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My Writing Life: Jill Dawson

Jill Dawson has won many prizes for poetry, short stories and fiction and has been publishing since she was twenty-three. She is the editor of six anthologies, including the bestselling Virago Book of Wicked Verse. She has eleven novels published by Sceptre, which include Fred & Edie, The Great Lover, The Crime Writer, The Language of Birds and The Bewitching. Her twelfth novel, Pixie, is “a captivating story of the most famous occult artist you’ve never heard of” (Paula Hawkins) and is published by Bloomsbury in March 2026.

1. What book should every writer read?

I believe we should read what we love, that’s all. No rules or recommendations, we are all different.

2. What is your typical writing day like?

Wake up around 6 am: lie there and think. My husband brings me a cup of tea in bed.

Breakfast at 7.30 am

Yoga, fifteen minutes.

Then writing, writing, writing, til 12 noon. Then lunch.

1-2 pm: Walk in the Fens for an hour, where I will see a hare, buzzard, deer, egret – once, even an otter – and feel restored.

2- 5 pm: Reading, Zoom mentoring if I have a Gold Dust student or reading, talking.

5- 8 pm: Faff about. Phone a friend.

Thinking (about my novel)

Make dinner and eat it.

After 8 pm, I tend to be very stupid, and we won’t talk about this.

I once read Ursula Le Guin’s description of her writing day and thought, “Wow, mine is very similar.” Those last two lines above are from Ursula Le Guin’s day, and are the ones that made me smile.

3. Who has been an influential figure in your writing career?

The writers I read in my twenties: Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Ronald Blythe, TS Eliot. They all had an indelible impact on me and made me want to write. Also, Mr Foggin in the sixth form, who encouraged me when my parents most certainly didn’t.

4. What is the one thing you wish someone had told you before you started your career as a professional writer?

Oh god, how much waiting I would do. Waiting to hear back. Waiting to be paid. Waiting for a book to come out. Waiting to hear from your agent. Waiting, waiting. I am not a patient person.

5. What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your writing?

My favourite advice was never given to me (sadly), but is the comment by Joni Mitchell: “I believe a total unwillingness to cooperate is necessary to be an artist.”

6. What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?

I hope it’s yet to come! But I was very proud to get an honorary doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University in 2006 because my mum and my youngest son got to come, and they were gazing at me throughout my speech, and when the recitation about my work was read out. I really did feel proud that day.

7. What are you reading right now?

To start: An Arrow in Flight: a new short story collection by Mary Lavin.

Halfway through: The Occult Sylvia Plath by Julia Gordon Bramer.

Just finished Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys (with an excellent introduction by RLF Fellow Carole Angier).

8. Bookmarker or page-folder?

Are you kidding!!!! Who folds pages?

This article originally appeared on our Substack.

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