Mick Jackson is a prize-winning author and screenwriter, who has recently become our new writer-in-residence.
His first novel, The Underground Man, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Royal Society of Authors’ First Novel Award. He has published three novels and two illustrated collections of stories with Faber and Faber, his most recent being The Widow’s Tale in 2010. He also writes screenplays and has directed documentaries.
Mick will be at here until September, 2012. Some of his interests which he hopes to explore during the residency are early photography, astronomy, airships, submarines and the history of medicine (particularly The Common Cold Unit).
Throughout his residency he will be keeping us up to date with blog posts. His first post is below.
Being the writer-in-residence at a major London museum can be pretty demanding. There are people to meet, notes to be made, etc. – and all the thinking on top of that. When the stress threatens to overwhelm me I tend to head for ‘Agriculture’ on the First Floor. In one display case a series of tractors slowly turn in their own small circle, constantly tilling the same grey soil. It’s my equivalent of a Japanese raked gravel garden. After a couple of minutes, a sort of English pastoral Zen settles upon me and I’m right as rain.
To be honest, when I began the residency I was hoping for a hat of some description, with my title printed on it. And maybe a special phone on which I could be notified of potentially-interesting events: ‘There’s something weird going on in Marine Engineering. Grab your notebook and get yourself down there.’ As I approached the crowd I would say, ‘Let me through, please, I’m the writer-in-residence. This scenario may have potential as a short story, or a quirky piece for Radio Four.’
Instead, I am left to wander round the galleries in hatless anonymity. There’s the odd perk, of course. As a member of staff I get 20% discount on my lattes. And curators, who possibly have better things to be getting on with, seem quite prepared to sit down with me and discuss their specialist field. This morning I have been contemplating sidereal time and horary quadrants. Anything to do with Time or Cosmology, I find, can easily bring on a bout of brain-ache. But the moment I feel the pressure building I head back to the tractors – the slowly-turning tractors – and within five minutes my equilibrium is restored.
Mick Jackson
Writer in Residence