C K Stead: winner of the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award

The winner of the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award is C K Stead. The veteran of the shortlist at 77, and the author of 11 novels, two collections of short stories and 15 books of poetry, C K Stead is New Zealand’s finest living writer.

We caught up with C K to talk about his win, and his advice for short story writers.

> Congratulations on winning The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. How does the win feel?

Well, it’s welcome. It’s wonderful news, I’m delighted.

> Tell us about the winning story, ‘Last Season’s Man’.

I wrote it specifically for the competition. I had an idea in my head for this particular short story but no motivation to write it and then when I saw the competition advertised, I thought why not, I’ll give it a shot. There are bits and pieces that come from my experiences here and there. The whole thing is set in Croatia and the characters are Croatian. I suppose, in part, that was just a device to remove it because it’s the kind of story that if I’d set it in New Zealand, everybody would have been trying to decipher who was this person and who was that, which is always distracting in fiction, I find. People start to treat simply as disguised autobiography, which it’s not. I like Croatia- I’ve been there a few times; I’ve had four of my novels translated into Croatian so the idea was to remove the whole human situation there.

> There’s a lot in the story about conflict and regret. What drove you to those themes particularly?

It’s about competition really isn’t it? Human competition is a universal thing. You can write a story about competition between writers or any group of human beings and you can set it anywhere, and the universal truth will apply wherever you are.

> Being the most prolific and most published of the shortlisted, what advice would you give to your counterparts?

Keep doing it.

> Have you read any of the shortlisted authors before?

No. I don’t keep up with what’s going on in the British literature scene moment by moment, except for the more obvious people. But these writers sound interesting and I will certainly follow up by reading their work. At the moment, I’m probably in ignorance of them and they’re probably in ignorance of me.

> Do you feel like the elder statesman of the shortlist?

[Laughs] Not really. I’m not that known on the British scene. I come and go. My novels are published here and Carcanet are publishing my collected poems and also, I come and go as an academic and literary critic. I come and go in and out of the place but the only place I have continuous presence is in New Zealand. My feeling about myself in Britain is that I’m a light that goes on occasionally and goes off again and is forgotten till the next time it goes on...

> It must then be nice to be validated in such a way on the British scene...

It’s always nice to get recognition outside your own country. That’s more difficult in a sense because people have to make more of an effort to adjust to whatever it is you do. So, the affirmation you get from another country is always welcome. For the same reason, I’m very grateful to have novels translated into European languages.

> What in particular interests you about the short story genre?

I started as a poet when I was young, but I always wanted to write fiction. When I did, I wrote short stories. Short stories figured a lot in New Zealand half a century ago because there was virtually no publishing industry. People who were writers and wanted to write fiction didn’t have a lot of hope of getting their novels published. So the short story was very strong. There was a lot of respect for Katherine Mansfield, a New Zealand short story writer who made a strong reputation for herself in the UK then tragically died at the age of 34. I grew up with the idea that the short story was a form that New Zealanders prided themselves on doing well. There’s quite a strong tradition there.

> What makes a good short story?

It’s a halfway between what’s required in poetry and what’s required in a novel because it’s more condensed. It’s got to do its job more efficiently and more economically than a novel. A novel can be baggy and wander off and take long directions and find its track again. A short story can’t do that. Everything is dependent on economy, precision, choosing the right words and the right sentence. To be successful it’s got to feel shaped like the whole of a piece.

> What is your writing process on a day-to-day basis?

I left the university 25 years ago. I took early retirement to write fiction. I was worried I’d find myself unemployed and not doing anything at all. So I imposed a strict discipline on myself, I kept office hours. I would start writing in the morning and whatever was my major project at the time, it was usually a novel, and I would do for three or four hours. I would have a break in the middle of the day and in the afternoon; I would do secondary work like reviewing, literary journalism, articles. What I couldn’t do was fiction in the morning and a poem in the afternoon. I had to be in one mode or the other. While I was writing a novel, there would be no poems. Then I would find myself drifting into poetry mode and there would be no fiction. That’s how my life tended to be divided up for a number of years after I left the university. I’ve since become more relaxed. I’m not so self-disciplined now but it seemed necessary at the time- to get the work done that I hoped to get done.

> What keeps you motivated to keep writing?

It’s just a way of life. I have to worry about how long it can be on and if I begin to lose it, hopefully someone will tell me and won’t pretend I’m still doing well when I’m not. It has become a way of life, it’s become my self, my identity. And I have to face the fact that when you reach my age, you’re going to lose your identity and your self before too long but while I can do it, I can see no reason to stop.