Pip Adam
We are delighted to share with you an interview with Pip Adam, Ockham Fiction Finalist 2024
I'm always blown away by Pip Adam's books, both because of how inventive and surprising she is with her prose and narratives, and for how she uses her wild, brilliant experimentations to look dead-on at some of the biggest, hardest problems of our society. Francis Cooke, Good Reads
A spaceship called Audition is hurtling through the cosmos. Squashed immobile into its largest room are three giants: Alba, Stanley and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing.
Talk they must, and as they do, Alba, Stanley and Drew recover their shared memory of what has been done to their former selves – experiences of imprisonment, violence and misrecognition, of disempowerment and underprivilege.
Pip Adam’s uncategorisable new novel, part science fiction, part social realism, asks what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much room – about how we imagine new forms of justice, and how we transcend the bodies and selves we are given.
What does a day in the life of Pip Adam look like?
Everyday is different but the best ones start with me walking my dog at or just before dawn. I left my full-time paid position in March and am now doing a lot of small part-time jobs to make money. I usually do paid work in the morning and then try to work on my novel in the afternoon. It’s a pretty great mix. I enjoy the range of work I have and work-work is really important to me because it pays the bills, yes, but also because it keeps me in the world. I’m not
How did you come up with the plot for Audition?
I very much wrote into the void with Audition. I just turned up every day and wrote. This is kind of how I write normally but with this book I tried to keep everything in the air for longer. I resisted making things ‘fit’. I think we all have this internal radar for story. I always see it in conversation - people understand the shape a story should take. I wanted to try and resist that part of me as long as possible. What this gave me was this very odd first draft and then my next step was to maintain the oddness in the following drafts. I still wanted it to be plot-driven, I was just interested in how odd it could be and still have the central frame of plot to rest everything else on.
How long did this novel take you to write?
I was looking back and the earliest drafts I can find are in around 2019. So maybe 4 years?
Did you always want to be an author?
When I was young I didn’t know being an author was a thing you could be. I didn’t know anyone who was an author and I had this weird idea that the author’s name was part of the title. I loved television and there were lots of credits at the end of TV shows so I thought books must be the same. I think it was around my first year of high school I thought about writing. I had a crush on someone who was a poet and I think that might be where the idea came from.
What was your initial reaction when you learned Audition had been shortlisted for an Ockham Award?
Surprise. Real surprise. I was surprised the book was longisted and never expected it to be shortlisted. I’m still quite shocked. The other three books are so good and there were so many other amazing books that could have been shortlisted.
What is your favourite book of all time?
Nowhere to Be Found by Bae Suah and translated by Sora Kim-Russell. I worship at the feet of Bae Suah and while it possibly could be any of her books, Nowhere to Be Found is my first love. Sora Kim-Russell’s translation is a gift.
What practices, rituals, or habits do you have to set you up for a day of writing?
I’m not sure I have any of these because each day is so different and to keep a writing routine or ritual of any kind is pretty impossible for me. I need to be able to write in any mood or environment. So I think I might have resisted anything that I need to write. This makes things a lot harder of course. There are certain things I do each day so I can live through and in that day - I meditate every morning, there are certain things I read each day, there are certain people I like to have contact with. While I can’t write without these, I also can’t do anything without them.
Finally, what is next for you, Pip?
I’m really looking forward to moving to Ōtuatahi for six months at the end of July for the Ursula Bethell Writers in Residence at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha (University of Canterbury). I’m so grateful for the time to write and to hang out with writers in Ōtuatahi - especially my close friend Kerry Donovan Brown. I’ll be working on a novel looking at the weaponisation of humour.