My Writing Life: Lisa Parry
"It’s so important to take the time to make a script the best it can be before letting anyone else see it – but it’s difficult too."
1. What book should every writer read?
It’s an absolute brick but Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. The way Richardson writes Clarissa after her rape is incredibly powerful and the novel’s subject matter confronts the role of women in society and class head-on. You can’t read it without being utterly convinced of the power of literature. In terms of plays, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard is structural genius - the tortoise crossing both time periods never fails to make me smile. In poetry, I’d have to say Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds. I remember picking it up, not knowing what to expect, and my jaw hitting the floor. I had to catch my breath when reading some of the poems.
2. What is your typical writing day like?
I work creatively for six hours on a good day, and I try to guard that time. I keep admin and emailing out of it. I plan a lot so I can juggle projects – I tend to have two or three things on the go. From the outside, it must look quite boring: I sit, type, drink tea and continually try to move a cat from attempting to lie across the keyboard. Writing is where I’m at my professional happiest. That said, I love the variety of my job. I really enjoy any research and the fact I go from solo working to walking into a rehearsal room with actors and a director and seeing what breakthroughs happen in terms of character, plot and structure.
3. Who has been an influential figure in your writing career?
I think the most influential must be Dr Branwen Davies who’s a writer, dramaturg, translator and theatre director. She was literary assistant at the Sherman when I first submitted work there, and put my short play into one evening’s mix. She has been a phenomenal guide and friend ever since. I love having her in the rehearsal room because she really challenges me and will never let me get away with anything. I’ve been very lucky to work with her as much as I have.
4. What is the one thing you wish someone had told you before you started your career as a professional writer?
Not to send work out before it’s ready. It’s so important to take the time to make a script the best it can be before letting anyone else see it – but it’s difficult too, especially given the emotional rush from finishing a draft. A play is always a process and I think the writer can sometimes have an end point in their head that might not be on the page if it is sent out too early. Plays often need to be left a little, because a director will only have what’s on the page.
5. What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your writing?
The playwright Meredydd Barker once told me that devotion to the craft of playwriting was a lifelong pursuit and it’s that persistent devotion that matters above all else in this industry. It’s stayed with me as a piece of advice. There are huge ups and downs in theatre but consistently trying to improve my own work and maintaining a focus on that really helps me stay focussed.
6. What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
My play NOT was selected from more than 2,000 entries by the RSC to be one of its 37 Plays chosen to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. The play had a staged reading in The Other Place – myself, director Jac Ifan Moore and our brilliant cast travelled across from Wales to Stratford for rehearsals and the read. I studied Shakespeare so much at school and at university that I found it incredibly moving to be included.
7. What are you reading right now?
I tend to read quite a few books at the same time. I’m currently Screenwriting by Phillip Shelley, An Interrogation by Jamie Armitage, and James Graham’s version of Boys From The Blackstuff. I’m also enjoying In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet and I’ve just started The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
8. Are you a bookmarker or page-folder?
A bookmarker. Why would you want to leave a crease in a page?! I just don’t get it.
Lisa Parry is a playwright, audio writer and screenwriter. Theatre work includes: The Order of the Object (Theatr Clwyd), The Merthyr Stigmatist (Sherman/Theatre Uncut), Lump (Dirty Protest/Paines Plough). Her audio play Tremolo (Illumine/Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru) was shortlisted for best original drama at the BBC Audio Awards 2023.
Lisa is Co-Artistic Director of Illumine Theatre and a previous writer-in-residence at Theatr Clwyd. She has spoken extensively on various panels regarding feminism and theatre and science and theatre, notably giving a talk at TEDx in Cardiff. She is the current RLF Fellow for Swansea University.
You can read more ‘My Writing Life’ interviews on our RLF Substack.