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Post by susanmay on Apr 10, 2007 17:44:55 GMT
Celebrated for her saucy tales of England's horsey upper classes, now Jilly Cooper has turned her wicked eye on - the education system. And there's no sex till page 170. Has the mistress of the shire-romp gone soft? Rachel Cooke finds her on vintage form.
The Observer
Jilly Cooper is all a twitter when I arrive at her house in Gloucestershire. She is sitting in a corner of her garden, surrounded by ferns and other bits of greenery, having her photograph taken. This is not, however, why she is a-twitter. Cooper doesn't at all mind posing for pictures, and is rather good at it - she treats photographers the way she treats everyone, showering them with compliments, telling the dear darlings that it is so unfair when newspapers run their bylines in such tiny print, 'like an earwig running along the edge'. No, she is skittish because she has been up all night writing an article; she finished at 6am. 'That's age, you see,' she says, in her staccato pant. 'I'm very, very slow. Oh, I'm desperately slow. There's a room upstairs that looks like a paper factory that has been burgled.' Poor thing. Does she hate getting older? 'Well, at two o'clock in the morning, I didn't care if my tits fell off, you know. I was just so desperate to get it done.'
While she, in the manner of a friendly sheepdog, gazes at the camera, I have a good look round. It's a bosky spot. Cooper lives in a handsome chantry in a village not far from Stroud: here in the garden there are ponds and primroses and charming sculptures peeping out of just the right amount of undergrowth. There is also a marauding gang of pheasants, which Cooper has named after the Blair Babes. 'We've got Patricia Hewitt and Hazel whatsit...' Blears? 'Yes, Blears. Margaret Hodge is the worst of the lot.' It isn't quite clear whether she means the pheasant or the politician. The house has a quiet air of permanence about it, of immutability - a pleasing quality that it has in common with its owner. Cooper is in her late sixties now, but you would never know it. The great cloud of hair might be grey, but it is as luxuriant as ever, and frames a mischievous face that makes you think of ripe cherries, or fresh, rosy apples, or... well, you get the picture. Basically, it is lovely. She tries to persuade the photographer to stay to lunch, fails, and then takes me inside. In her kitchen (it is of uncertain age and cosily hotchpotch - an arrangement that you can imagine a putative second-homer wrinkling their nose at even as they call the builder), she abandons me to her staff and her husband while she goes off to check her copy. The staff - someone who does, and someone who does paperwork - are very friendly. So is the husband, Leo, who tells me about village life and that his wife's new book is far too big. He is certainly right about this. Wicked! is some 848 pages long, and is so amazingly heavy that, should you wish to lug it about town, you are probably best off buying yourself a trolley. Cooper's books are often described as the perfect beach fodder but, to be frank, I can't see how you could read Wicked! in a prone position without doing yourself an injury.
'Yes, it's ridiculous,' agrees Cooper, when she returns. 'It's a complete joke.' Writing, she insists, is agony - and never more so than this time. She delivered the book about a year later than promised. It was not only that she got bogged down in research, or that, as usual, she fell in love with her characters (the cast list at the beginning of Wicked! runs to 10 pages and - yes! - Rupert Campbell-Black, the tight-buttocked star of Riders, is back). But such a lot was happening in the real world. Her daughter, Emily, got married; Animals in War, the Hyde Park memorial she fundraised for, ate up more time; and, hardest of all, Leo was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. 'My publishers were so sweet. They didn't nag. But they did design a cover ages ago, and then they wanted copy for a blurb and ... well, they were charming, but it was quite stressful.' And now there are the reviews to worry about which, historically, have always been a mite snotty. 'Last time, I had a couple of stinkers,' she says. 'I mean, Jackie Collins did a lovely one, and Maeve Binchy, but they're both pals.'
Wicked! is set in Larkshire, which is just like Rutshire, where the best-selling Riders was set; in other words, it's the Cotswolds, with more sex. It is a tale of two schools. Larkshire Comp is a sink school with a new headmistress, Janna Curtis, a dynamic, young redhead from the north, who is on a mission to save it. Curtis disapproves of public schools, but when Hengist Brett-Taylor, the dashing head of nearby Bagley Hall, offers her students the use of his establishment's handsome facilities, she cannot refuse. Cue lots of high jinks and general naughtiness across the class divide. It's vintage Cooper, really: where else would you find a character called Hengist Brett-Taylor? In what other fictional world do women scramble over naked bodies like squirrels, or men refer to their orgasms as 'drop goals'? There is, however, one noticeable difference between this Cooper and some others: the first full-on sex scene does not occur until page 170.
'Well, it was very difficult to arrange,' says Cooper, hugging her cup of tea indignantly. 'I'm so old-fashioned, and it's all STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] now, and I didn't know what they were. Well, I didn't know how bad they are.' One early reader was horrified that she hadn't put condoms in. 'I can't do that. When do you stop to put it on? They're awful. You see, because I never had babies [her two children are adopted], I never had to worry about all that. Actually, that's not true. I did, because I didn't know [that she couldn't have children]. I wish I had known. God, I'd have had fun. But you were absolutely terrified of getting pregnant. I was too early for the pill. I had a dutch cap. They were terrible. It used to fly across the room. I left it behind when I went on honeymoon. My mother had to send it on. I was never very organised.'
For Wicked! she did bags of research, visiting schools of all kinds. The experience proved to be a real eye-opener. 'I did think about poverty when I wrote Class,' she says (that book was an 'exposé' of the class system, packed with stock characters, at whose pretensions we were invited to laugh). 'And we've had massive poverty throughout our lives [Leo's business once went bust, which meant that their home was under threat]. But I'd no idea that some children have nowhere to do homework, or that their parents are out of it on drugs.' She is full of admiration for teachers. 'Some of them are a load of crap. Mostly, though, they're wonderful. But it's a mess, isn't it? If only teachers were left to teach. One I met had to write 186 reports five times a year. No wonder they use gobbledegook! Development, progress, focus, goals ... rubbish!'
Her own approach to education had been somewhat laissez-faire. Her son Felix, now a property developer, went to Radley, where he ran some kind of illicit shop selling booze and f*gs. 'We went to sports day, and all these children kept coming up to him and saying hello. I said: "It's so lovely that you're friendly with boys of all ages, darling." To which he said: "They're customers." He used to go shopping for his stock in a long, brown wig of mine.' Her daughter Emily, a make-up artist who is expecting her second child, was once suspended three times in one day. 'When the school rang to tell me that she was on her way home, I said: "Oh, how lovely. The weather is gorgeous."' Was she especially indulgent because her children were adopted? 'Probably. I've never thought about it, but I probably didn't want to push them because with adoption, you're so grateful.'
So, yes, she learnt a great deal. The only bad thing about her immersion in education was the effect it had on her shape. When she is hard at work, Cooper morphs into her characters. During the writing of Riders, which is about horsey types, she was very thin with long, blonde hair. During the writing of Wicked!, she went up to 10 stone, and though she weighs less than that now, she is keen to 'get off' a few pounds before she goes on her book tour. 'That's the one thing about teachers - they're a bit fat. They've bingo arms and Henman hair. Oh, I musn't be rude. But I became like them.' She hasn't had a drink for three weeks - an age. It's funny, I say, that she is so concerned with her weight. But she just forms two tiny fists with her hands and beats her thighs. Her other big worry, book tour-wise, is that she is out of Touche Eclat, the light-bouncing concealer. 'It's so wonderful,' she says breathlessly, as if she were describing a new lover. 'One sometimes wants to use it over one's whole face.'
