August 18, 2025, 12:30pm

This June, Yael van der Wouden was awarded the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut The Safekeep, a gripping historical novel from a writer who really knows how to craft a sex scene. Recently, Literary Hub caught up with the author for a few questions about the prize, her cultural diet, her writing habits, and what you’re really smelling when you cut your lawn(!):

Who do you most wish would read this book? (your boss, your childhood bully, Michelle Obama, etc.)

Esther Perel. I made a joke at a recent event that I want Mother to tell me I did well and hey, I stand by it. Did I do well, Esther!!

What’s the best book you read this year?

Oh SO many. That’s something I didn’t know would happen my book got published: people start sending you books that you think you’ll enjoy based on what you’ve written. Possibly the highlight of all of this—a completely publicly-sourced endless list of recommendations based on odd points of topics. Books about lesbians, books about historical figures, books about houses, books about women seeking revenge. I couldn’t be happier. My recent favorite has been Jo Harkin’s The Pretender. I just finished it and have been sad about it. I keep on wanting to go back!

What do you always want to talk about in interviews but never get to?

I now got to the point where I get super excited whenever I get asked a question that isn’t about the book. I did an event in Bristol the other week where I was asked about the role of the domestic in the novel and what came out was an old lecture I used to give when I was teaching a course on narrative theories which was about the invention of the suburban lawn as a way to tell a story about life and death. That was fun! Did you know the smell of cut grass is the plant’s stress pheromones? So when you say ‘I love the smell of freshly cut grass in the morning’ you’re saying, I love it when grass goes AAAAHHHHHHH in the morning.

Who was the first person you told about winning the Women’s Prize for Fiction?

I have the gift of having people in my life who watch live feeds!! So they all watched the live feed!! I had my phone on airplane mode because I was terrified of the eventuality of having to read a speech off my screen while my whole family was trying to call me on repeat. Who did I reply to first? My parents, of course. The group chat, naturally. In the hotel room I took a picture of Bessie (the statue) in my hand for size. You can see my bare feet and the mess of a table and the floor—socks, receipts, a can of coke, the chaos me and my girlfriend had anxiously left behind earlier that day and now returned to, somewhat dazed. That’s the picture I sent everyone.

What time of day do you write (and why)?

In my twenties I used to be an evening/night writer—I was hyped anyway, I loved staying up when everyone was asleep, and there was always a party somewhere in the student block keeping me awake anyway. When I started working as a teacher that shifted into an early-early morning writer—it was the only time of day I had that wasn’t full of class prep or grading. In recent years I’ve fully settled into an afternoon writer, but that’s also because I now have the immense privilege of having some afternoons off. I’ve found two things: it’s good to know when I write best but it’s better to know that I can switch modes of necessary, to know I can write whenever and wherever. The trick is to do it often and do it badly and lower the bar of entry for yourself when it comes to opening that document. The second thing I’ve found is that if I write into the evening, I will in fact continue to write in my head as I try to go to sleep, and I will, in fact, NOT sleep. So we’re avoiding that one at all costs these days.

How do you tackle writer’s block?

I put the project down for a few months and I read and watch movies and I go to a museum and ask my friends to tell me about their recent work drama. I write something else, an essay or a doodle of a scene, it doesn’t matter. The trick for me is to close down the part of the brain that demands creative production and open the part that gobbles down art in a fun, excited way.

Which book(s) do you return to again and again?

Not a very exciting answer, but a true one all the same: I always have a good time picking up on of the Austens. I think Emma and Pride & Prejudice are my most-often rereads. E.M. Forster’s Maurice also gets a reread every few years, to make sure I am still capable of yearning.

Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?

I have several of my mother’s paintings hanging here at home—she’s honestly my favorite living artist (see here) and the reason why I my relationship to art is such a joyous one. Both of my parents have made sure of that! My mom’s landscapes I feel capture nature in a way that almost make you feel like a voyeur—should I be allowed to see a tree like that, a yellow field like that? And I love having that bottled and framed and hanging in my otherwise quiet living room. It’s an exclamation mark and a story and I won’t want to do without it.

What’s your day job?

Usually I teach in creative writing and comparative literature. I’ve taken a break to be able to do a few lovely book-related things, but usually it’s me and a classroom of students who didn’t fully sign up for a lecture on grass, but that’s what they’re getting.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Do it often, do it badly if you must, just keep doing it. Also: find your peers. Not your heroes, not someone you envy and want what they have—your peers. People in the same phase as you, doing as you do. You’ll be the ones lifting each other up. You never know who’s going to get an agent first, who’s going to become the editor-in-chief of a big fancy journal, who’s going to become the best reader you’ll ever have even though they ended up working in insurance data. Find a like-minded group of aspiring writers and run with them. Also: have people read your work. Don’t hoard it, don’t wait until it’s perfect. It can’t get good if it’s only you. Everything ever published has the fingerprints of many many people—don’t fool yourself into thinking anything comes into this world fully formed.