My Writing Life: Annie Siddons

"If you desire stability, holidays, nice stuff, and not being poleaxed by anxiety, choose another career."

1. What book should every writer read?

Ach, this question. I don’t like a should, generally. I think every writer might benefit from reading outside their genre, their culture, their style. Shake up those synapses. Also, one book? It’s about the all you can eat buffet I think rather than the meal. Be voracious, be catholic, be curious.

2. What is the one thing you wish someone had told you before you started your writing career?

I’m glad no-one told me this, because it would have maybe stopped me trying. If you don’t come from a financially secure background or have other income streams it’s going to be very hard and you’re going to be hand to mouth a lot. If you desire stability, holidays, nice stuff, and not being poleaxed by anxiety, maybe choose another career.

3. Who has been an influential figure in your writing career?

Probably my kids. I had them before I “became” a writer. So they taught me flexibility, being able to get to it without the luxury of my ideal writing day, and their own idiosyncratic, charming perspectives on life.

4. What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your writing?

I used to think I had “writer’s block” a lot and then I read a Philip Pullman thing in which he said there was no such thing. And I’ve found that to be true. Normally, if I’m blocked, it’s either because something from life is demanding my attention, or because I haven’t yet done the work that that story beat/character/narrative arc demands. I like not believing in writer’s block. It’s helped a lot to define WHAT is it that’s holding me back. Very often, it’s just that I don’t know enough.

5. What was the proudest moment of your writing career?

It’s definitely when people say that they have been affected or influenced or have enjoyed my writing. To know that you’re not writing into a void, that it has an impact. That’s the gold right there. I mean, there are definitely too many writers, from a utilitarian perspective, so to know that you are doing something that does something to some people is helpful. Otherwise there’s no rationale for continuing – see above – because it’s a stupid career.

6. What is your typical writing day like?

I don’t have a typical writing day but I’ve figured out my ideal writing day, which involves exercise, being in nature, naps, and 2-3 three-hour bursts of writing. It happens very rarely and never when I’m at home, but if I do a few days like this, I can really break story, as they say in TV.

7. What are you reading right now?

I’m reading Honour by

Elif Shafak

, Crow Country by Mark Cocker, The History of the Ottoman Empire by Eugene Rogan, and this series of thrillers by Morgan Greene. Catholic, ya know.

8. Bookmarker or page-folder?

Page folder, all the way.

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Annie Siddons is from South London, the product of a dad from Northampton and a mum from Cairo. She’s a professional playwright, aspiring screenwriter and beginning prose writer. She works extensively as a dramaturg, and occasionally as a performer.

Her plays include Rapunzel (Kneehigh, 2006-8, Creation Theatre Company 2009, First Circle TC 2010, Citizens Theatre Glasgow 2015, Bath Egg 2019, Watermill 2022), The Nutcracker and The Mouse King (Unicorn, 2014), Cinderella (Derby Theatre, 2023), Raymondo (Summerhall, 2014 and tour), Remount the Cartographers (2019), How (not) to Live in Suburbia (Summerhall 2016 and tour, Soho Theatre 2017, 2018 tour), Dennis of Penge (Ovalhouse Theatre and Albany Deptford, 2018; Bridge Theatre remount 2023) and Ant and Hop (Unicorn Theatre 2019).

Collaborations include Wild Country (co-written for Edith Tankus) and Babylon Beyond Borders (2019 Bush Theatre).

Her novel in progress, Skin, was the recipient of an RSA award.

Annie is currently under commission from the Lucille Lortel Theatre Brooklyn, and on attachment at the National Theatre.

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