Jilly Cooper was born in Yorkshire, the daughter of a brigadier. She began her career on the Middlesex Independent aged 20. Then, having failed to bag a berth in Fleet Street, she tried various jobs - model, typist - until, one fortuitous evening in 1969, she met the editor of the Sunday Times magazine at a dinner party. She told him about being a young wife, a slog she once described thus: 'Screwing all night, then going to work, shopping, doing the housework, doing one's husband's dinner, then screwing all night again'. He got her to write a piece about this tyranny which Harold Evans, the paper's editor, loved so much that he gave her a column. Not that he liked everything she did. Over a lunch of smoked salmon, she tells me that she went to a strip club for the paper, where she found a man who could rotate his member 'like a red setter's tail'. Naturally, she wrote this up, but Harry said: 'Not in a family newspaper, Jilly.' Still, they were good years. At the Evanses' house, she played ping pong with Melvyn Bragg in a transparent dress. And her column, which was thought shocking, was much talked about.
Then trouble arrived. Leo's business (he published military history) went through a bad patch. So, Jeffrey Archer-style, she started writing novels to dig the family out of a hole. She published a series of romances - Octavia, Prudence, Imogen - which all seemed to be about girls living in little flats off the King's Road. In my sixth form, they were passed round greedily, like sweets. 'They were nice,' she says. 'Because I'm such a romantic. There's no getting away from that.' Plus, they did the trick, financially speaking. What would have happened if she hadn't been able to dig them out of the hole? 'I think we would have starved.' Did Leo mind that she was the saviour? Was his male pride hurt? 'Probably. But he's always been wonderful about that sort of thing. In all marriages, there is a slight element of rivalry. You have to be careful of one another's egos.' She then loyally tells me all about the book that he is writing.
Cooper is nothing if not loyal. She has always stuck up for her 'lovely' friend Camilla, now the Duchess of Cornwall, and in the early Nineties, when she found out that Leo, to whom she has been married for 45 years, had been having a long affair, all she would say about it in interviews was how sorry she felt for him. Her view seemed to be that he had put up with quite enough vilification without her sticking the boot in, too - and it later turned out that, in the early days of their marriage, she had also an affair, for which she was forgiven. 'We've had so many laughs,' she says, now. 'We've had a pretty good time on the whole.' And she does seem exceedingly fond of him, absent mindedly stroking his silver hair en route from kettle to cupboard. When I ask her why she still works so hard, she says: 'I'll tell you what keeps me going - cash.' It is spent on all sorts of things: the house, her secretary. But mostly, she would like there to be sufficent money to provide for carers should Leo's mobility grow worse (he does not shake, but he has difficulty walking).
You can't imagine her leaving this house - or Gloucestershire, to which she moved from Putney. So can we assume that she doesn't agree with Joanna Trollope, who recently announced that, since the arrival of Kate Moss et al, it is all over for the Cotswolds? 'Do you know Joanna? She's simply divine. Basically, she wants to be near her grandchild in London; there wasn't any objection to the Cotswolds.' So Liz Hurley's appearance in the valley doesn't bother her? 'I love Liz Hurley. She came to dinner. She and her friends used to do these quizzes about my books. They know every word. You can't take your eyes off her. She's so sweet, and she loves University Challenge. She adds to the gaiety of the nation. Oh, I love celebs.'
Crikey. I'd heard that Cooper is famously nice, but this is ridiculous. 'Oh, I'm not,' she says. 'I think one should bear grudges. I enjoy my grudges. But the awful thing about them - well, I suppose it's a good thing actually - is that you get off your face pissed and then you fling your arm around someone and it's all forgotten. I did that to someone whom I absolutely loathe, and it was so annoying.' She then proceeds to tell me a nice, juicy and, alas, off-the-record story about a semi-famous person. In gossip mode, she is hilariously funny. 'I think she used to be in the RAF or something,' she says of one (bruiser) female celeb. She then quizzes me about who I know. 'Is she an old bag?' she'll say. 'Is she very unkind?' She goes after salacious information like one of her precious dogs after a rabbit. She is impossible to dislike.
In fact, there are no precious dogs right now. But a rescue greyhound, Feather, will arrive once her book tour is over. Not that she is planning any time off. Her next book is about a widow who buys a racehorse, and she can't wait to get started. She still writes on a manual typewriter - Monica - in a gazebo at the end of the garden, and before I leave, she takes me to see it. She is nervous about this. She is messy; I am Gazza-like in my tidiness. 'Please don't cry,' she says. And then, opening the door: 'Oh, this is bad. This is very bad indeed.' I look inside. It is true: the tiny room resembles a crack den. It is horrible. Still, I don't feel like crying. There is something about Cooper - so resolutely cheery, so lacking in self-pity - that makes you want to smile. She may not be Philip Roth but, like her new friend, Elizabeth Hurley, she greatly adds to the gaiety of the nation. I, too, would love celebs - if they were all like her.
The CV
Born 21 February 1937 in Hornchurch, Essex, and raised in Yorkshire and Surrey.
Education Godolphin School, Salisbury, where she was known as 'the Unholy Terror'.
Family Married publisher Leo Cooper, whom she has known since she was eight, in 1961. They have two adopted children, Emily and Felix.
Early career Cooper wrote columns on marriage, sex and housework in the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday.
Notable works Class (1979) is best-known of her non-fiction. She lost a first draft of Riders in 1970 and didn't publish the book until 1986, as the first of her Rutshire Chronicles series.
She says 'I'm totally disorganised. I can't remember where things are, I'm very devious, I'm pretty feeble and cry a lot ... typically Pisces.'
'The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.'
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Post by megan on Apr 10, 2007 19:16:49 GMT
Thanks a million for this, Susan. I really enjoyed it! She sounds lovely!
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Post by susanmay on Apr 10, 2007 19:42:48 GMT
An Interview with Sharon Owens Interviewer Ram Subramanian:
In both books you seem to have a preference for an ensemble cast of characters who gravitate toward a common place – a tearoom in the first book and a ballroom in the second. In contrast, some novels have one or two strong, well-etched central characters who hold the narrative together. What are your reasons for the ensemble approach?
Sharon Owens:I have to be honest here: it was not a conscious choice to make the buildings themselves the central characters. It was simply an instinctive way of structuring the story. I suppose, to me, the buildings symbolized permanence and solidity whereas the characters were often fleeting, restless personalities. I think I am simply attracted to certain buildings, especially Victorian ones with dainty spires on the roof. I like their age and beauty, and wonder what secrets they could tell if the walls could speak.
In your letter to readers in the Penguin U.K. website, you indicate that you grew up in the 1970s, during the height of the Troubles. In both books, though, you choose to keep the sectarian troubles in the background. Your characters are affected by it and are aware of it, but except for the incident in The Teahouse on Mulberry Street where Clare loses her purse in the bus, the Troubles are not central to your stories. Is that a conscious choice?
