UKC

Ed Douglas' award-winning words have graced the pages of magazines, journals, books, newspapers and many a website over the past 30 years. The breadth and depth of his work - published in both mainstream and climbing media - make Ed a highly respected voice in mountaineering and climbing writing.

In this series of interviews, we talk to prominent climbing writers about their reading habits between - or even during - routes and expeditions, focusing not only on the growing realm of mountain literature, but also on books of other genres that have informed their thinking and writing. What does Ed - described as 'reticent about himself' as a writer - read between his writing and expeditions?

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In reply to UKC Articles:

Well done Natalie, love the questions. More like this please!

In reply to UKC Articles:

Great interview. I loved 'The Magician's Glass'. It's well worth getting hold of a copy.

David Millington

In reply to AlH:

Likewise, I really enjoyed this - and his book.

The final draft of my review is currently with Dan Bailey and should be published next week.

In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

Have a copy at my elbow as my next read. Looking forwards to it all the more now.

In reply to UKC Articles:

I think is by far the best interview I've seen on UKC. Excellent, well done.

In reply to UKC Articles:

I really enjoyed this. Thank you.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Reading this was a lovely way to spend my lunchtime - thanks!

I think The Magician's Glass will be another book to add to my pile!

In reply to UKC Articles:

That was fantastic, Natalie.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Thanks. Good reading. I particularly liked 'Sometimes people succeed because they're missing something, not because they have something extra.'
Quite.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Some great questions for sure but digital Q&A lacks the cut and thrust of good interviewing and gives the interviewee the opportunity to hone and polish his or her reply - it'd be great to hear live interviews with writers either as podcast or filmed pieces as Nathalie clearly has a passion for mountain literature and would surely take no prisoners. Not sure about Boardman Tasker - after all, little of it appears original, more warmed over stuff published elsewhere.

In reply to john yates:
I've considered doing more spoken/live interviews, but in the case of this series I reckon the questions require a fair bit of time to construct a response. They're tough questions (which Ed explicitly asked me for!) and even some of the simpler ones like 'What was the first book you read?', 'Which book disappointed you most?' etc would take some thought...or I'd certainly need a while to reflect, anyway!

I rarely have the opportunity to meet the authors in person or conduct a spoken interview via Skype, which takes time to transcribe and often requires rewriting multiple times (most people don't speak as eloquently as they write, especially in the case of writers and when they read their answers back it often sounds too informal, or they haven't got their point across as well as they had intended, etc.) Spoken interviews can work well, but it depends on the interviewee and the subject of discussion, I think. Simple catch-ups and news interviews - fine. But some stuff doesn't work as well, I've found. Writers generally seem to enjoy taking the time to 'write' answers back to me. Personally, I'm much more expressive in writing than I am in speech.

As it happens, the next one may be possible to do in person, so I'll suggest it to the author and see what she says! It'll be an interesting experiment!

As an example, my interview with Lynn Hill was conducted on Skype, and took days to transcribe and we went through three or four iterations before Lynn was happy to publish. I suppose it depends how you talk. Lynn's speech was very Americanised and colloquial, which she wasn't too keen on transferring to the finished, written piece: https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=9151