into them and keeping in mind their voice as I write and edit. I believe biographies work best when told in the subject’s voice, where possible.

You are also a journalist and have worked for various national newspapers and magazines and you were a ghostwriter on the book Great British Entrepreneurs: A Decade of Championing Entrepreneurs.  How does your writing style and process change in this capacity compared to writing people’s biographies? For news, features and business writing, facts rule, as does conciseness. The approach is far more structured than creative and life writing and relies on solid research. There should be no opinion in a piece that is journalistic in nature unless it’s relevant – say, as a quote or an expert’s stance. 

I have an NCTJ news qualification and though I gained it some (many) years ago, the skills I learned during that course plus input from a brutal but brilliant sub-editor, have taught me to write clearly, to research, to investigate, and to never, ever assume. 

And you have founded the platform I Have a Story which champions the storytelling of ordinary people through workshops. What was the inspiration behind this?  I’ve interviewed many celebrities in my time but access to these names usually rides on them plugging a book, show or music. Some of them – I’m looking at you, Raymond Blanc, Jenny Agutter, Bill Bailey and Jimmy Osmond – were a dream to interview regardless of their ‘plug’, but sometimes the time we have together is solely functional. 

I have also interviewed numerous so-called ordinary people, whose lives and experiences are just as rich, inspiring, surprising and interesting. If I had a neon light over my head it would read, ‘Everyone has a story’. And that’s why I founded I Have A Story. I teach people the tools to write their stories and to manage the process in a way that is relaxed, accessible, validating and effective. Some of my past students report looking at life with a different lens, saying they now appreciate life in a much fuller way. 

What is the writing achievement that you are most proud of? As an investigative journalist, I uncovered a secret plan to close down a hospital in London. It was in the small print, on page 148 (or thereabouts). This was in the day of making personal connections, having meetings, and having a nose for information gathering, which is useful in all types of writing. Eventually my hospital story made a national newspaper splash (front page). The hospital is still open. 

Also, after a close family member suffered a stroke and was treated abysmally along with his fellow patients, I carried out an undercover investigation that resulted in the introduction of a new stroke protocol and the closure of a ward that had seen better days.

I’m also proud of Where Are You Really From? for many reasons. It was a labour of love and tells important life stories.

What’s the most challenging aspect of writing? Writing about a topic that I don’t especially enjoy can be tricky, but there’s an element of satisfaction in learning about something new and making it make sense on paper or on the screen. This tends to only happen when I’m writing niche feature articles.  

And the most enjoyable? I love anything to do with the human experience. Life writing, creative writing that draws me in… writing so that you get into a flow state (having managed to ignore the myriad distractions we have in our lives) is gold. I also love teaching people the skills to explore their lives in writing. It’s extremely important to grasp our humanity in a world that currently feels tied to machines. 

You have taught and coached writers for a number of years. How does teaching affect your own writing? It helps me to be clearer about what I write. When the craft of writing, which I have largely learned over decades of ‘doing’, is foremost in your mind, you can’t help but practise what you preach, most of the time.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given about writing? To finish the first draft. Novelist Maggie O’Farrell told me she wrote 47 drafts of This Must Be The Place and described the first draft as a piece of clay on the potter’s wheel. “Without it, you have nothing to work on,” she said. “Don’t edit as you go, just keep going.” 

What’s your go-to book about the craft of writing? Stephen King’s On Writing. I have grown to relish ‘killing my darlings’.

You’re marooned on a desert island with the complete works of Shakespeare and a spiritual text of your choice. What fiction book do you want to have with you? And would you prefer a notebook and pen, or laptop to write with? I love psychological thrillers and domestic noir but I would pick How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, as it’s the book that helped me get back into reading after I stopped, due to anxiety, during the pandemic. That book took me out of my head and on adventures – what a gift.

What’s on your reading list right now? Orbital by Samantha Harvey, Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud and Entitled by Andrew Lownie. 

What are you working on at the moment? I’m working on my memoir and on a new course for I Have A Story. 

Joy teaches on the Life Writing Programme which takes place on Friday mornings, starting in September. If you’re thinking of writing a memoir, why not take a taster session on 3 July or 11 September to see if the course is for you.