Orlaine McDonald, 55, came to writing late, having worked for many years in arts education, taking theatre to schools and pupil referral and youth offending units. After attending a local writing group in her spare time, she started composing poetry and short stories, which led to an MA in creative and life writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her debut novel, No Small Thing (Serpent’s Tail), is a spare, haunting tale of three generations of black women newly thrown into living together on a south London housing estate. Livia, Mickey and Summer are tied by blood but estranged and isolated, each masking pain that plays out in reckless and complicated ways. Described as “raw and beautiful” by the novelist Francis Spufford, the book is alert to issues of inequality, generational trauma and race. McDonald was born in the West Midlands to a Jamaican father and Irish mother and has three children (her daughter is 6 Music DJ Jamz Supernova). McDonald lives in south London and continues to work in education.
Tell us about writing No Small Thing…
I started at the beginning of 2019 and spent two years slowly building it. I wrote many drafts and finally sent it out [to publishers] towards the end of 2021. I’m a painfully slow writer and can find it really hard to commit anything to the page without wanting to immediately revise and refine. I was lucky to have a good friend who allowed me to send a section each Friday and held me to account if I didn’t. He didn’t give feedback, but something had to land in his inbox every week or he would give me merry hell! I have to write when time allows, so that’s a 6am slot before work, on my short commute, and over the weekends and school holidays. I choose my social engagements carefully and it helps living alone. In fact, for me it’s essential.
How would you describe it?
The book examines mothering, identity, desire and loss and the terrible damage we can cause, despite ourselves.
In what ways does the story reflect your experiences?
What I have in common [with the women] is that they are mixed race and working class. Some of the elements, like insecure housing and abusive relationships, I’ve experienced. And the experience of not always feeling that there are lots of opportunities opening up for you as a black woman from a – for want of a better word – disadvantaged background.
It highlights the ways in which life can be very tough for black women…
Where do you want me to begin? Structural racism, maternal health disparities, regressive welfare measures, workplace inequality and discrimination, insecure housing... for women like Mickey, like the women in my family and women I meet and support in my job, these are real, everyday challenges. I live these things, I see them. As a writer it’s important that I don’t look away.
Which authors were formative for you?
I can’t say that I come from a literary family. My mum and dad were aspirational and understood the importance of books, but my earliest reading was at school and I read what I could get my hands on. We had this neighbour who kept bags full of books at the top of her stairs and when I was about 12 or 13 I got into Mills & Boon! Later, I had a great teacher who introduced me to Dickens and Shakespeare. Then, when I was a young mum, I moved up to Chapeltown in Leeds with my son and his dad. He was a young actor, working with a theatre company up there. It was a tumultuous time in our lives. I was on my own a lot, but I found a library. That’s where I discovered Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Buchi Emecheta, and they blew my mind. Suddenly I discovered black women writers.
What have you read recently?
I very much enjoy short, intense books like Natasha Brown’s Assembly, Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These.
What did working in arts education teach you?
The importance of art. The importance of ensuring young people, children, have access to art, because art and creativity can change lives, whether you want to make a career in it or whether it’s just a way of expressing yourself.
What art has changed your life?
Obviously reading, but also music. I love music that I can dance to and lose myself in. I love going to see Aba Shanti-I. He has a sound system and I share that love of him with my younger brother and sister. Not often enough, we get together and go to a gig. And that, for me, is really freeing; that’s when I feel most alive. I’ve recently read, slightly late to the party, Jacqueline Crooks’s Fire Rush, and she encapsulates my experience in the late 70s/early 80s as a woman going to dub night. You know, the walls shaking and just dancing in that free way.
You had access to authors such as Jackie Kay and Bernardine Evaristo on your MA course. What did you learn from them?
First, I love the way both writers seem to effortlessly flow between poetry and fiction. Second, I think history has often sought to erase the presence of black women, and both writers put black women on the page, which feels not only politically important but is also such a joyful and celebratory act. Both writers are instrumental to me believing that writing is something I could dare to do.
What advice would you give would-be writers?
Be selfish. Be ruthless. Do whatever is necessary to carve out small moments to give to your craft. The world needs our stories and voices.
• No Small Thing is published by Serpent’s Tail (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
