Kevin Macdonald,
Q. You made your film, Life In A Day, with Ridley Scott using clips from Youtube. Are you a big fan of social media in general?
A. I'm not on Facebook. I don't upload to YouTube. I can't see why anyone would possibly be interested in my generally tedious life. But - in a typically hypocritical-documentary-maker-way - I am fascinated by what other people put up on social media sites, by the image they are trying to create, by the (non-commercial) creativity that is displayed and the sometimes stunningly intimate material that some people share with the world. And there is no doubt that 'social media' has fundamentally changed the fabric of the world we inhabit.
Q. Should Scotland be independent?
A. No. Devolution I support - but why encourage nationalism, just as the rest of the world is rejecting a traditional sense of nationhood?
Q. Which book do you wish you’d written?
A. The first edition of the OED.
David Vann, author of Caribou Island
Q. Suicide is a key theme in your books. Why is that?
A. My father killed himself when I was thirteen, and there have been other suicides in my family, including my great grandmother and the murder/suicide of my stepmother’s parents. So it was an unavoidable subject for me. I do find writing catharctic, but I don’t view it as therapy. Fiction and therapy are both about truth, but fiction is also about the beautiful. These ugly family stories transform into something else.
Q. What are you afraid of?
A. Death, of course, like everyone else, and the smallness of my life, and loneliness.
Q. Which book do you wish you'd written?
A. Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, the American answer to Dante’s Inferno. The most direct path to greatness is found through hell, and every sentence of this book which describes such ugliness in humanity is unbelievably beautiful.
Kevin Macdonald talks about his film, Life In A Day, today at 9.45pm at the Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage. David Vann and David Beemozgis talk to Jon Gower today at 7pm at the Summer House
For information on upcoming events at the Hay Festival, see the Hay Festival programme.