Yes, absolutely. Ireland has certainly had an ultra-violent history, but to use it as the central theme of a novel does not appeal to me. I can’t ignore The Troubles completely, of course, which is why they are there in the background. In my third novel, the central characters Lily and Jack are devoted to one another, partly because of the fact that Jack was nearly killed in a no-warning bombing attack on Belfast in 1984. I’ve been pretty close to a few bombs myself, and it’s not a pleasant experience, but you just have to put it out of your mind and keep going, don’t you? Life is all about risk, in one way or another.
There are many, many good people here in Ireland: gentle and kind human beings. People with normal lives and everyday interests. Romantic entanglements, money worries, mid-life crises, unrequited love. These are the things I want to write about: the lives that are lived outside of the media spotlight.
The main male characters, Daniel Stanley (in The Teahouse on Mulberry Street) and Johnny Hogan (in The Ballroom on Magnolia Street), are reticent when it comes to talking about relationships and women. They also don’t seem to “get it” as far as maintaining a relationship goes. Stanley waits for a traumatic event (Penny throwing him out) before changing his ways; Johnny vainly believes he can convince Declan to take over the ballroom because of his relationship with Marion. Any background on this commonality in your central male characters?
That’s a good question. There is definitely an Irish stereotype that demands men just get on with things, never showing any sign of weakness or vulnerability. Daniel and Johnny both subscribed to that idea and became quite lonely and isolated as a result. In the end, Daniel had to admit his desperate need of (and love for) Penny, while Johnny remained defiant and trapped in his ballroom-owner persona. If the two men had been better communicators, they would have saved themselves many difficult and stressful years.
Sadly, there is still much evidence in real life of Irish men not feeling able to open up to others and ask for help. Seven young men committed suicide in Belfast last month, and there is now a campaign under way to improve counseling services. There is also an ongoing problem with excess alcohol-consumption, and street violence, which has been well documented in the news recently. Luckily, there are lots of sensitive, calm and caring males around too, to give us hope for the future. (Luckily for me, I’m married to one!) My lovely husband Dermot was the inspiration for some of the sensible and stable characters in the books, such as Peter Pendergast, James Hogan and Declan Greenwood.
How much of you are in your characters? There is Brenda Brown the artist in the first book and there is Shirley in the second. Whom do you identify the most with?
Brenda Brown was loosely based on me when I was a teenager. I didn’t write fan letters to Nicolas Cage but I did think he was very nice looking, which was why I made Nicolas the focus for Brenda’s loneliness. I was a lot like Brenda: just wanting to belong, but not knowing where or how. Shirley Winters was a little bit like me, too. I wore a lot of second-hand clothes in the 1980’s as I was a devoted fan of The Smiths.
What got you into writing? Did you write for magazines before writing a novel?
It was Dermot’s idea I write a novel. Before that, I had not written professionally. But I’ve been a bookworm since my childhood. I read all the time, buying two or three novels a week. In 2001 Dermot saw an article in a newspaper, saying that Irish publishers were on the lookout for new writing talent. He went straight out and bought me a computer, a huge desk and comfy chair, and advised me to get writing immediately. I told him I’d never be able to do it, but then I wrote Teahouse in four months. Once I started writing, I just couldn’t stop, I enjoyed it so much. I sent my book to The Poolbeg Press in Dublin and got a 6-book deal right away.
Who are your literary influences? You are often compared to Maeve Binchy. What is your reaction to that?
Of course, I’m very flattered to be compared to a lovely lady like Maeve Binchey who has sold millions of books around the world. If I had a fraction of Maeve’s success, I’d be very happy indeed. Maeve’s novel Echoes is one of my favorite books. I also enjoy reading Brian Moore, Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, Frank McCourt, Patrick Galvin, John Walsh and Janet McNeill. So far, the reviews of my books have been very kind and generous, which is wonderful.
How do you approach a novel?
I begin a book, the way I used to begin a painting. I collect pictures of pretty things, interesting anecdotes, various personal ideas, topical magazine clippings etc and stick them all in a good quality notebook. I write little poems, and make pen-and-ink sketches. I listen to pop music (currently Interpol) and to plays and debates on BBC Radio 4, and go for long walks. Then, the plot just emerges, and off I go. The books write themselves, really.
What are your writing habits?
I like a tidy desk, so it’s got to be immaculate before I start. Then, I’ll make a pot of tea, put some oat biscuits on a plate, and begin writing at about 8am. My desk is right by the window so I can see the garden, which is nice. After lunch, I’ll revise what I have done that day. In the afternoons, I curl up in a big squashy armchair and read. I’ve just finished Beatrice by Noelle Harrison, a beautifully written story about a girl who disappeared. If I feel like a treat, I’ll watch Murder, She Wrote, which is on TV every day at 2.35pm. I just love that show, and of course the character of Jessica Fletcher is a writer too. So that makes me laugh when she’s trying to proof-read her latest book while people are getting murdered all over the place.
What is your next book about? Do you have plans beyond that?
Teahouse and Ballroom were the first two books in a Belfast trilogy. The third one is called The Tavern on Maple Street and is another ensemble piece set in a small pub in Belfast city-centre. After that, my Irish publisher, The Poolbeg Press, have signed me up for three more novels. I am currently working on book 4, The Castle on the Hill. It’s a slightly darker story about a warring couple. They own a castle-hotel by the lakes in county Fermanagh. Book 5 is a novel called Love is a White Gazebo. It’s about a pretentious society wedding that goes horribly, fatally wrong. I haven’t planned book 6 yet!
I have also been asked to write short stories, stories for children and articles for magazines and newspapers, although I am finding it hard to make enough time. I just do my best, and take each day as it comes.
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Post by susanmay on Apr 10, 2007 19:43:29 GMT
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Post by jofromoz on Apr 12, 2007 8:55:48 GMT
Thanks Susanmay for putting this up. Both vastly different authors, but I adore both of them and their books. I'd love to meet Jilly Cooper, and I think the only thing we wouldn't see eye to eye on is her good opinion of Camilla Parker-Bowles.!
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Post by susanmay on Apr 12, 2007 8:59:32 GMT
LOL! I always wondered about those two!
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Post by megan on Apr 15, 2007 16:53:43 GMT
i really enjoyed that interview with Sharon Owens. Her husband sounds like such a sweetie, and I am amazed that she wrote The Teahous on Mulberry Street in Four months - wow!!
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Post by susanmay on Apr 24, 2007 16:40:32 GMT
It's amazing alright. I've just finished reading my first Sharon Owens book and loved it (the teahouse). I'm not surprised Poolbeg wiped her up straight away. She has a real cozy way of writing - you almost feel like your part of the book.
