In this podcast I talk with author Des Barry about how digital media has influenced his career.
(c) Music by Carl Beswick.
Des Barry gave consent for this interview to be recorded.
Transcription:
Carl Beswick: Hi, I’m Carl Beswick, and welcome to this podcast episode on creative writing. Today I’ll be talking with author Des Barry, whose novels include The Chivalry of Crime, A Bloody Good Friday and Cressida’s Bed. We’ll be talking primarily about digital media, and how it has changed the way that writers work. Hi, Des, welcome, and thanks for taking the time to speak with me.
Des Barry: My pleasure.
Carl Beswick: In terms of your own writing, what has surprised you about the way that the digitisation of media has affected your writing practice?
Des Barry: I don’t think anything really surprised me about digital media. It did make my writing go in particular directions. Like, in 2006, there was a competition for a Creative Wales Award, it was the first of its kind, where they were offering quite a lot of money to, what did they say, pushing the boundaries of your form. At that time, though, my form was a novel and so I put in a request for this award with a project that I got off the top of my head, really. But what I wanted to do with a novel was to take it in a direction that I thought could utilise the internet a lot, so I actually ended up publishing this novel under a under a pseudonym, David Enrique Spellman, D-E-S, Des. The novel is called Far South. And it actually contains QR codes and the QR codes take you to places on the web, where you can see films there. We also did a huge website as well. I won the award. So, it meant I could go to Argentina and spend six months in Argentina to research the novel. Eventually, we produced this novel, and it was also with interviews and dance videos, so there was about twenty-four people involved all together. So digital media in that sense, obviously, there’s an Ebook as well. But I think the main push to publish directly on the web began in 2014, when I actually started writing for the web at 3:AM Magazine. And the first piece I wrote was for William Burroughs’ hundredth anniversary of his birth. And since then I’ve been writing a lot for 3:AM Magazine. And I think the direction is taking me in my writing is that I wanted to explore more nonfiction, creative nonfiction. And 3:AM Magazine gave me the space to do that, for example, but also they want you to break the limits of critical theory. So, I ended up, I’ve written lots and lots of articles for them. Also, a lot of reviews and most recently a review on Anna Kavan’s Machines in the Head, which was like pretty much like an essay on her work, before that Chris Kraus’ After Kathy Acker, and that was quite nice. She actually wrote to me after I wrote it and said, I really got, I really understood what he was trying to do, which was a great kind of pat on the back for me personally. It’s just so great, wonderful that the review got that kind of response from the person who was writing it. And especially somebody I really respect a lot.
Carl Beswick: Yeah, that’s a really great result. It sounds like it’s been super positive for you.
Des Barry: Yeah, definitely. We have so many magazines online now, younger writers, emerging writers, old established writers who want to do something else. There’s a lot of scope but, you know, magazines like 3:AM Magazine is one thing: Quart is another; Lit Hub is another; Minor Literatures is, you know, quite influential as well. Also, most magazines like The New Yorker, Granta, all have a digital outlet when things don’t get into, you know, they get a massive influx of submissions. Obviously, they can’t put everything in the print magazine, but it’s much easier to put it up on an online magazine. So, there are loads of opportunities out there, I think.
Carl Beswick 
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