Michael Spring

Michael Spring lives and works in London, where he is a director of a small corporate design agency. Over the last few years he has had a little more time in which to write, and was encouraged by having a couple of short stories broadcast on Radio Northern Ireland. Since then, he has had fiction published in magazines in the UK, the US and Canada. He’s married with two grown-up children.

Allaboutlove has published a couple of Michael’s short stories. You can read them online or buy pdf versions.

Tell us a little about yourself. Where do you live and what’s your day job?

I’ve lived in the same area of London - Queens Park, near Kilburn - for over 20 years. Once upon a time (particularly when the kids were small) I tried to persuade my wife Vanessa that we should head for the country, or at least to the leafier suburbs, but now I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. London really is a huge cultural event as well as a great city. You can go out any night of the week and have the choice of maybe 40 plays, any number of concerts, comedy shows, poetry readings. It’s a great place to be. I worked for years in marketing - doing some exciting things and a lot more very mundane ones. About ten years ago, I helped a friend of mine to start a design and marketing company, and we’re still, remarkably, here.

What else do you write, besides short stories?

I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to writing. I like trying different styles and different things. I’ve written some (for today) really unfashionable poetry, in that it sometimes rhymes, and sometimes tells a story. I write comedy too, as well as more serious stuff. Hot Summer was written really as a writing exercise, to see if I could make something sexy and interesting at the same time.

How do you manage to write so sensitively from the perspective of a woman, in The Weight?

I suppose this could be Freudian, but I quite often like writing from a woman’s perspective. It’s quite liberating somehow, and it frees your ideas up it seems to me. All you need as a writer is to be able to observe, and then - once you have your characters in place - really let your imagination go. Stay true to your characters, and follow them. It’s almost as though they have a life of their own.

Oh come on, we’re dying to know: is Hot Summer all made up? All of it?

Nothing’s ever totally made up. I did live in a cottage in the country for about two years when I was in my first job after leaving University. It was a beautiful and idyllic place and in the first year I was there, it was hot. The sun always seemed to shine. But as for the characters and what happens to them, that is pretty much made up. Some strange and exciting things have happened to me, but never that strange.

What do you think about love? Do you believe in it? Have you found it?

I’m amazed by my wife’s continual commitment and love. We’ve had our ups and downs, but we do (I hope!) understand each other, as we should after all this time. Love is often a feeling that defies logic - the most unsuitable people fall in love with each other and often at the most inconvenient times. All part of the divine comedy, I suppose, but thank goodness, I’ve been lucky.