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Post by susanmay on Apr 24, 2007 19:36:35 GMT
January 2006 This interview was taken from www.bookreporter.comInspired by her fascination with children and their imaginary friends, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern has written IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW, her third novel in less than two years. In this interview Ahern explores her recurring themes of self-discovery and self-healing, and underscores the sense of universality she wishes to convey to her audience. She also comes to terms with the "fairy tale" label placed on her books and attempts to pick a "favorite" amongst them. Question: Your novels have been described as modern fairy tales. Do you agree? Cecelia Ahern: It was a phrase I had to think about for some time before eventually accepting it. My opinion of a fairy tale was of a story that lacked realism, in which female characters are "rescued" by men, whisked off their feet from the boredom of their mundane lives, proposed to, and brought to a castle where they would live happily ever after. This is not the case with my books. I want them to be about strong women. They are about real people with ordinary, everyday struggles who are faced with having to embark on a journey of self-discovery. As soon as my characters begin to grasp who they are, and how and why it is that they've reached this point in their lives, then they realize they must heal themselves. Self-healing is extremely important in my stories, and while there are strong male characters in the books, they aren't the handsome princes that have come to save the day. Their role is to help the characters help themselves. People learn about themselves through interaction and through their relationships with others; obviously nobody can do it alone, so the love interests are instrumental in helping the characters look at themselves and their own behavior but then eventually helping themselves. How a good fairy tale will make you feel after you've finished it is full of hope --- the hope that no matter what we're faced with, we can get through it. While the books don't always end on a "happily ever after" note, they do reach a point where they realize they have the strength, confidence, and ability to continue. And that is the modern twist. Q: There is a mystical quality to this book with the character of Ivan. What led you to creating this character? CA: I'm very interested in the idea that we are not alone on this earth. I write books about lives, and in our lives are men, women, children, animals, and the others we feel around us. I'm aware that many people are turned off when this subject is broached but it's as simple as when, after losing a loved one, people openly admit to feeling that their loved ones are still with them. I toyed with that idea in PS, I LOVE YOU, in which Gerry maintains contact with Holly after he dies through a series of letters he had left behind, and then I went one step more with IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW. I'm intrigued by the idea that children of a certain age suddenly begin to have imaginary friends without knowing that a similar thing is happening all around the world. It also intrigues me that as adults, we are so high and mighty to think that our children aren't in fact seeing someone that we just don't see. What makes us so sure that we are right? Children believe so intently that there is somebody with them. Extra places must be set at the dinner table, doors must be kept open, etc. To children, it's real. In talking to people who used to have imaginary friends, I was so excited to hear that they could remember what they looked like. These people actually had an image of a friend, not just an invisible space and a made-up name. I wanted to write about this kind of unusual character who is seen by some people and not by others --- and the people who do see him are those who aren't believed and trusted quite yet in their young lives. I wanted to investigate how this would impact his life. I wanted to question what it is to be human if you're only recognized by a small proportion of people and considered invisible by the others. Ivan is considered by the world to be an "imaginary friend," but to himself and others like him, he is merely a normal person who walks, talks, lives, and breathes. He's also simply in the business of making friends and guiding children during an important time in their lives. IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW is as much about Ivan as it is about Elizabeth. He is as lost in his life as she is. His role is to be there for others, to get so close to them that he knows everything about them, and then put himself through the preparation of leaving them again. Nothing in his life is solid, not even the belief in his existence, and I so much wanted to examine a wonderful character like this. His meeting Elizabeth was a joy to work on as we could see him learning more about who he is, what he wants in life, and where he wants to go. Ivan is one of my favorite characters that I've created so far. Q: One of the themes of IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW is letting go, and the same can be said for both your other novels, but in different ways. What draws you to this theme? CA: I suppose I'm drawn to the idea of people in the world who don't know very much about themselves --- of people who are afraid to find out about who they are, what they really want, and where they really want to be. As a result of his unawareness, you get trapped in a world and in a life that you're not satisfied with. Elizabeth, for example, carries out the daily routine of life in order to maintain control, because to change --- to step out of the box --- would cause her to question why she is the way she is, and then she would have to deal with the consequences. It's easier for her to ignore the big questions and concentrate on the mundane. I think that people often become distracted by who they think they are supposed to be instead of being who they really are. In my books, we meet the characters who, as a result of various consequences, are forced to question themselves. Discovering who they are allows them to let go of all the weight on their shoulders and finally move on. A certain freedom comes to those who know who they are and what they believe in, because when you let go, it's easier to move on. Q: So much has happened in your career since the publication of PS, I LOVE YOU... Please fill us in! CA: Since writing PS, I LOVE YOU, I've embarked on a series of crazy promotional tours all around the world. I released ROSIE DUNNE, which also reached number one in Ireland, the UK, and Germany, and I was lucky and extremely grateful to win a Corine Award for it in Munich in September. I wrote many short stories and contributed to many anthologies around the world. PS, I LOVE YOU is still in pre-production stages with Warner Bros., and I'm very excited that the option was renewed and plans are still to go ahead. IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW was recently bought by Disney to be made into a musical starring Hugh Jackman, which I'm very excited about; I'm a huge fan of musicals (and Hugh Jackman!). I've had two years of wonderful opportunities, doing what I love to do for a living. I've traveled to many countries where I've met great people who have fantastic words to say about my books and interesting stories to share. It's all been a fabulous experience, which is very important; but most importantly, I feel my writing has taken a great leap --- I'm more passionate about books and writing than ever, and I'm very excited to see where my new years of experience will take me! Q: How do you think life in Dublin shapes your stories? CA: I always say that it really isn't important where my books are set because their themes are so universal: the characters could be you, your best friend, or your neighbor. I don't think that slight culture changes really affect people's enjoyment of the novels, nor do they alter the cores of the stories. PS, I LOVE YOU was set in the suburbs and ROSIE DUNNE took place in Dublin city. However, the hearts of the stories were of a grieving widow and, in ROSIE DUNNE, a single mother with a secret love --- both of which can be understood practically everywhere. They do, however, contain typical Irish humor: whenever something negative happens, there is always somebody quick with a smart remark to relax the mood. In IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW, Ireland plays an important role. Set in Co. Kerry, a beautiful county in the southwest of Ireland, it's a place full of color and magic. My family and I vacation there every year, and I have many memories of it. I felt it was perfect for the story of IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW, as it's almost like another character. In each scene in the book, the weather, the setting, the mountains, lakes, trees, and wild flowers all help set the tone. It's full of color: when weather is windy and raining, it's dramatic and so it's perfect for Ivan's playful nature and Elizabeth's feeling of being suffocated in such a small (fictional) town where everybody knows everybody's else's business. Yet, while it is clearly set in Ireland, again, the story is a universal one of two lost souls coming together to find themselves. That can happen whatever corner of the world you're in, rolling green hills or no rolling green hills. Q: Do you have a favorite of the three you've written thus far? If so, which one, and why? If not, how do you feel about each? CA: PS, I LOVE YOU will always be very special to me for obvious reasons. It's the book that started it all off for me. It made me see how getting trapped in a world of characters I've created can give me and others so much joy. I think PS, I LOVE YOU is the kind of story that led people to write to me and let me know that they've been through similar circumstances. Grief is something we all have to experience; it's something we all have to struggle to deal with, and so it's a story that thankfully touched not only my heart but others' hearts too. ROSIE DUNNE was a joy to write. After working so intensely on PS, I LOVE YOU, I wanted to try something so very different, which I think I achieved. It was a challenge to write it in the format that I wrote it in, and I'm glad that it was successful. Rosie, as a character, is so different from Holly, and I fell in love with her. But while writing IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW, the same feelings I had while writing PS came back to me. Because I returned to the usual format, this book seemed to flow more naturally, and Ivan became a favorite character. I loved the bright Kerry summer setting, as well as Ivan's attitude toward life and the magical feel of the book. I loved its positivity and all the possibilities it discussed. I liked broadening the boundaries and writing about a realistic world, but one in which all the laws and rules of the universe are changed. That theme is something I felt I connected with more than anything else I'd worked on, and I have taken that concept to my fourth book too. Unlike working all night on PS, I LOVE YOU, I worked all day, during the light bright hours, on IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW. From the moment I started writing it, I was so excited for people to read it. And now the time has come! Although in saying that, every book I'm working on at any time is always my favorite, and the fourth book I'm currently writing is by far the best...
