Author Q&As
at Writers Review: insights into authors' motivation, inspiration and working practices.
Interview with Adèle Geras, writing as Hope Adams, about her historical novel inspired by the Rajah Quilt, Dangerous Women. " I tried very hard to stick to the known facts about the real voyage, though I took the liberty of adding a crime and a ticking clock to keep readers gripped by the story."
Read the interview here.
Celia Rees talks about her postwar spy novel Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook: "If she was a spy, how would she pass on messages? I thought of the handwritten recipes passing between women. The two ideas connected and I knew I had a book."
Photograph by Linda Newbery
Read the interview here.
Jane Rogers talks about her new short story collection, Fire Ready: "In fiction you can test things out and examine both sides of a question. I write to explore."
Photograph by Linda Newbery
Read the interview here.
Patrick Gale on Mother's Boy, his novel based on the life of poet Charles Causley: "I wanted to piece together myself what shaped the man who wrote them. Whenever he was asked why he didn’t write his memoirs he answered that 'it' was all in the poems. So in large part what this novel does is to go back to the poems in search of 'it' ... "
Photograph by Jillian Edelstein
Read the interview here.
Graeme Fife on his novel of the French Revolution, No Common Assassin: "The story of Charlotte Corday transfixed me: her audacity, naivete, determination and innocence, as well as the bare facts of what she did."
Read the interview here.