Andrew Hurley

More and more I feel that everything influences my writing – other writers, people, music, art, history, a supermarket, boredom, love, death, my children. Writing for me is a way of finding meaning in everything, trying to preserve moments in the exterior and interior worlds that otherwise might slip by.

I have put off a novel for some time now, preferring the economy and, well, shortness of short stories and feel ready to write something of length. I know that the novel will be set in the North West and will be about a boy who is immortal, a girl with a nose ring and the Cold War. I went somewhere new and exciting with the story The Unusual Death of Julie Christie in my last collection and want to explore the areas between the ordinary and the strange in a longer piece of work. All I need to do now is write it.

Biography

Born in 1975, Andrew was brought up in the North West of England. After living in Manchester and London, he returned to Lancashire, where he makes a living teaching English and writing. He graduated from MMU with an MA in Creative Writing, achieving a distinction.

He is at the beginning what promises to be an exciting and strong writing career, marked by integrity and a passion for the details in life. His stories have been published in magazines such as Libbon, Muse and Positive Space. He is also a regular contributor to Transmission.

• Listen to Andrew read from Guns and How They Work, which you can read in Square Cuts, flax001
  
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Publications

• The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Other Stories (Lime Tree Press, 2008)
• Cages and Other Stories (Lime Tree Press, 2006)

Reviews

• Reviews (for ‘Julie Christie’)
  ‘If ever you feel that the short story is running out of steam, think again. Andrew Michael Hurley writes stories about ordinary people, who may happen to be lost and are trying to find their way. Sympathy, Enlightenment, Negotiation – placenames on their roadmaps. He writes superbly about connection and disconnection. Sometimes, as in the title story of this excellent collection, there’s a welcome hint of the strange, like in the stories of Brian Howell or Christopher Kenworthy, and then the disconnection is not only between people, but also between people and the world. Highly recommended.’
  Nicholas Royle
• ‘Hurley proves himself to the master of describing muted emotions and numbed mindsets. The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Other Stories is a tender and skilfully rendered collection – proof that a selection of good, sad stories can be the tonic that we all need once in a while.’
  Read the full review from Graham Foster at Transmission
• Cages and Other Stories - is full of welcome surprises and deft changes of tone. Strong on mood, dialogue and atmosphere, Hurley tells powerful stories that linger in the mind, that make you think and feel and fill you with wonder and dread. An excellent collection: powerfully imagined and vividly rendered.
  Time Out – August 2006
• Andrew Michael Hurley offers an intriguing cast of characters in familiar scenarios occasionally with twists, though more often without, whose lives seem largely uncomplicated, deliberately drab and drawn with narrow detail. … What is inescapable throughout the book is the sense of a good writer experimenting. Hurley’s success lies in the developing of good ideas – Of Acid and Water and Tell Me Again About the Thunder stand out for their acuity and weight.
  Transmission – September 2006

Personal Reflection

It’s hard to explain exactly what makes me want to write, but I don’t feel quite right when I’m not doing it. Orwell described writing as a battle against an illness. I think that’s about right.

Perhaps it’s easier to explain what I write about. At the risk of sounding misanthropic, I think there’s a wonderfully gloomy truth in Larkin’s idea that “Life is first boredom, then fear”, that human experience tends to distill down to the same debilitating feelings of loneliness, isolation and anxiety. What’s interesting to me - and I think the short story is the perfect form to explore this - is how and why these moments in which we confront these basic fears arise. The stories I write are about how we cope when holes appear in the ordinary world and we get a glimpse of something profound, eternal, overwhelming, how we improvise our way through – and all the sad, strange, creative, pointless, joyful, stupid things we do to fill the holes in again.