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Post by susanmay on May 10, 2007 13:36:55 GMT
Did anyone hear the interview on the Ryan Tub. show with Lionel Shriver (We Need To Talk About Kevin) this morning? She seems like a really nice person who insists on using second hand shops to buy her clothes and cycles everywhere even after all her success. She seems completely unaffected by how well she has done with her writing.
'The Post-Birthday World'. The new novel from the Orange Prize winning author of 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'. It all hinges on one kiss. Whether Irina McGovern does or does not lean in to a specific pair of lips in London will determine whether she stays with her disciplined, intellectual partner Lawrence or runs off with Ramsey, a hard-living snooker player. Using a parallel universe structure, we follow Irena's life as it unfolds under the influence of two drastically different men. Lawrence is Irina's partner of nearly ten years. Ramsey is the ex-husband of a sometime friend, a once-a-year acquaintance to whom Irina has never paid a great deal of attention. Where Lawrence is supportive and devoted; Ramsey is flighty and spontaneous. Lawrence is emotionally withdrawn to the point of repression; Ramsey is fiery and passionate, but volatile. The contrasts between the two men have ramifications for Irina's relationships with friends and family, for her career as an illustrator, and more importantly, for the texture of her daily life. This love is about trade-offs. Both men in Irina's dual future are worthy of her affection but deeply flawed. The answer is that there is no perfect answer: one of the things that draws us to our mates is what is wrong with them. The Post-Birthday World is written with all the subtlety, perceptiveness and drama that made We Need to Talk About Kevin an international bestseller. Details
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Post by susanmay on May 15, 2007 12:07:49 GMT
The queen of romance writing is still searching for a happy ending to her own troubled story. The very private Danielle Steel grants a rare interview, to Karen Angel.
Romance novelist Danielle Steel wouldn't seem to have much missing from her life. She recently signed with New Line Cinema, which wants to make straight-to-DVD movies based on her romance novels, and with Elizabeth Arden, which wants to create a new fragrance named after her. She has her own art gallery, dedicated to contemporary art and nurturing emerging artists. And she's made it through raising nine children, with her youngest set to leave for college later this year.
Oh, and she has sold hundreds of millions of books - more, her agent says, than any other living author.
What could possibly be missing?
True love. Danielle Steel, whose name is synonymous with romance, has no man in her life, and she wishes she did.
It's not as if she had nothing to do - Steel began writing her books at night, often making do with only four hours of sleep, in order to be there for her children during the day, and she still keeps to the same gruelling schedule, hammering away at the same 1946 Olympia typewriter she has always used. But writing isn't enough any more.
"I have nothing else to do," she says, "and because of that schedule I will never have anything else to do. I move between San Francisco and Paris... I have a wonderful beach house in California. I have these wonderful homes, and no one to share them with."
It's a theme that recurs throughout a telephone conversation from Steel's San Francisco home, a few weeks before the February release of her 66th novel, The House, and less than a week after the death of her mother. It's the author's first major interview in more than a decade, partly because she calls herself "very painfully shy" but largely because she wanted to protect her children from the tabloids.
"Being famous has made it so much worse," Steel says. "In the old days I was too busy with children, and I always had a husband to drag me out. Now I have to force myself. It's difficult to talk to people... I walk into a room and I'm Danielle Steel, and whatever I say is going to be taken apart... People are much more inclined to believe and say bad things about you if you're famous.
"It's hard being visible, so I've made myself invisible," she concludes. "I've shut myself inside these walls, and I'm going to be a very lonely old lady if I'm not careful."
Now in her late 50s, Steel has averaged three books a year since 1973, when her first was published. Every one has hit bestseller lists in hardcover and in paperback, and in 1989 she made The Guinness Book of World Records for having a book on The New York Times bestseller list for 381 consecutive weeks - a record she has since broken with more than 390 consecutive weeks.
"I'm astonished by my success," Steel says. "I wrote because I needed to and wanted to. It never occurred to me that I'd become famous. I did it at night because I loved it. I never did it to make money, as a job. I just did it because I had to."
Millions of readers have connected with what she had to say, which Steel finds gratifying.
"I try to write about the stuff that torments us all," she says. "I think I'm very real as a person, and that comes across in my work. I try to give people hope. Even though life is bleak, there's hope out there."
Her characters typically move from naive contentment to heartbreak, followed by an epiphany and a bold life change that leads to romance, betrayal, more heartbreak and, eventually, true happiness. Even so, Steel sees her books as "all very different," and says that they stem from various sources. The House, for example, began in real estate and moved on to family.
"(It was) a friend of mine trying to buy her great-grandmother's house that sparked this story," the novelist says. "I like the idea of four very different generations of women... It's about a mysterious great-grandmother who leaves her husband and family, and about the next generation, the heroine's grandmother and her mother, a woman in her 60s who's extra-tough and somewhat bitter, and married to an alcoholic and dealing with all the issues of someone who had a very bad marriage...
"Through the older people, the younger woman realises what she does and doesn't want to do with her life."
Sounds like another hit. US publisher Delacorte ran a first print run of about 800,000 copies, an astonishing number for almost any other author but, for Steel, simply business as usual.
In real life Steel has had a life so colourful that, well, it would make a good romance novel. The mother of seven children and stepmother of two has been married and divorced five times, colourful liaisons that have attracted much unwanted publicity, especially involving husband No. 2, who is in a Colorado prison serving a 40-year term for rape. No. 3 was a heroin addict and convicted burglar. But Nos. 1, 4 and 5 - French banker Claude-Eric Lazard, cruise-line chief executive John Traina and venture capitalist Tom Perkins - are more what you'd expect from a Steel hero.
Steel doesn't like discussing her early marriages, and blames the sleazy revelations about them in a 1994 biography of her for destroying her marriage to Traina. Authors Lorenzo Benet and Vickie L. Bane had obtained records of Traina's adoption of Steel's son Nick, whose biological father was No. 3, William Toth. She sued in an effort to keep the records sealed, but lost.
"Nick never wanted the other children to know that he wasn't John's child," Steel says. "The records of adopted children are sealed in California. That seal is considered inviolable... The judge ruled that, because I was famous, he didn't have the same rights as other kids.
"We could have appealed," she adds, "but the whole thing was so traumatic for my son that we decided to let it go, so they did print that he was adopted... We told the siblings before the book came out. It probably would have come out in our family eventually anyway."
So bruising was the episode that Steel briefly decided to stop publishing her books, letting them be printed only after her death. She backed off from that resolution within a year, at her children's urging, but stuck to another for much longer.
"I decided I would never do interviews again," she says. "I have stayed below the radar for 15 years... I didn't want to humiliate them. They were being chased around by tabloids."
Steel's own childhood was, by her own account, a lonely one. She was raised in New York by her German father, a minor player in the Lowenbrau beer dynasty.
