LIV LITTLE IN CONVERSATION
“I'm taking time to nourish myself and rest”
Words
CHARLIE BRINKHURST-CUFF
Liv Little is one of my best friends, someone who I know intimately, and yet still manages to surprise me. A screenwriter, author, the founder of a groundbreaking magazine, and the host of ELLE UK’s podcast Why I… Move, whenever we meet, our conversations take us to different worlds. Yes, we speak about work, about the ideas percolating in our minds, the stories we’re yet to tell. But we also delight in family matters, in learning each other’s histories, and in making plans for the future, both big and small. We find joy together easily.
Sitting at Caravan’s restaurant in Kings Cross, London – an area we’ve frequented often together thanks to the takeover we did at the Guardian back in 2018 – our conversation ranges from a dinner we’re planning with our mums and aunties (we were both raised by identical twins), to her new film club, The Feels, which she arranged to be an “intimate and informal space to watch and discuss films which explore the beauty, messiness and complexities of relationships”. This has been a huge year for Liv thanks to the release of her debut novel Rosewater, and a slew of exciting projects in the works for the screen — but she’s also made another big decision, to move back to London from her current base by the sea in Margate. Here’s a snippet of our conversation.
CHARLIE
I’m interested in the headspace you’re inhabiting at the moment. What does your current routine look like?
LIV
I feel like I've been in a period where things have been going at a reasonable pace. I haven't felt wildly under pressure. That's because I'm not writing to a specific deadline right now. But I will be very soon. So, I've been enjoying this slower period. I've been trying to take time to nourish myself and to rest. Taking in culture rather than forcing myself to come up with lots of new ideas. Because, as I said, I know that in a few weeks, that's going to be very different. Old me would have felt very guilty for leaning into a period where I don't have to kill myself with work and do things in a more conscious way. Because I'd be like, Oh, wait, I must be using every moment of my time. But I think with these periods in between writing or kick-starting a new project, I'm now learning to work with a new schedule, and give my body what it needs.
CHARLIE
That’s good you’re giving yourself time to consume more culture as well as create. What’s the most recent film you’ve watched?
LIV
Saltburn. It was definitely an interesting film. I liked the fact that there was an attempt to subvert this rich kid, poor kid story. Funnily enough, I recently started a film club, which is lovely and wholesome. I hosted a screening of one of my favourite films, called The Worst Person in the World. It’s about a millennial woman who is… not necessarily finding herself through her relationships, because I think she has quite a clear sense of who she is. But I think it's very interesting to track the different relationships and versions of herself that she tries on when she is with these significant men in her life. And she's someone who, when she doesn't like something, or when she's bored of something, she tries a new thing. I'm a big fan of not feeling like you must do the same thing forever. Reinvention. I've been speaking to quite a lot of people about that. It's very easy to pigeonhole people and assume that they can only do one thing, look like one thing, move through the world in a certain way or make art in a certain way.
CHARLIE
Absolutely. I feel like in the time we’ve known each other, basically since we were teenagers, we’ve reinvented ourselves a few times now, right? I mean that in the personal and the professional sense. But do you feel like you’ve been pigeonholed at any point in your career?
LIV
Obviously, I was running a magazine, gal-dem, that was close to a lot of people's hearts and that people recognise the name of. But it's interesting because I was also someone who had started my career working in TV. And I've always really enjoyed that. It's something I've come back to and it's reignited my creative passion. I just feel like I'm tapping into new levels of joy. So actually, I think, yes, I have been pigeonholed. It probably is taking a little while for people to realise that I am multifaceted, but you know, I published a book, I'm working on this TV stuff, and slowly people can see my expansiveness. The thing that's always been there is that I wanted to tell stories.
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CHARLIE
We’re sitting here and eating. We’ve always bonded over good food and you’ve always treated me to nice meals out, even though you didn’t cook for me for YEARS! Why did you decide to write about your relationship with food and gatherings for Hush?
LIV
Firstly, this tiramisu is good. I do make a good tiramisu. My partner loves it. And I live very close to one of the restaurants that I think does the best tiramisu, Bottega Caruso in Margate.
CHARLIE
It does.
LIV
But yeah, I wrote about how “me time” is downtime in the kitchen, even after a really long day. Or on a Saturday or Sunday, spending literally hours, whether that's meticulously preparing a roast or trying out a new recipe that has 50 million sides. Much like you, I love to cook. I feel like it’s a gift of love that my mum and grandma passed down to me. A Caribbean thing, where you don't want people to leave your house hungry. My grandma is now loving my food. She’s a really tough critic. And my mum, too. Last year I did Christmas for around 13 people. My mum had only compliments. It was good food. And that was really special. I think my mum felt quite emotional being in her adult daughter’s kitchen, getting to just sit and be fed.
CHARLIE
That will be me this year actually, cooking for my family in my home for the first time. My question is, at the moment as we’re just moving out of our 20s, there’s still a novelty to some of these experiences. How do we retain that joy long-term?
LIV
There's always so much devastation that's going on in the world. I think it's easy for us to view ourselves as these very separate entities, because of the conditions that we live under, because of the ways that we work, and because of the way that capitalism sets up society. Every man for himself kind of thing, right? It’s something my partner and I have been speaking about. She's been very self-sufficient from a young age. The idea of community and having others around you are things we’ve learned to lean into. For me, when I think about moving back to London I'm thinking about what rituals I’m going to schedule in. I want to implement Sunday dinners at my house once a month, with my core best friends. I don't think I'll lose the joy because it has become a regular staple. I think it will be something that brings me more joy.
CHARLIE
What do you think your understanding of community is at this point in your life?
LIV
It's not a vague thing that exists outside of myself. It's not followers. I might be a part of the wider queer community and internet communities that exist beyond the immediate, and that is very important to me, but I think moving to a very small town, Margate, and seeing the physicality of people showing up for each other, has been beautiful. I think as magical as digital communities are and as much as they helped me to connect with so many people, my community is people and faces I know and can name. My community is you. The people who are going to come and set up for my dad's funeral. Who are there to pick up my future kids from school. Who are there to just have an impromptu glass of wine on a Tuesday, just because we deserve to celebrate each other. I view my friends as my as my family and I try to invest in them as much as possible.
Read Liv’s micro-fiction, A Moment in Hush, written exclusively for us.
Liv’s debut novel, Rosewater, is available now.