How I create… with writer and multidisciplinary artist Tice Cin

As an interdisciplinary artist who continues to find artistic fulfilment in new forms, it’s perhaps only natural that Tice Cin would find herself reconsidering her audience.

Hailing from Enfield, North London, Cin’s name is likely to have resonated with you most as a writer. Her 2021 debut novel Keeping the House was recognised with a Somerset Maugham Award and a London Writers Award, and was also shortlisted for a British Book Award, the Desmond Elliott Prize, and the Jhalak Prize. Reflecting Cin’s multi-disciplinary approach to art, Keeping the House featured poetry woven into its narrative and was accompanied by a mixtape and playlist upon publication.

Alongside her own creative output, Cin is the founder of interdisciplinary discovery vehicle, label and production company Neoprene Genie, whose creative output includes films, print-magazines, immersive music shows, creative parties and much more in between. In October 2025, Cin brought Neoprene Genie’s live show to the Southbank Centre as part of our London Literature Festival. Twice Bitten – which Cin described as ‘a show for people who want to make or see art that speaks towards issues in a way that feels supported’ – fused poetry, song, sound design with live performance.

Cin spoke more of this event, and her evolving approaches as an interdisciplinary artist, as she told us how she creates.

When and where do you find yourself at your most creative?

When I’ve just eaten and my phone’s off… But honestly, I see creativity like a fruit plant. The more you tend to the plant, the better the fruit. I arrive at every session, be it in a music studio or on a film set, and once I go through those doors I understand that this is the time to let care take the steer. Sometimes when I’m doing day to day errands like taking out the bins or answering emails, I can tell that I’m containing a well of love and care inside me that feels like it hasn’t yet a place to go. Being in places that revolve around making, helps me to articulate that care and let it out. Outside of that, sometimes all I need to do is get on a long distance train journey and my mind will clear. Liminal spaces are popular for a reason, they’re great bridges for thought.

How do you know when an idea is worth developing into something more?

If I try to spend more time with it. I liken it to a meaningful first date, because after a date like that, you feel a sense of curiosity and burgeoning hope, but you aren’t necessarily overwashed with sparks – it’s more a steady awareness that this could become something good, if only you plan to meet again. I also believe that an idea you don’t develop isn’t necessarily a lost idea either; it will grow its own feet in your mind and take another avenue to re-emerge in your mind’s eye. Ultimately, if you believe in the worth of something, that’s the attitude that will allow it to develop into something more. Belief behind your craft takes you much further than chancing upon a bright jewel of an idea; you are what turns it into the jewel.

Which tools are key to your creative process?

Ableton (a digital audio platform) is super important for me; I like to make soundscapes on there and sample my voice into different registers and meanings. It’s a great way to recontextualise your work when you chop and change it in music software. The Voice Memos app is essential; I capture myself humming so I can follow a tune when I’m sound designing, and I use it to record interviews with elders in my village – something that’s increasingly important to me as their stories are easily lost to time. My new DYCP camera has changed my life – I’m training to operate a camera and it’s changed my entire view of directing film; working with my hands and finding technical solutions that bring me one step closer to beauty. 

Emails are important too. I typically email myself at the end of a writing day with a note about what the work made me notice and what I’d like to explore. This is especially the case with my novels; I have an archive of these messages to myself that paint a picture of what the book’s entire journey was. Libraries are the best tool for me overall though, specifically the British Library. I like to request rare books to look at, almost at random, to shuffle the information I imbibe.

Who are you creating your work for, and how free are you to create the work you want to create?

I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately. As an interdisciplinary artist, I often feel I am trying to reach the same person but in as many different ways as possible, because I’m not sure where they are waiting to receive. I tutor young people a lot, especially school groups and the most nourishing conversations we’ve had revolve around affording space to create in a safe and held way. There’s something so comforting in seeing the impact of a residential writing course like Arvon or longer-term localised courses where students can see that they can continue to try out work.

Talking about freedom allows me to appreciate my own. I’ve always made my work for the under-the-kitchen-table kids, the kids that see too much. I say this to mean that there are two worlds and I spend my term in the world of people who have lived a lot more than their years suggest. With Twice Bitten I wanted to create a show for people who want to make or see art used in a multifaceted form that speaks towards issues in a way that feels supported. The slogan for Neoprene Genie is ‘wished up from nothing’, because what is wished up by an artist or an audience can happen and it’s our aim to work together to bring those hopes to life. I want to tell the people I work with that they are totally free to make what they want, if they’re coming from a kind place. 

I also make work for archive, utterance as a form of ongoingness, so I can feel that I put something out into a room and now that room will live in it. I feel sometimes that I am hosting in a glowing room and my hope is to usher people inside who look at the shimmer, and wonder if it is winking at them too.

How do you stay disciplined, and dedicated to your work?