Her parents divorced when she was seven and her mother, who was Portuguese, moved to Europe. Steel rarely saw her.
The novelist vowed that her children's lives would be different - she refers to herself as "a mommyaholic" - and structured her life around them. As her youngest daughter prepares to depart, she admits to finding herself at a loss. "Being run over by a train would have less of an impact," Steel says. "I have spent 35 years of my life being a full-time mother. It's the best and most fulfilling job."
It's not always a happy job, though: In 1997, at age 19, her son Nick committed suicide. Though she calls herself "a super-private person, practically a recluse," Steel went extremely public with the experience. His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina, telling the story of her son's life, his struggle with manic depression and his death, became a bestseller and remains the most personal of her books.
"I didn't want him to slip away in silence," Steel says. "I wanted people to know that he was an amazing kid... and (wanted) what we learned to serve others."
One thing she learned was that no amount of fame can provide a complete buffer against the blows of life.
"I've had my share of tough stuff," Steel says. "When people look at me outside, they think, 'She's so lucky,' but no one's exempt from tragedy."
Steel's novels have addressed serious themes, treating issues such as cancer, infertility and kidnapping. She has tackled some of history's darker hours, telling stories set on the Titanic, in Nazi Germany, in a Japanese internment camp and in Vietnam.
Critics generally have been kinder to her weightier efforts, but that's not why she writes them. In fact, Steel says, she doesn't read her reviews. Ever.
"My early reviews were so bad that I decided I didn't want to read them again," she says. "Either the world likes them or it doesn't, and fortunately enough people seem to."
New York Times
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Post by susanmay on May 18, 2007 11:40:17 GMT
Interview With Jody Pilcoult about her book 'Second Chance'.
What drew you to the subject of a school shooting for the premise of a novel? As a mom of three, I've seen my own children struggle with fitting in and being bullied. It was listening to their experiences, and my own frustrations, that led me to consider the topic. I also kept thinking about how it's not just in high school where we have this public persona that might be different from what we truly feel inside...everyone wonders if they're good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, no matter how old they are. It's an archetypical moral dilemma - do you act like yourself, and risk becoming an outcast? Or do you pretend to be someone you're not, and hope no one finds out you're faking?
How did you go about conducting research for Nineteen Minutes? Given the heart wrenching and emotional topic of the book, in what ways was the research process more challenging than for your previous novels? This book was VERY hard to research. I actually began through my longtime legal research helper, who had a colleague that had worked in the FBI and put me in touch with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office -- the people who investigated the Columbine shootings. I spoke with them, and they sent me DVDs and material that had never been made available to the public, which helped a bit to get into the mindset of the shooters. The next contact I made was with a woman who served as a grief counselor to the families who lost children at Columbine. However, I really wanted to talk to a school shooting survivor...and yet I didn't want to cause anyone undue pain by bringing up what will always be a difficult subject. I was actually in Minneapolis, doing a reading, when the Red Lake shootings occurred. It was the most surreal feeling: there I was in a hotel, writing a scene in the book, and on the TV next to me was a reporter saying exactly what I was typing into my fiction. I went to the bookstore event that night and was telling folks about the way my two worlds had collided...and a woman came up to me afterward. She knew someone who'd survived the Rocori shootings in MN and was willing to put me in touch with her. Through that connection, I not only spoke with two teachers who shared with me their story of the shooting...but also a young man whose friend died that day. It was his commentary that shook me the most -- as a writer and a parent -- and that became the most important research I did for this book.
What facts did you uncover during your research that might surprise readers whose knowledge of school shootings comes solely from media coverage? Although the media is quick to list the "aberrant" characteristics of a school shooter, the truth is that they fit all teens at some point in their adolescence! Or in other words -- these kids who resort to violence are not all that different from the one living upstairs in your own house, most likely -- as scary as that is to imagine. Two other facts that surprised me: for many of these shooters, there is the thinnest line between suicide and homicide. They go to the school planning to kill themselves and decide at the last minute to shoot others, too. And that, psychologically, a single act of childhood bullying is as scarring emotionally as a single act of sexual abuse. From the point of view of the survivors, I remember being stunned when this young man I interviewed said that afterward, when his parents were trying to be solicitous and ask him if he needed anything, he turned away from them...because he was angry that they hadn't been like that yesterday, BEFORE. Historically, one of the most upsetting things I learned was that after Columbine, more than one family was told that their child was the first to be killed. It was theoretically supposed to offer them comfort ("my child went first, and didn't suffer") but backfired when several families realized they'd been told the same thing.
What appealed to you about bringing back two characters from previous novels: defense lawyer Jordan McAfee and detective Patrick DuCharme? Why the romantic resolution for Patrick this time? Okay, I'm just going to admit it to the world: I have a crush on Patrick DuCharme. And of course, he DIDN'T get the girl at the end of Perfect Match. So I really wanted him to star in another story, where he was front and center. (For those really savvy readers who want to torture themselves with unanswered questions -- scroll back to Chapter 1 of Nineteen Minutes and do the math: how old is Nina's little girl? And how long ago was Perfect Match. Hmm....) As for Jordan -- as soon as I realized that I had a murder trial in New Hampshire, I started thinking of who might defend Peter. And Jordan happened to be free...! It's always great fun to bring a character back, because you get to catch up on his/her life; and you don't have to reinvent the wheel -- you already know how he speaks, acts, thinks.
In Nineteen Minutes, Lewis Houghton is a college professor whose area of expertise is the economics of happiness. Does such a profession actually exist? How does Lewis's job relate to the story as a whole? It does exist! There are economics professors who run statistics about how different elements of a person's life (marriage, sexual orientation, salary, etc.) can add to or detract from overall happiness, by giving those elements a dollar value. Lewis's equation -- that happiness equals reality divided by expectations -- is from real research. However, I sort of fudged the other equation he devises: that expectation divided by reality equals hope. As for how the profession relates to the story -- well, you have to love the irony of a guy who studies happiness for a living and yet isn't aware of the discontent simmering beneath his own roof.
As the mother of three children, was the subject of popularity and the cruel ways in which children often treat one another a difficult one for you to address? It is always hardest for me to write a book that has kids in it close to my kids' ages -- and Nineteen Minutes does. I think that every parent has probably experienced bullying in some form -- either from the POV of the bully or the victim -- so it's a pretty universal subject. But in many ways, watching my children as they struggled to find their own place in the social hierarchy of school did make them guinea pigs for me, as I was writing the book. I know that many of my readers are the age of the young characters in this book, and over the years, some have written me to ask if I'd write a book about bullying. But it wasn't until I began to connect what kids experience in school with how adults treat other adults who are somehow different that I began to piece together the story. Discrimination and difference at the high school level will never end until the adults running these schools can go about their own lives without judging others for their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. How ridiculous is it that America prides itself on being a melting pot, when -- as Peter says in the novel -- that just means it makes everyone the same?
Did you have the surprise ending in mind when you began writing Nineteen Minutes, or did it evolve later in the process? As with all my books, I knew the ending before I wrote the first word.
You're the author of fourteen novels. As you write more and more books, is it harder to come up with ideas? How do you know when an idea is the right one? The right idea is the one you can't stop thinking about; the one that's in your head first thing in the morning. The ideas choose me, not the other way around. And as for a shortage (I'm knocking on wood, here) I haven't faced that yet. I could tell you what the next four books I'm writing will address.
