Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974 and now lives and works there. Her first novel, Haweswater, was published by Faber in 2002. Her second, The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004. In 2007 she won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her latest novel is The Carhullan Army.

Mark Thwaite: What gave you the initial idea for The Carhullan Army?

Sarah Hall: One of the chief inspirations, or influences, for the book was the severe flooding in Cumbria in the winter of 2005. It was a really terrible event - hundreds of people were displaced, a systematic failure occurred, and then there was a long recovery process. It seemed like the darkly predicated future was beginning to arrive. Previous to this I had wanted to write a novel about female aggression. The two things wound together, along with a few other topical issues - fundamentalism, and the radicalization of belief that can happen within closed societies, the decline of British farming industries, peak oil, economic downturns.

MT: How long did it take you to write your book? Is this about usual for you?

SH: Really, I have no precise answer. I never diarize my projects - though I probably should. I started the piece and thought perhaps I had a short story on my hands. Then I had a break, worked on another novel, and came back to Carhullan. After that I forged ahead quite quickly. I don't know if there is a usual time-scale - my publication dates run 2002, 2004, 2007, so that's 2-3 years from conception to production and sale.

MT: How do you write? Longhand or directly onto a computer, straight off or with lots and lots of editing?

SH: While researching I make handwritten notes. These days my first draft is written on a computer. Editing is very important - there are some sections that arrive well formed, but others don't. I like to print out and make marks on the page, then go back to the screen and alter the document. I suppose I tend to macro-manage on the computer and micro-manage on a hardcopy.

MT: This is your first venture into (a form of) sci-fi -- but it's a kind of literary sci-fi: what draw you to want to explore the future in this way?

SH: Every novel is a venture into new territory for me. The story could only have been told the way it has been. There was no rationale or strategy behind it, and I didn't feel like I was using any genre-designed apparatus during its composition. I write the best novels I can each time - with no compromise on language, plot, and layering. I think, I hope, this novel is recognizably mine, even while it departs from my previous work, historically and somewhat stylistically. I still don't know exactly what constitutes science fiction, or what constitutes literary fiction for that matter, nor am I too concerned about these borders. If it works it works. Luckily I have a publisher on the same page.

MT: Were Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin guiding lights here?

SH: They were not. I think it's fair to say that science fictions and dystopian fictions often converse topically, or discuss similar subject matters from differing angles (such as survival of the species/reproductive control). To a degree I had The Handmaid's Tale at the back of my mind. But if anything I wrote away from it - I wanted to create a more pro-active role for my female characters, and the scenarios I chose to write about are different. Carhullan is a very northern, very British book I think. It's also a book of its era.

MT: Is The Carhullan Army a feminist novel? What does feminism mean to you in 2008?

SH: Yes it is; that's certainly one reading. It is a story concerned with female issues, along side others, and because the lead female characters are fighting against oppression the qualification made is that it's feminist. But that's a single tag. And it's a shame female characters still don't seem quite able to stand for the human condition in our minds the way male ones do.

I think feminism is a set of tools, which can be used to interpret and improve social and political circumstances. Those tools have certainly not become redundant. Nor should they be used exclusively by women.

MT: What was the most difficult aspect of writing your novel? How did you overcome it?

SH: Probably the cutting. My natural inclination is to add, and this novel needed to be lean. The decision to make the jump-cuts, the 'lost data' sections, was difficult too, though it was the right decision. I knew it would unsettle some readers. But this is not intended as a comfortable read. It is a book that invites the reader to ask 'why?' I wanted readers to think about censorship and manipulation, the presentation of documents and artifacts, especially relating to war. There were also scenes that were difficult to write, simply because they deal with human cruelty or upset, and are visceral, such as the torture scenes and the fitting of the contraceptive coil.

MT: You are a winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2007 and of lots of other prizes too. What did they mean to you personally? And what do you think of literary prizes in general?

SH: It's an honour to be singled out by judging panels, and to have met their criteria each time in an open field. It's great validation of the work. And I'm always surprised by it. There's a particularity to my writing I think, which can be divisive.

MT: Do you read the critics? Have you been pleased with the responses to your book? Have you learned anything from them?

SH: On the whole I tend not to read reviews - though reviews of my own work often make it my way via publishers. The responses have generally been positive over the years, which is heartening. There have been comments that have been helpful, but not necessarily in an editorial way. I'm not sure that our critical arenas are in robust health presently. There's too little money, too little time, and too little column space.

MT: What do you do when you are not writing?

SH: I try not to think about writing.

MT: Did you have an idea in your mind of your "ideal" reader? Did you write specifically for them?

SH: I don't know if there is an ideal reader, and novels are such variable things. There are experiences I hope a reader would enjoy while reading my novels, but these are experiences not designed to exclude anyone. I'm endlessly surprised by what people get out of reading, or don't, and which books they get it from, or don't, so I think notions of who you write for and what you are offering, are, in part, futile. Perhaps I'm trying to provide for readers of certain sensibilities, who enjoy a certain kind of literary ride, but there's no telling who that is exactly.

MT: What are you working on now?

SH: Another novel, set between Italy and the UK, and a collection of short stories.

MT: Who is your favourite writer? What is/are your favourite book(s)?

SH: I'm a big Cormac McCarthy fan, and a big Marilynne Robinson fan. The Crossing and Housekeeping are among my favourite novels. Lately I've also really enjoyed books by Andrew Miller, Daniel Woodrell, Damon Galgut, Kate Clanchy, and Julia Leigh.

MT: Do you have any tips for the aspiring writer!? Eat local honey.

MT: Anything else you would like to say?

SH: Thank you.