First Writes: Alice Austen
In this returning Q&A, we throw some questions about ‘firsts’ at debut authors. This month we feature playwright and screenwriter Alice Austen, author of 33 Place Brugmann, a WWII-set novel which doubles as love story and philosophical puzzle

What’s the first book you remember reading as a child? I was not quite six when I started school. I was what we now call a whole-word reader and was being taught phonics. My father pulled me out of school, took me on a driving trip, and taught me to read from road signs and menus. When we returned home, I read my first book: Little Women.
What book made you decide to be a writer? Once I could read, I devoured every book I could get my hands on. I would sneak into our attic and read my mother’s paperbacks: Le Carré, Hemingway, Doctorow, Graham Greene. When I was 14, I read Márquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude, which cemented my desire to write.
What’s your favourite first line in a book? ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’: Anna Karenina.
Which debut publication had the most profound effect on you? I remember feeling such excitement when I read Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. I found it fresh and compelling, and the voice was so assured. It inspired me.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up on a writing day? I go outside, regardless of weather, plant bare feet on ground and meditate, looking at the big lake which I can just glimpse through trees. A double or triple espresso and I’m ready to go. I try not to look at my phone until after I’ve written.
What’s the first thing you do when you’ve stopped writing for the day? I did athletics at university and training has always helped me sort through ideas and thoughts. I usually do a workout, often jotting things down when I’m finished.
In a parallel universe where you’re the tyrant leader of a dystopian civilisation, what’s the first book you’d burn? The first and only book I’d burn is the manual on how to burn books.
What’s the first piece of advice you’d offer to an aspiring novelist? Find your own voice. Write and write and write. Don’t give up.
33 Place Brugmann is published by Bloomsbury on Tuesday 11 March; main picture: Joe Mazza.