College Event: A Visit From Joe Dunthorne

Before Event:

Currently sitting alone on eating my lunch before the event. My expectations for the turn out are low yet I've never been to an author event set by my college before.

I steamed through Submarine in one sitting, but that reason is because I wanted to at least read one of his novels before the event, it started out as force reading but then went to pleasure reading (the review to come and is also counting as part of my Reading Challenge 2014). I also got Wild Abandon, which I am more excited to read, but have only got through the first few pages. 

The turn out is pretty good! Amazing to be honest! A bit more than 30 people squished into the classroom! 

Alright, that's me until the end now. 
(Also due to the nature of the event, I don't have any pictures for this event, however, I will try get the college photo that was taken!...it'll come soon...)

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Event over! I'm not the only one who's asking for my book to get signed!! 

So the events started with a few readings. The first few pages of Submarine, a few pages from Wild Abandon (which I have yet to read), a short story about a band who are trying to make it big and to finish we listened to a selection of his poems. 

After the reading, there was only around ten minutes for a little Q&A. 

Joe said that becoming a writer wasn't something that clicked right away. He originally wanted to be in a band, having written some lyrics for a band and it was also his inspiration for his short story he read to us. He never really knew being a writer was possible, with only two universities that offered it at the time! Realization hit when he was taking his A-levels and there was a creative writing section in the English exam. Having written some short stories, he tried to incorporate those stories in the exam, which didn't really work out. But that and also going to uni was where he started to take it more serious.

I was under water with the film Submarine (ahaha, didn't even realise my choice of words there), but for those who've see it, he had a cameo as a teacher in the beginning section, where all the children were behind him crying over Oliver's death. It was cut. He said it was only a 3 second clip but he's more upset because so. As for another scene that was cut/never made it to the script? The part in the book where Oliver takes his dad to the funfair and makes his dad sit in the electric chair ("it was a bit of a pointless scene and didn't really move the narrative forward") 

How much of Oliver in Submarine is Joe Dunthorne? 
43% ("I wasn't a stalker when I was younger") 

A setting of Wales. Why Wales?

Joe grew up in Wales and influences from that was a part in the settings. 

The Humour:

Many of his novels have a comedic style to them which all seem so natural. His approach to a novel isn't to set out by thinking that the book needs to be humorous, rather that the characters lead the humour. He doesn't force it in. (I think this is awesome because adding humour into a novel is so difficult! It's great that it comes so naturally to him when writing!!)

Storyline or character first? 

A mix of both. He said that he sees a situation and sometimes thinks "oh, what would it be like if so and so happened.." But then there are also times when the character is the one placed in the situations.

Short stories or poems?

They act as a break from one another. Sometimes there are times a break is needed and more freedom whilst writing so for Joe, there isn't a specific preference, it equals out.

Inspirations?

Joe said he reads quite a lot from American authors. 
Highly recommending the book White Noise by Don DeLillo.

And then it was the end of lunch!
Thanks to Joe Dunthorne for visiting my college. 
Also thanks to my English teacher who arranged the event. 
(I doubt he'll see this post but I'm still going to say thanks to him :P)

Everything has been paraphrased. I found it really hard to make notes the old fashioned way and I thought, if I can't directly type, I might as well just listen to what he says and just try remember it all/type everything in at the end.