Francis Spufford, a writer once not a writer

16 February 2022

If you were a writer like British author Francis Spufford is, but didn’t want to call yourself a writer, as was once the case for Spufford, what title would you settle for instead?

It took me a long time to decide I wanted to be a writer. And then I felt that to call myself a writer, let alone a novelist, would be a kind of boast. I accepted it gradually, once I could see the objects I’d made.

If it were me, and we were talking about say works of fiction, I’d probably describe myself as a storyteller.