Getting 2 Know Nerys Parry

Author of  Man & Other Natural Disasters

What do you enjoy most about writing?

Nerys Parry: It’s that mystical moment when it’s no longer me writing but my character, who’s literally taken over the keyboard and dropped an insight on the page that I myself would never have consciously thought of in a hundred years. It’s times like that I feel writing, and particularly fiction, is a kind of magic. I remember the morning I woke up with a clear intent to write a small bridging passage where Simon, the protagonist of Man & Other Natural Disasters, would do one tidy action to wrap things up. But as soon as I opened the laptop, Simon took over and committed an act so dramatic and shocking, and yet so right, I had to wake my husband to tell him what Simon had ‘gone and done to me’.

It doesn’t always happen, of course, and sometimes my characters will dig their heels in and respond as sullen as teenagers on the page, but the more I write the more I find my characters are no longer my puppets but my teachers—a good character will always surprise me, and hopefully the reader as well.

Why do you think what you do matters?

Nerys Parry: I struggle with this, especially on those days when you wonder if anyone is ever going to read what you’ve written. But when I meet readers, and they tell me how Simon’s story affected them and how relevant they felt it was to what is going on today, I can see the power of fiction. The greatest gift of story is empathy. The writer and reader both must suspend their own daily concerns and enter the world and mind of another, usually one with a different background and experiences, which breeds understanding. Fiction demands that you forget yourself, if only for a few paragraphs, to live the pain and joys of another human being, and I believe that the more we do that on the page, the more we can do it as neighbours, lovers, colleagues, friends.  Living as we do in a world where we sometimes talk to each other more on screens than face to face (and in increasingly shorter sound bites), empathy can seem a dwindling resource. I know of no better way to preserve this precious commodity than through sharing stories.

Read more about Nerys Parry’s novel Man & Other Natural Disasters

Read an INTERVIEW with Nerys Parry 

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Question: Where does Simon find Minerva passed out and bleeding?

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