The Monthly talks to Prison Arts Foundation’s Writer-in-Residence at HMP Magilligan, Pamela Brown – Part 1 – From automatic to studying Literature and Creative Writing

Do you have any early memories of being attracted to writing?

I have a younger sister, three years younger than me, and after she was born, I recall writing poems for her.

I think I always say to people that even as young as four years old I became my own therapist. I would pick up a pen and write. That sustained me through my childhood. I find it very difficult to talk about my childhood, but I could always write, and express my emotions that way.

I don’t remember being taught to read or write. It was just always something I could do, so I think I did a lot of what you might call automatic writing. Writing was just a way to try and understand your emotions and your experiences.

Did you get any support at home or at school?

I went to school in Donegal, and I know I am not the only one who came through that school system who felt terrible about the way they were treated, and couldn’t understand how teachers could treat students so badly. There is a documentary, “Leathered” about the school system in the south but I haven’t been able to watch it yet.

How did you keep on being interested in writing?

I have an older brother and he was always reading, so he was always giving me books like “Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy”. While my friends were reading books like Nancy Drew, I was reading very different kinds of books.

I lived in a rural environment, and I was going round knocking on doors asking people if they had any books I could read. I always had an appetite for reading, and it served as a form of escapism. If your head is in a book you can switch off from the environment around you.

What happens then?

I did my leaving certificate and I did okay at it. I moved to London for a while and then came back to live in Derry. I had children. I raised two boys mostly on my own.

It was much later when I engaged with the Open University. I did my degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. Then I did a Master’s Through Teesside University.

The formal education was very much to support being an autodidactic scholar. I think once you start reading seriously, one author leads to another. If you read William Burroughs, that leads you to Bukowski and you end up reading Ginsberg or Kerouac.