Kate Atkinson Says She'd Rather Write and Be Unpublished

Her reclusive streak was revealed on stage this morning at the Guardian Hay festival, where she confessed her ideal situation would be "to have enough money ... [to] write and not be published". She doesn't, she told Guardian Review editor Lisa Allardice, like reviews or critics. "It's a very uncomfortable thing for a writer, we're very tender," she said. Writing is the thing she does best, how she earns her money, but "not being published would be great", Atkinson continued. "When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane."

Even though she doesn't feel a need to be published, she said she "probably need[s] to write", a distinction which JD Salinger – who hasn't published a word since 1965, despite rumours of shelves groaning with manuscripts – would surely recognise. But it's not an "overwhelming burning urge," she added, suggesting she would "rather potter about in the garden". "My work is not my life," she said. "I started writing quite late, I didn't have that 'writing is everything, my art is all'. You have to be able to recognise the difference between the two."

Usually it takes her two years to write a book, she said, but if she were locked in a room, she could do it in the three months it took her to write her Whitbread-winning novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. "Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book," she said, and "without the time pressure" she could write faster.