I see my work as a bit more mystical, and so in that sense I don’t regiment results, instead I try to get myself into a place where I can reach a flow state or a clarity state (the two for me feel different, and different work comes from each). I feel fortunate because now that I have those two ways of separating how I see my creativity, I am able to dedicate myself to work that matters and to me that feels a lot like a mutual mission, something I assemble with a team.

What do you do when you hit a wall; when you feel unmotivated or uninspired? How do you overcome this?

I don’t see a creative wall as something to go over or skirt around, I am not Humpty Dumpty or Zelda. Instead, if I see a wall and feel myself slowing to a halt, it’s the time to listen. There’s this image in a book I read as a teenager, Eragon, where the title character tries to shift his own magical slump by using his telepathy to listen to the thoughts of ants as they ferry their cargo and go about their days; he tunes into the ant the rest of his problems are empty noise. 

It is always best to hear where you need more ease and through doing that see if inspiration re-enters your life. I go to therapy. I ring my mum. I have a little snack. Go to a new cafe. Go for a walk. I love to trace other poetry and stories until I start to find new word orders and shapes, gradually swapping out each word until I’ve eventually replaced the entire line or sentence. This is to suggest that if anyone is struggling, invite play and curiosity into your practice. This is not shucking oysters, this is observing the reefs that need them. What is happening?

Who do you look to for feedback?

I love to read sections of my work to my mum, and I love to unveil work in live settings so that I can edit and tweak live based on audience response. I recently did a reading at Lala Books recently where I read a portion of an unpublished essay and afterwards I had so many helpful chats with people who’d listened and engaged with the work. The work shifts in conversation. 

Lately I’ve struggled to access more structured feedback in the way that I used to when I was an early-career writer. Five years on from Keeping the House, it has felt like asking for feedback is also asking for a service, and I think in order to have that ear and eye from your community, a certain trust has to be leavened with time and care. Feedback is labour. I have brilliant group chats formed of writers including my cohort of London Writers Awards literary fiction awardees and another of Barbican Young Poets. I know they would read if I asked them to, just at the moment I’m preferring company while I write (body doubling is essential for me), and support when navigating the industry.

How different is your creative process now to when you first began as an artist?

When I began I felt less interdisciplinary, I thought I had to choose between playing piano or writing. Everything felt like killing your darlings. Now I feel like I’ve started a new chapter informed by freedom. I want to try different things out. Elisa Shua Dusapin once told me how she essentially tailed a circus to write one of her books, and that stuck with me; you can be a clown for a bit if you want. What do you want? I’ve become a method writer in a way, choosing to write only what I deeply feel and know – I want to write what I touch, so my hands are always out in front of me, questing.

What does success feel like?

Success feels like being able to stand by the art that you’ve made, and the effects of your practice, knowing that it came from your heart and you didn’t need to compromise. Success is being able to hold your head up. 

I was talking to a new friend in music recently, I’d seen him MCing at a rave days before and naturally I was bigging him up and telling him how much he smashed it, while he was self-deprecating in return. He then asked me if I knew when I’d feel like I’d made it in life. I’ll share here the same answer I gave him, which is that ten years ago, my mum turned to me and said, ‘if you stopped now, I’d still be so proud of you’. I choose to continue, and I could stop any day. Every new shoot of my creative life is a welcomed friend, one that I do not take for granted. It has never come easily. 

I do feel I’ve achieved what my younger self would have considered ‘making it’. I’ve fought to experience a life that I had to carve out from scratch and I’ve held a book that was years in the works in my hands. By that measure I have made it and that success feels like a deep sense of self-recognition and understanding, but there’s so much more to explore and query. I believe ultimate success feels like freedom, that ability to live the life that you want and keep choosing to continue.

Is there a piece of advice you’ve received that you often find yourself returning to?

Look for the signs. My friend Flo told me that, as I was telling him how I’m always getting physically lost. But lately I’ve been thinking about it everywhere; when a bird lands in front of me in a contemplative moment or when a rainbow comes out just when I needed it most. Looking for signs in the world around me feels like gratitude; I notice and I love what I notice. That love is keeping me connected to the world. What we intuit is what something within us sought to signal first.

What’s the most recent thing you learned about yourself through your work?

I learned that I am brave. From the start of my career I’ve always found that I have things on my plate that would objectively make it hard to pursue a writing career. I have a lot of family responsibilities. I also have a battery in my pack to provide security for my loved ones, and being in the arts, that can feel harder to guarantee. Increasingly that looks like acknowledging that this is also such a socially conscious path that it’s our duty to honour what we feel is right and wrong, and it’s brave to stand up for what you believe in because that can be lonely in the process.

How do you know when you’re done?

I will return to a project in perpetuity. I think feeling done also assumes that time is predictable and we know the full shape of something before we even know what tomorrow holds. I won’t typically rewrite work, but I will revisit that friend like I’m picking them up in a car and taking them to try out a new haircut. They’re always worth spending time with.