• Why Writing Matters
  • Our Work
  • About Us
  • Ways to Support
  • Schools’ Hub
  • Donate
  • Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

First Story

Changing lives through writing

  • Why Writing Matters
  • Our Work
  • About Us
  • Ways to Support
  • Schools’ Hub
  • Donate
William Fiennes Sitting

A 5 minute interview with William Fiennes

11 March 2016 //  by First Story

The London Book Fair caught up with our co-founder, William Fiennes, for a short interview to mark First Story being selected as The London Book Fair’s charity of the year.

We’ve reproduced the interview below but you can find the original post here.

What was the last book you read?
Kevin Barry’s Beatlebone, which is a blast, a gas, a ride, a rumpus, a song…

What’s next on your reading list?
I’m lucky enough to have proof copies of Hisham Matar’s The Return and Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk, and I can’t wait to go back into those authors’ wise and image-rich worlds.

Which writer would you have loved to have met – and why?
Anton Chekhov – both a literary and personal hero, and (by all accounts) so totally non-boring. But the meeting would have to take place in a parallel universe in which I could speak Russian. And I hope his dachshunds Quinine and Bromine would come along too.

You’re stranded on a desert island – what 3 books would you want with you?
Shirley Hazzard’s The Transit of Venus, Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, George Eliot’s Middlemarch. (Seamus Heaney’s Opened Ground and Les Murray’s Fredy Neptune jostling for contention as well… Oh god, and Chekhov’s stories too…)

Tell us what you/your company does in 20 words or fewer?
First Story runs creative writing projects in secondary schools serving low-income communities.

Tell us the 1 thing about your company/business that we need to know…
We help young people find their voice and know that their voice has value.

What do you like about your job?
The people it’s brought me to – the team at First Story, and all the teachers and librarians in our schools, and all the writers we work with, and the thousands of teenagers who’ve been part of First Story writing groups and learned that writing can be both a source of pleasure and a source of power…

Which is your favourite bookshop or ebookstore – and why?
All the independent ones, obviously… Daunt’s in Marylebone and Holland Park. Lutyens and Rubinstein. The Woodstock Bookshop. Topping’s in Bath. Belgravia Books, who’ve been amazing supporters of First Story…

Go on, let us know your guilty pleasure from the world of fiction?
I still remember the first sentence of Jeffrey Archer’s Kane and Abel, and I read it when I was 11.

Which great novel have you tried to read – but failed?
Everything by Dostoyevsky except Notes from Underground, which I managed because it’s so short. And Proust…

Category: News, Supporter Stories

BACK TO BLOG
Previous Post: «Teacher CPD session First Story Young Writers in a Ted Hughes Prize shorlisted poem
Next Post: The winner of our Letters Live Six-Word Story Competition Letters Live at Freemasons' Hall»

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

blog latest

Extended deadline: University of Cambridge Bursary Scheme

14 November 2019

Literacy Hub: DYT, CLPE and First Story

First Story moves into CLPE to create new literacy hub

13 November 2019

Juno Dawson

Exclusive interview with Juno Dawson

8 November 2019

Announcing our 2019-20 Rathbones Folio Mentees

5 November 2019

Durham Commission report: a catalyst for change?

1 November 2019

Madingley Hall

PGCert in Teaching Creative Writing is a life-changing opportunity

8 October 2019

Blog Topics

  • Anthologies (4)
  • Competitions (11)
  • Graduates (6)
  • National Writing Day (1)
  • News (57)
  • Opinion (7)
  • Outcomes and Impact (3)
  • Residential (6)
  • Supporter Stories (13)
  • Teachers (3)
  • Young Writers' Festival (9)

Our Favourite Writing

‘Truth’
by Hafsa Kalim

‘Truth’<br> by Hafsa Kalim

‘Fading In and Out of Obscurity’
by Noah Yorke

‘Fading In and Out of Obscurity’<br> by Noah Yorke

‘Ode to the Fifteenth Hour’
by Aziza Adam

‘Ode to the Fifteenth Hour’<br> by Aziza Adam

‘Gender vs Meaning’
by Callum Roberts

‘Gender vs Meaning’<br> by Callum Roberts

‘Stumbling’
by Elysia Brown

‘Stumbling’<br> by Elysia Brown

‘When I Came from Nepal’
by Mukahang Limbu

‘When I Came from Nepal’<br> by Mukahang Limbu

Above Footer

Follow our story with monthly news straight to your inbox

Footer

Programmes

  • Writing Residencies
  • Anthologies
  • CPD
  • Regional Writing Events
  • Young Writers’ Festival
  • National Writing Day
  • Summer Residential
  • Graduates

Outcomes

  • Impact Evaluation
  • Lives Changed
  • Read Students’ Writing
  • Shop Anthologies

Search

Get Involved

  • Read Our Blog
  • Try Writing Exercises
  • Fundraise For Us
  • Jobs and Volunteering
  • Partnerships

Follow

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Contact

First Story
44 Webber Street
London
SE1 8QW

020 7481 7777
info@firststory.org.uk
First Story logo

Site Footer

© First Story. All rights reserved | Registered Charity No: 1122939 | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions

Copyright © 2019 · Mai Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in