Janet H Swinney, LISP 2025 Short Story Finalist, ‘The Last Salon’

Qu: Could you please tell us about yourself and your daily routine?

Answer: Me and daily routine are strangers to each other. I struggle to get up and I struggle to go to bed. At the end of the day, I always feel there’s more to be done, more to be read, more to be learned. This made life in regular paid employment a challenge. Now that I’m not in regular paid employment, I have two dogs who require regular attention. I’m always apologising to them for not providing dinner at the appointed hour or not taking them out for walks when they expect it. I sandwich writing in between bouts of guilt.

Qu: When and how did you start writing?

Writing was my strong suit when I was still at school and on through university. (Not that anyone was interested.) If I wasn’t going to be a nun, then I was going to be a writer. But I had no idea how. I had no contacts, no cash, no credentials and no clue. And I was working-class. The BBC Radio producer, Alfred Bradley, gave me my first break, accepting my piece A Tooth of Class for broadcast in the popular programme The Northern Drift in 1973. It was read by the much-loved, Manchester-based actor, Henry Livings. That programme was ground-breaking in that it gave people who wrote and spoke in a Northern, working-class vernacular a public voice. (Mind you, at this point, I still thought Manchester was in the South.)

After that, though, I had to earn a living. And I did that for many years in post-16 education, during which my creativity went into devising huge numbers of teaching and training resources and writing some features articles for newspapers including the Times, The Guardian and Observer Scotland.

As soon as I could live life on my own terms, i.e. without a mortgage, I turned my attention to fiction again. I have two published collections of short stories: The Map of Bihar published by Circaidy Gregory Press (2019) and The House with Two Letter-Boxes published by Fly on the Wall Press (2021). Stories in the latter are set entirely in the North-East of England which is where I come from. I have other stories sprinkled across online and print journals in the USA, Canada, India and the UK.

My story The Work of Lesser-Known Artists was a runner-up for the London Short Story Prize 2014. I have had listings in many competitions including two long listings for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and several short listings in the Fish International and Ilkley Literature Festival competitions. My story, Foxtrot in Fulham, was a finalist in the USA’s ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story competition in 2021 and Oculus was a semi-finalist in 2018. Oculus is among the 3% highest ranked entries on the now defunct Coverfly website.

James Bolam and Susan Jameson are narrators in a video of my short story Black Boy Winning, which was produced with the support of Durham Miners’ Association to mark the 150^th anniversary of the Durham Miners’ Gala, which occurred during in COVID, in 2021. You can watch it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pEZQnygDVY

My greatest regret is that, with the one single exception of the Crossing the Tees  festival, not a single bookshop, library or arts organisation in the North East of England has shown any interest in my work. I daren’t move back there for fear of disappearing into total obscurity.

Qu: What inspires you to write?

Ans: I keep an ear open for other people’s conversations and an eye open on my surroundings in the way I imagine a visual artist would do. I read across fiction and non-fiction and look out for a confluence or intersection of ideas that sparks an interesting insight or train of thought. After allowing these things to simmer for a while, ideas for fiction somehow emerge. I have an interest in the political as well as the personal and am fascinated by the ways in which these interact and affect people’s lives. My story Hot Cakes is a good example of this: https://janethswinney.com/samyukta-publishes-hot-cakes-2/

Qu: How does it feel to have your work acknowledged, whether through being a finalist in a

competition or having it published? 

Ans: Of course, it’s great. Once someone acknowledges that you’ve hit a chord with them, you feel as though you’re engaged in an activity that might have some worth. Otherwise, you feel you might just as well spend your life shouting down the toilet.

Qu: What's the most rewarding and challenging aspect of writing a story or poetry?

Ans: It’s a problem-solving sort of activity. A kind of Rubik’c cube of words and ideas. You get the germ of an idea. You intuit that there’s the potential for a story there. So you allow the thing to gestate for a while in your sub- or semi-consciousness, in the hope that useful material will coalesce around it. Eventually, you commit to trying it out on screen, mapping it out as you go. Ultimately, you arrive at a solution that satisfies you. Eh voila, a story!

Qu: How did you come up with the idea for your LISP-selected story? 

Ans: Hard to say. I remember having lots of conversations with friends about similar experiences, but where the artists came from, I have no idea. Once they were there, they brought their own back stories.

This story was written relatively quickly. I don’t remember exactly how long it took.

Qu: What are you working on at the moment?

Ans: I’m looking for a home for a play I’ve written based on the stories and vignettes of the renowned Indo-Pak writer, Manto. The eightieth anniversary of Indian Independence is looming in 2027, and it would be really apposite to stage this play (highly commended by the National Theatre) then.

I am also working on a suite of stories about three young men who come to the UK from post-Independence India and what happens to them and their descendants. It maps the fraught post-colonial relationship between the formerly oppressed and their former oppressors.

Qu: Tips on writing stories

Ans: The gestation period is all important, and you don’t need to be anywhere near a laptop for that. Have a clear sense of where you’re going before you sit down to write. What you do at the computer is mostly about sorting out structure and sequence. I’m not someone who believes you have to write a certain number of words every day. I’m someone who writes when I feel ready to write.

Qu: What is the best aspect and the most challenging aspect of competitions? 

Ans: The word limit is usually far too short for me. I’m fortunate in that I had something that fitted the specification of this competition. Otherwise, I often find myself treating stories as though I’ve taken them to the barber’s —shave a bit off here and another bit off there. This is an art in itself. Sometimes, it enhances them, sometimes it doesn’t.

Qu: Finally, would you recommend that the writers consider submitting to LISP?

Ans: Of course. Why not? It’s always worth testing the water and seeing whether what you write resonates with other human beings.