A chance sighting in a Bulgarian park sparked a book for Dr Hannah Stevens, who talks to Keith Lyons about why the short story is the perfect form for shining a light on difficult experiences.
of Tâigael and Mother Tongue, writer, Director at Wind&Bones.
Dr Hannah Stevens (https://hannahstevenswriter.com/) has worked with survivors of domestic abuse, LGBTQI+ communities, activists and educators, using writing and storytelling as tools for advocacy. Her new short story collection, On the Bodies of Strangers, uses tattoos as a doorway into queerness, gendered violence and the mysteries that lie even within familiar lives.
KL: What first inspired you to write this collection of short stories, and how did the idea for it come about?
HS: In 2020 I was walking in a city centre park in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was summer and everyone had shed the warm layers of winter clothes for vests and shorts. I was walking with my partner and collaborator, Will Buckingham, and we were discussing what our next writing projects might be. A woman stepped out on the path in front of us and she had a tattoo on her back. Maybe the tattoo had a story behind it or maybe it didn’t. But the woman certainly would have a story and the idea for this collection just immediately crystallised: a themed collection of human stories linked by the theme of tattoos.
KL: Your stories explore some quite intense human experiences. What themes or questions do you find yourself returning to again and again in your work?
HS: I tend to write about things that preoccupy me, things that worry me, things that inspire me and things that I’ve experienced too. Although the most obvious theme binding the stories together here is tattoos (and I have a few tattoos myself!), there are others too. A lot of the characters in the stories are queer, for example and there are bisexual, lesbian and gay characters. I didn’t set out with the idea to write queer stories, but these are the stories that came. I’m a queer woman who has had relationships with women, non-binary, trans people and men. I’ve inhabited various incarnations of queer worlds, and I think we often end up writing the worlds we know and the people we recognise.
Another theme I often think and write about is gendered violence and abuse because it is such a global issue. There are a number of stories that focus on gendered abuse with male protagonists who abuse their female partners. This kind of abuse is a common occurrence in the UK and around the world and something that’s worth bearing witness to. Some stories in the collection also document the cruelty and abuse that can happen in same sex and queer relationships, which can be overlooked. They highlight the harm we can do to each other by not saying how we really feel and what we truly desire. And there are cruelties in familial relationships here too: the violence parents can enact on their children as well as emotional neglect.
Not all of these things were themes that I set out to write about in this collection but were rather things that emerged through the writing process. They are difficult subjects but I’m glad they’re here.
The ‘of Strangers’ part of the title is also a nod to the strangers we share the world with. We have our circle of friends and family and other connections, but we live in a world amongst people who are predominantly strangers to us. However, when we dig deeper even those who are familiar and known to us always hold mysteries because we can never truly know anybody can we? Maybe we can’t even fully know ourselves. These are things that I think about a lot.
KL: What drew you to the short story form specifically, rather than novels or other forms of writing?
HS: I love to read and to write short stories: I think they’re intense, powerful and a really precise form. They can capture important, fleeting moments that we might otherwise overlook and really shine a light on our diverse experiences of being alive. Through this collection I’ve tried to take some important and big concerns I have and illuminate them through small windows.
KL: Could you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to be a writer?
HS: I was born into a working-class family in the midlands of England and was the first in my family to go to university. Growing up it didn’t occur to me that writing could be something you could build a life from or that could be a career or a job. But I did love reading and I started writing in earnest during my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing and English. My choice to study creative writing wasn’t planned. I just hoped that it would be interesting because I’d enjoyed reading. During my degree I came across a dusty old book in the library that was – on reflection — life changing. The book was a short story collection by the English writer Daphne du Maurier called The Birds and Other Stories. The stories were dark and haunting and incredibly well constructed, and I totally fell in love with the short story form because of it.
KL: What was your writing process like for this collection? Did you have a clear plan from the start, or did the stories evolve as you wrote them?
HS: I had a few ideas floating around but no clear plan. I’m not good at planning really. I realised this when I attempted to write a novel and had to plan a road map through the chapters. I hated it.
KL: Are there any characters or stories in the collection that you would like to meet?
HS: I’ve met some of the characters in the stories, though none of them are 100% accurate depictions of real-life people, of course. I’ve met Adam in ‘Almost At The Top’ and Jack from ‘The Soft Edges of Difficult Things’ and I wouldn’t want to meet them again. But I did want to explore them through the stories and to capture something of their awfulness. It feels important to not shy away from some of the awfulness of human nature.
