'Natural-Born Bullshitter'

Alan Smith, British novelist, playwright, journalist, and professor, spoke to Dr. Terry Clark’s Blogging for Journalists class October 30.  Smith is currently a guest speaker for the University of Central Oklahoma’s Passport to England program.

Smith is a senior lecturer in creative writing at The University of Northampton, and has taught philosophy and English at Her Majesty’s Prison Wellingborough since 1999. Smith has published over 70 articles in The Guardian since 2001 about his experiences in the prison. He has published two novels through Headline Review publishing house: Big Soft Lads (1997) and What About Me? (1998).

Not only is Smith an elegant writer, but he is also a wonderful storyteller. Instead of writing an even longer biography of the Brit, I thought I would pull some great quotes from our session with him:

"If (newspapers) are not paying you for it with money, they don't value it! They will exploit you rotten!"

On attempting to publish his first novel: "Agents asked me 'who are you? and why would people want to read you?' You don't take no; you go on and on and on."

“I don’t really believe in democracy. Lenin said freedom, well, I think that freedom is so precious that it ought to be rationed.”

“The problem about the blogosphere is a bit like being a tree in a forest. There is no editorial process: it’s like open house. For big newspapers, you have to be able to construct a sentence, you have to write a paragraph, and you have to be able to spell. If you can’t do these things you will not get past the door. In the blogosphere, it doesn’t matter. If you cannot properly use an apostrophe, you are too stupid to have a degree from this university. You are writers living in the world not as you want it to be, but as it is.”

Clark: “You have to explain technology to them.” Smith: “You make me feel like Fred Flinstone.”

Clark: “Story of my life.”

Clark: “What do you think the future of journalism is?”
Smith: “Oh this machinery stuff! … Once we have used all our natural resources, perhaps in 100 years, we’ll be back to newspapers. (As for now), I’ve attended parties, I’ve even gotten drunk with the editor, but I have never stepped foot in the office (of The Guardian). I write my copy, squirt it down the line, they put in the paper, and they put the money in my bank.”

On Fifty Shades of Grey: “All they (big publishing houses) want is something for them (people) to read on the beach while they get melanoma!"

Clark: "How did you learn to be such a storyteller?" 

Smith: "Just a natural born bullshitter!"