You once remarked about your previous novel, My Sister's Keeper, that "there are so many shades of gray in real life." How might this statement also apply to Nineteen Minutes? It's funny you should compare Nineteen Minutes to My Sister's Keeper because I see them as very similar books -- they are both very emotional, very gut-wrenching, and they're situations that every parent dreads. And like the moral and ethical complications of MSK, you have a kid in Nineteen Minutes who does something that, on the surface, is absolutely devastating and destructive and will end the lives of others. But -- given what these characters have endured -- can you blame them? Do I condone school shootings? Absolutely not. But I can understand why a child who's been victimized might feel like he's justified in fighting back. I also think it's fascinating to look at how two good parents might find themselves with a child they do not recognize -- a child who does something they can't swallow. Do you stop loving your son just because he's done something horrible? And if you don't, do you start hating yourself? There are so many questions raised by Nineteen Minutes -- it's one big gray area to wallow in with your book group!
Many of your books center on topics that are front and center in the headlines. Is it important for you to not only entertain readers with a riveting storyline but to challenge them to think about timely and often controversial topics? Why do you suppose you have gravitated toward this type of storytelling? I think that sometimes when we don't want to talk about issues that are hard to discuss or difficult to face, it's easier to digest it in fiction instead of nonfiction. I mean, no one goes into their bookstore and says, "Hey, can I read the most recent book about the sexual molestation of kids!?" but if you pick up a novel that has that as its center, you will become involved with the characters and the plot and find yourself dissecting the issue without even realizing it. Fiction allows for moral questioning, but through the back door. Personally, I like books that make you think -- books you're still wondering about three days after you finish them; books you hand to a friend and say "Read this, so we can talk about it." I suppose I'm just writing the kind of novel I like to read!
In the Acknowledgements section, you write: "To the thousands of kids out there who are a little bit different, a little bit scared, a little bit unpopular: this one's for you." What might readers, particularly younger readers, take from this book and apply to their own lives? If I could say one thing to the legions of teens out there who wake up every morning and wish they didn't have to go to school, it would be this -- and I'm saying it as both a mom and a writer: Stay the course. You WILL find someone like you; you WILL fit in one day. And know that even the cool kids, the popular kids, worry that someone will find out their secret: that they worry about fitting in, just like you do.
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Post by susanmay on Jun 21, 2007 14:04:58 GMT
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Post by susanmay on Nov 28, 2007 15:40:57 GMT
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Post by megan on Nov 28, 2007 18:09:21 GMT
Thanks a million for posting these interviews, Susan. I love reading them!
Can't wait for Marsha's next book!
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Post by susanmay on Dec 14, 2007 12:04:21 GMT
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Post by susanmay on Mar 4, 2008 11:26:18 GMT
iVillage talks to Patricia Scanlanby Ronita Dutta Dublin-born novelist Patricia Scanlan talks to iVillage about her novel, Two for Joy, her campaign to promote adult literacy, and reveals the best piece of advice she's ever received
When did you first start writing? In the late Eighties. I was first published in 1990.
Was it hard for you to break into publishing? I had my rejections. Interestingly enough, City Girl was rejected by Corgi, who later had to pay a lot of money for it and my other novels. The lesson: Never lose hope.
Is the plot of Two for Joy based on any real-life experience? Two For Joy was loosely based on the experiences of a couple I was vaguely acquainted with through friends. It's the story of how infertility ruins a marriage. However, in general, I don't use real people. I invent my own characters and they go through the common experiences that are part of all our lives.
You're involved in something called the Open Door Project. What's that all about? Open Door is a concept I came up with to help and encourage readers who have literacy problems. I wanted people to enjoy reading and not see it as a chore or something daunting. I asked some of my author friends and colleagues to join with me in writing a series of novellas with literacy problems in mind. We wanted to write enjoyable adult novellas that were not difficult to read. Roddy Doyle, Joe O' Connor, Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly and Sheila O'Flanagan are some of the authors involved. We are now on our fourth series, and they have been translated into seven languages.
What do you enjoy most, writing novels or teaching creative writing? I enjoy both. Writing is a unique experience. It's wonderful when the characters take on a life of their own and the novel starts to drive you. It's a powerful feeling that you can create a character, a town, an experience and do with it what you want.
I enjoy teaching creative writing because it's a pleasure to enthuse my young students with the thrill of writing and the joy of being creative. It's great to see their confidence develop over the term, and some of the work is of a very high standard. I love watching them write from the heart.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? My ex-agent once said to me 'if your characters are cold and miserable we should be cold and miserable. If they're joyful and happy we should be the same.' It was great advice and taught me to put myself into my character's shoes.
Who are your favourite authors? I have many authors that I love to read, but one of my absolute favourites is Madeleine Wickham, who has now made her name writing under the name Sophie Kinsella. Try and read The Tennis Party or thingytails for Three. Superb writing. I also love Annie E. Proulx
What's the last book you read? I am currently reading and enjoying Brick Lane, by Monica Ali
How do you relax? I love silk painting, but haven't done much lately, unfortunately.
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Post by megan on Mar 4, 2008 11:49:04 GMT
Thanks Susan.
I'll like that: NEVER LOSE HOPE!!
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Post by Oonagh on Mar 4, 2008 15:27:29 GMT
that was an interesting interview. thanks susan
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Post by susanmay on Mar 5, 2008 13:37:49 GMT
If I'm boring you at any time girls, please tell me to stop! I'm an interview junkie! These's interviews spur me on to writing!
Here's a Jacquline Wilson interview for good measure!
When best selling author Jacqueline Wilson arrived in Newcastle as part of her latest book signing tour, site user Kirsty McNaught, managed to tear her away from her army of fans for a chat about her work.
Jacqueline Wilson was born in Bath and wrote her first book, about a family called The Maggots, when she was nine.
Her first job was as a journalist on the teen magazine Jackie.
Her books have been translated into 23 different languages.
She sells an average 60,000 books a month and was the only living author in the top 10 in a BBC Bookworm poll to find the nation's favourite children's book.
Her children's novels include The Suitcase Kid (1993), The Lottie Project (1998), Bad Girls (1998) and The Illustrated Mum (1999).
Jacqueline has been on countless short lists and has won several awards, including The Young Telegraph/Fully Booked Award for 1995’s The Bed and Breakfast Star, the Smarties Prize, the Sheffield Children’s Book Award and the Children’s Book Award for Double Act.
The Illustrated Mum was short listed for the 1999 Whitbread Children’s Book and won the 1999 Children’s Book of the Year and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award.
Double Act and Tracy Beaker have been filmed for television.
Jacqueline Wilson has to be Britain’s most famous children’s author. After all, she has won copious awards and acclamations including the Smarties prize for her book, ‘Double Act’. Her appeal is wide; as well as the expected little ‘uns, I definitely know a few 20 year olds secretly stashing her books on their shelves.
She recently visited Newcastle on her latest book signing tour. (Perhaps the writer’s equivalent of a greatest hits tour!) Being a big fan myself, I decided that she would be an extremely interesting lady to pose a few questions to.
Kirsty: You concentrate mainly on children’s books. Do you think as an author, you can have more fun with the storylines?
