Interview with 2012 Boardman Tasker Prize winner, Andy Kirkpatrick
ANDY KIRKPATRICK has a reputation for seeking out routes where the danger is real and the return is questionable, pushing himself on some of the hardest walls and faces in the Alps and beyond. In 2001 he undertook a 12-day solo ascent of the Reticent Wall on El Capitan, one of the hardest solo climbs in the world. This climb was the central theme of his first book Psychovertical, which won the 2008 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. Cold Wars, his second book won again, this time the 2012 Boardman Tasker Prize. We checked in recently with Andy to chat about writing, climbing and life.
Firstly, was throwing in the towel on writing as a career just a way to pressure the judges to give you the Boardman Tasker prize?
Knowing the 3 judges, I suspect 'throwing my teddy out of the pram' wouldn't gain me too much sympathy, and my blog post about giving up writing books (not writing), as pretty considered. I guess I was under some illusion I could just write books, and that turned out not to be the case financially. I also suspected that spending too much time alone with my thoughts was also not great for me. I was actually stunned by the response and have had several hundred facebook, twitter and emails from people asking me not to give up. I'm pretty stubborn, and so it's a surprise that I would actually give up on something just because I found it hard. Since writing that blog I both felt a sense of relief, but also a sense of loss, as up until then I'd never realized how much the written word was ingrained in my every thought. I can see it's how I interpret everything I see, do or think.
Does winning the Boardman Tasker Award for Cold Wars numb the sting you felt after not winning the title of Best Mountain Book at Banff? Does winning the award change how you feel about giving up writing as a career?
I'll be really honest. I think Cold Wars should have been in the [Banff] short list, and many people who've since read it in Canada seem to agree! I believe that as an author you should fight tooth and nail for your work, and so I believe Cold Wars was the best book and should have won! My editor once said that 'the problem with Andy is that people don't realize how clever he is' - and this is probably a problem with a book with so many layers as Cold Wars, that people just read it on the most basic level – I guess that's my fault as the author. People often say it's the funniest climbing book they've read, but when writing it humor had no part in the book I was intending to write.
Want to hear more of the interview? Head to our website as we ask Andy about his hardest climbs, what he'll do next, and more. --->