I would like to meet Angel and Alma from ‘Stick and Poke’. They have so much potential in spite of their difficult circumstances. And they are such good friends. In terms of their futures, I’d hope that they’re still friends and that they’ve managed to carve out happier and safer lives for themselves.
KL: Your collection was shortlisted for the W&A Working Class Writers’ Prize in 2022, several years before its eventual publication. How did that early recognition shape the development of the book, and what was the journey like from shortlist to final publication?
HS: Being shortlisted for the W&A Working Class Writers’ Prize in 2022 helped to bolster my confidence. I think short stories and short story collections are really under-appreciated both culturally and commercially and especially in the UK. Being shortlisted encouraged me to keep sharing the stories with people. And I’m so glad that I did. I’ve had messages from readers who have really connected with certain stories, characters or the writing style and it’s just lovely to have these conversations with people.
KL: You’ve lived and worked in several different countries. How has that experience influenced your writing, if at all?
HS: Ironically, I never had any specific plans in terms of travel or work, but I’ve been open to different ideas and the possibility of life being many different shapes. I have really loved meeting people and making friends across the globe. I’ve learned a lot from people who were generous enough to share their time and stories with me. And I think it made me more determined to share stories that can connect people.
I’m curious about the world and people and undoubtedly new-to-me landscapes, politics, art, food and different ways of organising society have enriched my writing. Sometimes these influences are easy for me to see: a particular flower, a soundscape, a view or even a house … but other times they’re more subtle and less easy to map.
KL: What do you hope readers will take away from reading On the Bodies of Strangers?
HS: Some of the stories might be considered bleak in certain instances but they’re not without hope and possibility and I want the readers to feel this too: hope is such an important and powerful thing. I’d love it if readers felt empathy for the characters, their lives and circumstances. I mean the point of stories and literature is to really distill and humanise these things, isn’t it?
KL: As co-director of Wind&Bones, you’re running an independent press that publishes other writers’ work. What made you decide to become a publisher as well as a writer, and how do you balance those two roles?
HS: I think it was meeting so many people across the world with important, beautiful and moving stories to tell. I wanted to provide a platform that could help people to share them. It is definitely tricky balancing both publishing and writing in terms of time. But they do complement each other and it’s been useful to bring insights from one world into the other.
KL: You also run creative writing workshops. How has that work shaped your own approach to writing and revising your stories?
HS: Running workshops has given me confidence in my own writing and to share my stories. The more I’ve connected with people the more I’ve realised what a cacophony of voices and stories the world is made up of and what a wonderful thing that is. It’s good to share our stories, whatever they may be.
KL: What advice would you give to aspiring writers, especially those who might not come from traditional literary backgrounds, who are trying to finish and publish their first collection?
HS: It’s difficult to give any specific advice about a career in writing because it’s such a diverse field and can look like so many different things. But if you love writing keep doing it as much as you can. Build connections and friendships around it because writing is a way to communicate our ideas and experiences and to build community and community is such an important part of being a writer.
KL: What are you working on now, and how does it differ from this collection?
HS: At the moment I’m working on a new collection of short stories inspired by my three years of living and working in the south of Taiwan called Upside Down Heart and Other Fiction from Formosa. I started to write this when I was writer in residence at the Taiwan Literature Base in Taipei. My stories are usually so rooted in a UK setting, I think just because the land and cityscapes are such a big part of my imagination. But this is the first time I’ve written stories set elsewhere and I’ve really enjoyed the deliberateness of the experiment and what stories have resulted.
I am also co-writing a crime detective novel set in Taiwan called The Spoonbill Murders with my fellow Wind&Bones co-director, Dr Will Buckingham. It’s been difficult to find the time to fit the writing in for this one, but it is lighthearted and a lot of fun when we do.
I am also writing an essay about returning to the city in which I was born, that traces my family history, explores the messiness of grief, the social taboo of addiction and how these things can manifest across generations.
KL: Is there anything about writing practice in general, that you wish more people knew about?
HS: A lot of people might imagine writing to be a solitary thing but, in my experience, it is an extremely collaborative process. There are editors involved in the process, of course, but writing has been a way of connecting me with all kinds of different people, cultures, ideas and new friends and it really has changed my life for the better.
Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless Journal’s Editorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
Extract from Hannah Steven’s short story, ‘Something You Could Feel in Your Teeth’
Georgia is on her bunk. It’s just after seven. The cell door is closed, everyone locked up for the night. Outside, it’s still light, and she thinks of being free, of what she would be doing now. Maybe drinking tea in the garden, maybe having a beer. A small garden, just a yard, would do it really, where she could feel the breeze, see the sky. Sam and Fay would be there, home with her, where they belonged. Fay would be singing a song she’d heard recently, and maybe they’d all sing the chorus together.
Georgia feels the bunk move as Winter pulls the tattoo gun from beneath her mattress and places it onto the table. It’s a mess of parts, bound together with tape, and it makes her think of Frankenstein’s monster, something made from spares, something not meant to be one whole. It had taken a while to get everything they’d needed together: the plastic pen for the needle chamber, for Winter to exchange enough cigarettes for the small motor of an electric razor.
There are footsteps in the corridor. They grow louder, heading towards them.
‘That’s my release date fucked if I’m caught with this,’ says Winter, her eyes wide.
Georgia scrambles down from her top bunk. ‘I’d take the blame, you know that,’ she says.
‘You and I both know that’s not how it works: same cell, equal responsibility,’ replies Winter. Her voice is sharp.
Georgia stares at the door, neither of them move.
The footsteps pass and Winter breathes out. ‘Fucking hell,’ she says. ‘Sorry, I’m just so edgy with my release date so close.’
Georgia notices the sweat on Winter’s forehead. She remembers watching her months ago making the needle for the gun. How she’d pulled the coiled compression spring from a smuggled lighter, heated and softened it slowly over the flame of a burning match, then spent the evening carefully, calmly stretching it, straightening it, sharpening it on the exposed brick wall. Easily something she’d be sanctioned for, her detention extended.
‘I would be too,’ says Georgia. ‘We don’t have to do it.’
‘I know,’ says Winter. She wipes the sweat with the back of her hand. ‘But we are doing it. Now, you make the ink.’
Georgia pulls out a small plastic bag from the box on the shelf. Then she tips the loose cigarette ash she’d collected over the last week onto the plastic lid of the instant hot chocolate tub. Over at the sink, she adds water and then a squirt of liquid hand soap. She takes a metal pin from her hair, and carefully she mixes it all together.
‘Did you add enough soap?’ Winter asks.
‘I think so,’ replies Georgia. She shows Winter the wet paste.
‘A bit more,’ says Winter. ‘It needs to be thick so the colour stays in.’ Georgia adds more soap, stirs again, and hands it to Winter.
‘Good,’ Winter nods and points to the bottom bunk.
‘Okay, lie down.’
Georgia lies down, rolls up her sleeve, and looks at the tattoo already there. It’s a microphone made of sketchy, dark lines. Winter did it a few months before, and Georgia loves it in spite of its imperfections. She thinks of being on the outside, of singing again, maybe at the karaoke. She imagines the low lights of a bar, the faded velour chairs, the sticky floors, and that feeling in her chest.
This time she’s chosen two musical notes. She’d found a book in the prison library, leafed through some pages on music composition, settled on quavers. She doesn’t know what they mean exactly. But she loves the round shape of them, the stem, the curled tail.
Winter wipes Georgia’s arm with a damp flannel and then pats it dry with a towel. Georgia clenches her jaw: an involuntary movement, in anticipation of what’s to come. A sharp pain flashes through her mouth and then fades. She stares at the marked mattress above her.
Winter dusts some talcum powder across Georgia’s skin and smooths it out into a fine white sheen. Next, she draws the musical notes with a blunt pencil. The end is damp and lifts the talc from her arm, like an eraser.
‘Like this?’ Winter asks.
Georgia looks and takes in the two new shapes.
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘Like that.’
Winter shifts in her chair and leans in a little closer. ‘Are you ready?’
Georgia nods. She doesn’t look at Winter, somehow doesn’t want to catch her eye. Sometimes beautiful things came from pain. Like her children.
Winter switches on the tattoo gun. The low whir of the motor kicks in. She dips the needle into the ink and begins.
Georgia feels the sharp, hot pain in her skin, the jagged vibration in her arm. She feels it move through her body, shake her bones, and then settle into her teeth.
.
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