Jacqueline: I have written adult crime novels in the past, but I much prefer writing for children. I like writing from a child’s point of view and I think I’m much happier sticking with children’s books.
I don’t want to point out the obvious; but you’re not 12 yrs old. So, how do you research your characters?
I think partly because I lead a crazy life where I’m frequently doing bookshop signings, so I am around children all the time. Plus I get two or three hundred letters a week from children.
Oh, are you like an agony aunt?
Absolutely!
Wow!
Jacqueline Wilson I feel I'm very much in touch with children and because I write in the first person, if I'm pretending to be a 10 year old child, automatically that’s the way the writing comes out.
Do you think that it’s possible for a female to write accurately from a male perspective?
From a male perspective? Well, I've had a go in that I have written a few books with a boy narrator. And indeed in my long distance past with the crime novels, I did write one or two from the male point of view. But, I think it’s quite a difficult trick in that certainly if I read books by a man with a female narrator, it doesn't always ring true. I feel happier, actually, writing from a female point of view.
So, have you got any plans to write any more books for adults? Maybe you could do one where the characters grow up and go to Newcastle University?
This is certainly something that I ponder on as a joke with friends, but it might be fun to do in the future.
Could your students go to Newcastle Uni please?
(Ha ha! Has a little giggle.) Well, that could be a point. Yeah!
Have you ever thought of appearing as a character in one of your books? You could be the perfect woman or something?
Well, I have in effect done that in my new book, ‘Clean Break’. It’s written from the point of view of a 10 year old, but she loves reading, and one of the people that she loves to read is a novelist called Jenna Williams, the same JW initials as me.
And at the end of the book, Nick Sharratt has done a wonderful illustration of the Jenna Williams character at a book signing, and she does seem to bear a remarkable resemblance to me.
Did you have this in mind when you wrote it?
Yes, I had a little bit of fun that way. In the midst of a big book signing tour some of the little girls that I have encountered have already read ‘Clean Break’, and this has amused them considerably!
Ah. You started out as a journalist. Do you think that it was a good base for becoming a writer?
Well being a journalist teaches you not to be too precious about your writing, in that you can't hang around waiting for inspiration. You've just got to get on with it. You've got deadlines, you've got to get the right number of words down. And, also, you learn that sometimes it might be nothing to do with the quality of your writing, but suddenly your space has been cut. And I think that these are all good things for a writer to learn.
I was never a newspaper journalist, I was a magazine journalist, but I did enjoy my time working on magazines.
Do you ever get bored of writing and wish that you'd become a stunt woman, or something exciting?!
I frequently get bored of writing, but, I don't think I have any other particular talents whatsoever. Ha ha, I think it was my only possible way of earning a decent living. I'm very happy to stick with writing.
Okay. I've got one last question. What do you think of Harry Potter?
To be truthful I've only read the first Harry Potter, because even as a child I've never read fantasy. But when I did read the first one I realised that it has got this page turning quality that makes it perfectly obvious why so many people enjoy them so much.
There’s no rivalry then?
Absolutely no rivalry. In fact, J. Rowling and I have met up several times and we're on big hugs and kiss cheeks terms.
Oh, that’s a shame!
She has a very nice daughter, Jessica, who likes reading my books, so what could be better than that?!
Oh that is lovely! Anyway, thank you very much Jacqueline.
You're very welcome it’s been good to talk to you.
So, there you have it. Jacqueline Wilson is a polite and chatty lady who admits to leading a crazy life. Maybe this explains the extremely impressive ring collection that I observed- a huge one on each finger! Now that is crazy!
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Post by susanmay on Mar 14, 2008 14:29:17 GMT
Comedy writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews will be speaking to Ryan Tubridy tomorrow night on RTE 1.
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Post by Oonagh on Mar 18, 2008 15:52:40 GMT
What did u think of them Susan?? I only thought they were only alright. I thought they would be better.
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Post by megan on Mar 18, 2008 16:37:29 GMT
Thanks for the Jacqueline Wilson interview, Susan. I just spotted it now. I love these interviews. Pease don't stop!
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Post by susanmay on Mar 18, 2008 19:38:34 GMT
I was a bit disappointed too Oons. I thought they'd have been a lot better.
I'd read those interviews all day too Megan.
Derek Laudy is on Ireland AM tomorrow morning.
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Post by Shirley on Mar 18, 2008 21:21:53 GMT
Thanks for telling us about Derek Landy's interview, Susan. I really like him and must try to catch this! His new book is out in early April as far as I am aware - maybe the date has been brought forward when he is doing interviews now.
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Post by susanmay on Sept 8, 2008 15:57:24 GMT
May 27, 2008
An interview with Elizabeth Berg I had an opportunity to interview the very talented and prolific Elizabeth Berg. She has written several bestsellers. Her newest work is absolutely wonderful - “The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation.” I loved the stories – they were funny, sad, touching and made me want to reach out and hug some of the characters.
1. Why do you write?
a. The simplest way to answer the question why I write is to say that I have to. It's therapy; it's the place I feel best. It soothes me, it helps me make sense of the world, it entertains and sustains me. It is how I make myself feel like i belong here on planet Earth, if you know what I mean.
2. What makes a good short story? How do you know that you have provided enough information in the story to make it “complete”?
a. For me, what makes a good story are the same things that make a good novel, or article, or essay, or poem: an eye for detail, an integration of things seen with things felt; the sense that you've been somewhere (physically or emotionally) without having had to go there. Most importantly, I like it when the author gets out of the way of the story and lets it speak for itself. As for how I tell when a story is "complete," it's just a kind of internal shift that lets me know okay, I've said it, that's enough. It's intuitive; it's organic and it's natural, kind of in the same way that you know when you've finished a sentence. I believe in letting the unconscious be your guide. I trust my soul much more than my brain.
3. Your characters are so real. Do you steal from real life? How do you shape them to make them so identifiable – I read your stories and walk down the street, observe people and think, “Oh, that lady could be Elizabeth’s Birdie!”
a. My characters are never taken directly from anyone I know. They are either completely made up (as in the "Birdie' character you mentioned) or they are composite characters: a characteristic taken from this person, another from that one. But even when I'm pulling from "real life," the characters are transformed in order to serve larger theme of the story.
4. What process to you follow for your writing? Do you write everyday?
a. I write every morning for about three to five hours. I find it best to work as close to the sleep state as possible. I also find it best to let the story tell me, not the other way around. I don't plot; I like to be surprised by where a work takes me.
5. My "top three nuggets of advice for aspiring writers"?
(1) Be yourself, be yourself, be yourself--don't try to copy anyone else.
(2) Write because you love to write, not because you think it would be swell to be out on book tour.
(3) READ. Read a lot and read widely: that's the best way to learn good writing techniques.
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Post by megan on Sept 8, 2008 17:17:07 GMT
Thanks again Susan. I love this thread.
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Post by Shirley on Sept 8, 2008 17:18:05 GMT
Thanks for that, Susan. I love that title “The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation.” So true!
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Post by claire on Sept 8, 2008 17:22:27 GMT
i enjoyed that one too thought I never heard of the book or writer!
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Post by Jacqui on Sept 8, 2008 17:43:07 GMT
thank you for that susan I loved the nuggets of advice! great title also!
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