Portrait/Interview: Betty Wood
Writer & Online Editor at PORT Magazine
Editorial and design consultant Anna Stewart asks 5 questions
to writer and online editor Betty Wood.
You are a writer but that hasn’t always been the case…
I started out working in tax, which was as dull as it sounds.
I was fresh out of University and I needed a job and so it goes. It took me a few years to figure out what I wanted to do, and I spent a couple of years working as a teaching assistant in a secondary school, before moving into editorial. That was a great job, though slightly surreal.
It was actually my old high school, in my hometown, and it was akin to living in a goldfish bowl. I’d walk my dog and bump into students in the park. I couldn’t go to the supermarket without seeing someone from work. Being a semi-closeted queer at the time, I found it a little stressful, as privacy was impossible.
But I got a lot from that job. Don’t listen to what the Daily Mail tells you, teenagers are magnificent and exceptionally generous creatures. They feel everything so acutely; every
day is full of drama and intrigue. I didn’t enjoy being sworn at so much, but I did enjoy forming relationships with the students I worked with, many of who had very specific learning needs, and some of whom had behavioural problems – anger, anxiety, stress, ADHD. We had kids who were in foster care too; they were probably the ones I bonded with most, for no other reason than they responded so generously to simply showing an interest in them.
It was immensely rewarding.
Your writing has covered different genres from film and food to literature and design.
If you could write about any topic, what would it be?
I would love to write a column one day. I think the thread that links my work is craftsmanship.
I’m obsessed with it. I treat every interview I do as a learning experience, as though I’m getting a window into someone else’s world and that really excites me. I’m also very interested in business: not necessarily from a turnover point of view, but about brands and building identity. Entrepreneurs are the modern pioneers.
I’d love to write more on queer issues too; it’s always something I’ve shied away from before, as I’ve never really felt like I fit anywhere in particular within the gay scene. I don’t identify
with labels, but I think I’m more comfortable discussing LGBT issues now.
I can be part of that dialogue.
Writing can be quite a personal process, how much of yourself goes into your work?
I’ve been writing a few very personal essays recently, the first of which is being published next month. I re-wrote it three times because I was worried about ‘speaking for others’; when I’m writing from my own experience I’m very confident in my voice, but naturally, you worry about presenting other people in a way they’d like to be seen. I put an enormous amount into my work in the respect that, if I write something and people don’t like it, that hurts me.
But it’s also part of the job.
Of course, if you’re writing for a client, it’s about finding their voice, not mine.
I am quite good at being able to switch between the two. I enjoy the challenge of that.
What’s been your most challenging and most rewarding story to date?
Probably an essay I wrote last week for Some Such Words: it’s a two and a half thousand-word essay on cinematic memory, inspired by my grandmother. It was quite emotional writing it, though the final version doesn’t reflect this so much, because I removed a lot of it
(too personal. See above.) I was writing about my grandparents, how Alzheimer’s affected
my family; I wrote about a car accident I was involved in as a teenager – it was serious stuff, laced with macabre humour and observations. But I had to self-censor, make it accessible, and hope that should my parents ever read it, they aren’t mad at me for over-sharing.
There’s always compromise involved when writing from personal experience, but then, memory is always compromised too…
What does the future hold for Betty Wood?
I’m launching my own podcast series within the next three months, Letters From London, which I’m incredibly excited about. I’m very into radio, and really enjoy content that can work across mediums. I’m also starting to publish work in the US, and here in the UK, which is exciting. Where I’m going to…
I guess it’s a case of watch this space.
November 2014