Dylin Hardcastle, author of A Language of Limbs, reflects on their inspirations for their writing process.
What is the most important thing this book showed you about yourself and your writing practice?
When writing A Language of Limbs, a phrase I kept returning to was “think less, feel more.” I fell backwards into myself – a kind of bodily homecoming – and let myself be guided by impulse and instinct. I was trying to write a book that spoke implicitly to my experience of moving through this world as a queer and trans person, and therefore wanted to be guided by feeling, as I figured whatever arose from my body would naturally be an articulation of those corporeal experiences. Writing has always felt like a way out, but with this novel, writing became a way in, and I found, perhaps for the first time in my life, a language with which to articulate this body, and its desires – giving shape to formless feelings I’ve felt all my life. Writing A Language of Limbs helped me to make sense of myself, and in a world that is once again insisting on the expulsion of trans and gender diverse people from public life and the public imagination, being able to write my body onto the page was truly an extraordinary gift.
What is something that you do when you write that is quite unique or special?
I am a keen surfer, having wanted to be a professional surfer when I was a teenager. I also love swimming in open ocean, and have spent a significant amount of life either in or around water. I didn’t read much as a child, but sitting for hours on end in the line-up at the back of a surf break, I spent an entire childhood learning how to read water. When writing A Language of Limbs, I was swimming almost every day in waters that have been cared for by Bundjalung People since time immemorial. So much of this story is indebted to those oceans, rivers, lakes and waterholes, and to the Bundjalung People who’ve cared for them, because it was in those bodies of water that I dreamt and was playful, that I grieved, cried, and laughed, as I wrote this novel, which, honestly, is a love letter to the LGBTQIA+SB people of the past – those who’ve made futures in which we live.
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