Thomas Morris, 37, was born in south Wales and lives in Dublin. Ali Smith called his 2015 debut, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing – stories set in his home town of Caerphilly – “heart-hurtingly acute” and “laugh-out-loud funny... one of the most satisfying collections I’ve read for years”. In his new collection, Open Up, protagonists include a seahorse, a would-be vampire and a lonely 5ft 3in Manchester United fan whose only female friend accuses him of misogyny. Recently named one of Granta’s best young British novelists (“I can see myself writing novels at some point,” he tells me), Morris is a former editor of Irish literary magazine the Stinging Fly, where he gave debuts to Sally Rooney, Nicole Flattery and Wendy Erskine among others.
How did Open Up come together?
These stories have taken time – one took four years and probably went through 82 drafts – and only two have been published; very few journals want a 12,000-word story about a man who identifies as a vampire. After my first book I needed a change, artistically and in life. Editing the Stinging Fly, I was reading 1,000 short stories a year. Having spent 11 years in Ireland, I moved back to my mum’s in Wales to write a second book with a little bit of prize money I’d won. In retrospect I can see the difficulties that were coming – she lived on a farm on a mountain and I can’t drive. As the money dwindled, my life got smaller and smaller and I felt very low physically and mentally. The stories aren’t autobiographical – I’m not a vampire – but they maybe dramatise that stuckness. I don’t know if it’s the moment we’re in; a lot of people in my life seem to feel anxious and confused, like: “What is any of this?” I was writing for them as much as for me.
What led you to write a story from the perspective of a seahorse?
When I’m writing, I default to a kind of earnest realist first person that tries hard to be literary. At some point I get bored and start joking to myself: “Why not write about seahorses for a bit of relief from the Very Important Work over there?” And then the story on the left is the one that starts coming together – being caught by surprise seems to be the way for me to write. I’ve just done a story for radio from the point of view of a seagull, and one of the things I enjoy about that mode is that I can’t use my go-to small details like having someone scratch their chin or sigh during a conversation; I actually have to think, well, how does a seahorse hold its head?
Why is football so important to your characters?
In the past 10 years the Welsh football team has given me more pleasure than anything else in my life. I’ve long said it’s my hope to write Aaron Ramsey’s autobiography as and when he’s ready for it – we’re from the same town, he went to my school and what he and the Welsh team did has been so inspiring to me. For Big Mike [a character in one story], watching Manchester United in the 1999 Champions League final on YouTube is like putting on a nice pair of woollen socks – it’s all OK, Solskjaer will score. For me, growing up in south Wales, being a United supporter was a lovely source of comfort from afar. To have that consistent reassurance that whenever things were going to shit, I could turn on Match of the Day and United will win... There’s a reason so many children are glory hunters.
Did you always want to write?
I started writing in earnest – apart from Welsh-language poetry as a teenager – when I moved to Dublin [in 2005] and had my own computer for the first time. I’d worked all year to save to go to college and the day before moving, I bought a laptop. Suddenly there was a space [where] I could write and my brother wasn’t going to be looking at it in the middle of the night. The first week, I found myself starting to write out fragments of memories or little experiences. I realised if I started sticking them together, there was some momentum and from there I just started fictionalising. On some level I was trying to wrap my head around the strangeness of having left Wales, but I never sat down thinking I’ll write in order to work these things out.
How does the Stinging Fly find so many great authors?
There’s a tendency in Britain to go, ah, aren’t the Irish great with their oral storytelling tradition, as if that’s where [the success] comes from. It’s hard work. One thread of the magazine’s history in the 25 years since it was set up is the growth of the Arts Council [of Ireland] in that time. In Britain, the arts are still up for question – like, should we support them? Whereas in Ireland it feels like they’re important a priori – we’re going to support them. If I’m a writer in Wales wanting to send out work, where do I go? In Ireland, I could send it to the Dublin Review, Banshee, Gorse, the Tangerine, the Stinging Fly. More and more writers from Britain look to get their start here because there aren’t necessarily those outlets in the UK.
What have you been reading lately?
Lizzy Stewart’s graphic novel Alison was glorious – a very subtle story about a working-class artist who didn’t know she was an artist. I’m interested in Local Fires [out in November], the first book of stories by a Welsh writer called Joshua Jones; he’s from Llanelli and they’re all set in the town, so I want to see what’s going on there. I’m delighted to see Chetna Maroo’s novel [longlisted this week for the Booker prize] gain the recognition it deserves. Western Lane is a novel I love with all my heart.
Name a book that inspired you.
BS Johnson’s The Unfortunates. He’s trying to contend with the memories of a friend who died. How do you even begin to organise that kind of material? His solution was to leave it like the randomness of memory – the book is a box of loose leaflets. I was really drawn to that: something I’m often urging writers when I’m working with them – maybe I’m just urging myself – is that it’s essential to put down on the page experiences as they are, rather than morphing them into whatever happens to be the aesthetic convention of the day.
• Open Up is published by Faber (£14.99) on 17 August. To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
