21 Nov 2023
Restaurant critic for the St Albans Times James Cameron has moved away from evaluating samosas and towards fiction as he releases his first collection of short stories.
‘The Dinner Party Playlist’, features a range of subjects including Charles II, carpentry, murder and the slightly awkward dinner party.
We asked him why he has taken the decision to self-publish the collection himself.
“Mainly because I can. Self-publishing has really become more viable lately and there are many options out there to support authors turning their dreams into reality. This isn’t actually my first book, I put out a novel called ‘No Explosions’ on Kindle about six years ago.
“There’s something so much more satisfying, however, about having an actual physical object that you can hold in your hand. As more and more of our consumption and purchasing is on purely digital items, there’s still an enormous power to the artefact of a book, plus you know it’s not going to get accidentally deleted or lost when you switch devices.
“As I wanted to do things properly I hired an editor through the website Reedsy. This was incredibly helpful but also really interesting as she pointed out things that never would have crossed my mind, such as making it clear whose perspective the story is from.
“I think it’s made me a lot more disciplined in the way that I write. Once I was happy with the finished product I used a company called Book Printing UK to actually print it up. They were fantastic and guided me personally through every step, with multiple proofs for me to weasel out any last mistakes.
“Of course, there are downsides to how easy it is to self-publishing. It means there are a lot of works out there, and it becomes that much more difficult to try and stand out. On balance, though, I think it’s for the best. Like in the world of music when you lose the gatekeepers who decide what should or shouldn’t be allowed out everything becomes a lot more varied and intriguing.”
Music is an interesting comparison, as it runs through the book from the title onwards.
James explains: “Music has always been as big a part of my life as writing, I was in a band as a teenager and that provided a lot of material for my last novel. I think fiction and music serves a similar purpose, to inspire emotions and maybe reawaken old memories. Short stories especially have that compactness of form and concept, like a great song they can take one riff or theme, mess around with it then get out of there before you start to get bored.”
So does this mean that he finds short fiction easier to write than novels? “Well, it’s certainly quicker! It comes more naturally to me too. Part of maturing as a creative of any type is to realise what you do best and embrace it. I thrive on the challenge of a short story – being concise and disciplined in the way you explore plot and characters without the luxury of pages of exposition.
“The problem is, there are also a lot less outputs for short fiction than there used to be.
Going back in time the newsstands used to be chock-full of anthologies of short stories, and pretty much every mainstream magazine, such as the Radio Times or Cosmopolitan, would publish stories. It was a great way for writers at the start of their career to get published, make a bit of money and develop their discipline.
“Nowadays other than the New Yorker there’s very little out there.
“Even in other forms of media the one-off self-contained story is rarer. Television drama is built around serials with cliff-hangers to keep you coming back and even movies now are often open-ended and part of a shared universe.
“The simple pleasure of a story with a beginning, middle and end that can be consumed in a single sitting is increasingly hard to find. It was a great way for writers at the start of their career to get published, make a bit of money and develop their discipline. Nowadays other than the New Yorker there’s very little out there. Even in other forms of media the one-off self-contained story is rarer. Television drama is built around serials with cliff-hangers to keep you coming back and even movies now are often open-ended and part of a shared universe.”
And what is it that inspired the various stories in this collection?
“Oh, all kinds of things. Sometimes it’s things that have happened at work or at home, sometimes it’s a chance to take fictional revenge on someone who’s annoyed you in real life.
“One of the stories was actually inspired by the St Albans telephone exchange.
“I’d worked on Victoria Street for years, then one time I looked out of the window during a particularly dull meeting and noticed a tall building that had never impacted on my consciousness before.
“It made me wonder what could be going on in there. Probably something to do with telephones, but possibly something more interesting.
“It’s in the ‘possibly’ that you can start to have some fun.”
‘The Dinner Party Playlist’ is available to buy from the lovely Books on the Hill, or online or on Kindle from https://thedinnerpartyplaylist.
