Meet The Tutor: Paula Lichtarowicz
Paula Lichtarowicz is the author of three novels and comes to writing after twenty years as a documentary-maker. She teaches at London’s City Lit and the University of the Arts and will be working with Rosie Chard on the new London-based Creative Writing Programme. Here she talks about how her first novel was inspired by a postcard, her journey to publication and offers some top writing tips.
When do you first remember wanting to be a writer? I don’t remember not wanting to be a writer. It was always my thing; a safe place and a way of making sense of the world. I spent my childhood spewing out pony stories, then became an adult and real life got in the way. Eventually the pull became too great and I started writing again. It’s still my safe place, and where I turn when I’m trying to understand what it all means. I never find the answers, but I enjoy asking the questions.
Your first novel The First Book of Calamity Leek was published in 2013 by Hutchinson, it is about a girl who has never been allowed beyond the garden wall – until now! Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the story and your journey to publication? The initial inspiration came from a postcard. I vividly remember the image of a woman in black striding barefoot past a brick wall. The determination in her stride and the height of the wall connected with darker tales of locked-up girls and Baba Yaga witches, and a strange line came to me: when Clarissa Peppercorn fell from the stars, Mother was cross – a line I chased for years across dozens of drafts until it made it onto an opening page.
Calamity was a ten-year journey to publication, stealing time from my job whenever I could. I had little understanding of ‘craft’ and the story morphed several times before settling into its final form. I sent the manuscript to consultancies for feedback, then to agencies, and was fortunate to get taken on by an agent, then a publisher who believed in the book in all its strangeness. As a writer you spend so long working alone, it’s important to have support from people you trust when the novel goes out into the world.
Your second novel Creative Truths in Provincial Policing came out in 2015 and is about a police chief in a small town in Vietnam. Can you tell us more about this book and what inspired you to write it? I took a motorcycle trip through Vietnam with a boyfriend and a wonderful guide introduced us to the history, culture and captivating landscape of the Highlands. I fell in love with the hill station town of Dalat, home to many historical and cultural crossed wires. Its cathedral, mock Eiffel Tower and Valley of Love fired my imagination. When I went home, reluctantly, to rainy England I transported myself back in a wild adventure story where a small Police Chief makes a terrible mistake, a British footballer finds himself kidnapped and at the mercy of a sex-starved old lady, and a marauding Monkey Liberation Army roams the steaming Highlands and comes to a tragic end.
Though wildly different in content your first two novels have both been described as ‘Wonderfully strange’ (Mark Haddon) and ‘Deeply perplexing’ (Sunday Times)– what it is about the wonderfully strange that appeals to you as a writer? For me, one of writing’s biggest thrills is its imaginative scope; the opportunity to adventure, explore, take reality and give it a tweak. Every story is bound by internal rules of logic and coherence, but within those bounds, almost anything feels possible. Words transport – and cheaply - with a stroke of a pen you can make someone fly or live forever or talk to animals. I suppose I’ve always thought if you can ‘heighten’ reality a little, why wouldn’t you?
Your third novel The Snow Hare, published by John Murray Press in 2023, was a Barnes and Noble book club pick. It is a heartbreaking story set in Poland during the Second World War. Could you tell us about why you wanted to write this story? Twenty years ago I recorded an interview with my Polish grandmother about her wartime experience; exile in Siberia, army life in Europe, arriving as a refugee in Britain; all of it marked by a terrible grief. A decade after her death I rediscovered the tapes. I was pregnant at the time, and reflecting on the choices I’d made, and by contrast, the choices denied my grandmother by the currents of war. Most especially I thought about the loss she’d endured and carried to the end of her life. I wanted to commemorate her experience. Only it turned out I’m a poor biographer; I couldn’t make the narrative sing, my characters were flat and lacking agency. After a few drafts I realised I needed the freedom fiction offers. The Snow Hare’s protagonist, Lena, is not my grandmother, but the emotional truth of what happened to her is written into every page.
Which book are you most proud of? It’s like children, I couldn’t possibly say.
What’s the most challenging aspect of writing? Where to start? Imposter syndrome and self-doubt? Grammatical conundrums. Facing down a strong headwind at mile twenty in the marathon. Finally accepting that the horse you’ve been flogging for months is dead. Making space and time in a (sometimes uncaring) world. Domestic interruptions. Dodgy finances. I could go on, but I won’t.
And the most enjoyable? That moment when characters start doing their thing and you’re sitting back and watching is pretty hard to beat. Also, slipping into a quiet world that’s yours alone. Also, reading a final draft and realising that world you conjured from somewhere you don’t quite understand has taken form. Also, getting a copy of that world in your hands (although this is equal parts terrifying and thrilling). But most of all it’s discovering a soft little button exists inside of me, one I can press if needed, that reminds me that whatever the challenges, pony-story girl grew up and is doing what she wanted in the world. What an unbeatable privilege that is.
You have taught creative writing at London’s City Lit and the University of the Arts. How does teaching impact your own creative process? To me teaching creative writing and writing creatively are deeply symbiotic disciplines. Teaching is sharing; techniques, opinions, emotions, and that sense of community in enedavour invigorates my connection to my own work. I feel I learn so much from my students and every class I reminded how much stories matter; how we use them to interpret our lives. I try to give my most thoughtful and honest advice in the classroom, and sometimes I even manage to follow it at home.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given about writing? I have three I find equally useful:
Step into your own arena (no one else’s).
Just write. Write more.
As Beckett put it: Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
What’s your go-to book about the craft of writing? There are so many useful ones. I’m always reassured by Stephen King’s On Writing, and heartened by Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. My current favourite is George Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. Saunders makes it all seem very simple (I like simple): are we writing to connect emotionally and move the story on? Are we doing this sentence by sentence? If you hold those aims in mind I don’t think you can go too far wrong.
You’re marooned on a desert island with the complete works of Shakespeare and a religious 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? Thanks for this question. A favourite book? Unfair. I’ve spent far too long thinking about this and have concluded the situation calls for a novel that is humorous, huge, and chock-full of humanity. I can’t think of one that perfectly hits all three notes (the humour I like is not so humane in tone). So my shortlist might involve Lolita, Middlemarch, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Wolf Hall and My Brilliant Friend. I’m going to cheat and glue the backs of the Neopolitan Quartet into one doorstopper. It’ll last a while and fill my mind with friendship. Most importantly it will allow me to sit on the sand and dream of Naples and the wonders of pizza and wine. Notebook, always. That’s unless there’s free wifi leaking over the mountains from the luxury hotel on the other side of the island.
What’s on your reading list right now? Flesh – David Szalay, Love Nina – Nina Stibbe, Restoration – Rose Tremain, Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry, The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien.
What are you working on at the moment? Menopausal rage in novel form. You have to write what you feel.
Are you based in London and want to write a novel? Join Paula and Rosie at the John Harvard Library on Wednesday mornings from September. If that time/ day doesn't work for you, then we offer classes across the south-east and online on different days - check out the options.