Interview with Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

• Welcome to the Triskele Bookclub, Lindsay. Tell us a little about you and your writing.

I’ve written stories ever since I can remember, perhaps because I read avidly as a child. I’ve still got a few of those stories, and they’re not too embarrassing! I stopped work while my children were little and during that time, I wrote four novels – what I now think of as my apprenticeship. Novel four received some ‘wonderful’ rejections, including a hand-written note from Virago which said I’m sorry to be saying no to this!

When I returned to full-time teaching in a further education college, I had no time to write. But then I got the chance to teach some creative writing and I was hooked again. I began to have some success with short stories and started another novel. In 2005 I left full-time teaching to do an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University. As part of my degree, I wrote the first draft of ‘Unravelling’, which I published independently in 2010, and it then went on to win several awards. I then wrote ‘The Piano Player’s Son’, which was published by Cinnamon Press.

In my writing, I am interested in exploring the dynamics of personal relationships. In particular, I enjoy writing about family relationships, whether between husbands/wives, partners, siblings, parents and children. They often involve power struggles and are a microcosm of the wider dynamic of society’s relationships. The family can be a source of wonderful, nurturing relationships, or a cause of destruction and pain, that mixture of love and hate that is common in many families.

• I read and enjoyed The Piano Players Son. Tell us a little about the book.

‘The Piano Player’s Son’ tells the story of a family with four grown up children. At the beginning of the novel, the father, Henry, dies, and the mother tells one of her daughters, Isabel, a secret that has been kept for thirty-five years. She also makes her promise not to tell anyone. The novel largely revolves around the repercussions as the secret gradually emerges, including another – perhaps bigger - secret. Nothing is quite as it seems.

The story also concerns inheritance and the difficulties it can cause within a family. I’m not so interested in the inheritance of money but less obviously valuable things. People have told me about cases such as two sisters not speaking to each other again because one got the father’s watch and the other didn’t. It seems to be about something much deeper than the disputed item – more to do with an individual’s place in the family, their worth, how much they were valued. The item in the novel – as the title suggests – is a piano!

•  Family secrets and complex relationships are a big focus. What were your influences or reasons for writing the novel? 

I am interested in secrets and their impact. It often appears that it is the secret itself rather than the truth behind it that does the damage, especially when the person has died and can’t be asked questions. As Isabel says ‘Finding out undermines all the certainties.’ In the novel ‘The Piano Player’s Son’ also explores the corrosive effects of keeping secrets on the individual. In 1984, George Orwell writes ‘If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.’ And perhaps that’s the main problem with secrets – in order to keep them, we also have to lie to ourselves. We must pile thought after thought on top of the secret, so that eventually we live in a false world. But it doesn’t take a psychiatrist to explain what psychological damage such behaviour is likely to inflict on an individual. Secrets or ‘lies’ are the strongest walls we can build within and around ourselves, trapping us in a prison of deception.

Certainly, the novel suggests that Henry was damaged by the secrets he kept. He poured all his love into his relationship with Eva – the one person who shared the secrets – whereas his relationship with at least two of his children was damaged. His eldest son, Rick, craved affection, but nothing he did ever seemed good enough to gain his father’s love. Grace, the other daughter, was never convinced her father loved her, leaving her doubly upset that she wasn’t there when he died. As she tells her friend Lilian ‘I always thought one day I’d get a chance to ask him if he loved me.’ The effect of keeping secrets appears to have made him an emotionally distant father.

• You've had a foot in two publishing camps. You self published your first novel but have moved to Cinnamon press, a small Welsh publisher for The Piano Players Son. Why the change in direction?

Self-publishing has leapt forward in the four years since I published ‘Unravelling’, and I was happy to continue with the independent route, especially since joining the Alliance of Independent Authors and being part of such a vibrant group with the emphasis on professionalism. But I entered ‘The Piano Player’s Son’ for the Cinnamon Press novel writing award (some of my short stories have been published by them) and it won. The prize was publication - ‘an offer I couldn’t refuse’.

• We met at LBF 14, shared a sofa a rowdy ALLI event I recall! What were your experiences of the event and what do you think it offers authors?

The best thing about LBF 14 for me was meeting other ALLI members, both those I already knew and those who previously had been only a name, a few comments and a thumbnail photo. There was a lovely sense of community in the gathering. As a whole, though, I was disappointed with LBF’s offerings for authors. The size of the author area was inadequate for the numbers using it, and the events put on for authors (apart from the ALLI ones) didn’t take into account the professionalism of many indie authors. The session on reviews was an example of this – all the reviewers said they wouldn’t consider reviewing self-published books because you couldn’t guarantee the quality.

•  They say to be a great writer you must be a great reader. What do you read and who are your literary heroes?

I read mainly novels and poetry. When I was younger I read all the classics, but now tend to read modern novels, probably veering towards literary fiction, although I do enjoy thrillers sometimes. And I think all novels need that ‘must turn over the page to see what happens’ quality that the best thrillers and crime fiction have.

I’m not sure I have literary heroes as such, but writers whose work I’ve loved but haven’t read for a long time include Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Rosamund Lehman, Graham Greene.

More contemporary writers whose work I like include Maggie O’Farrell (especially ‘The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox’), Helen Dunmore, Rose Tremain, Anne Tyler (I’m thrilled that some people have compared my books with hers), Stella Duffy, Anne Enright. I’m conscious they’re all women, so redress the balance slightly I also like the Irish writers William Trevor and Sebastian Barry.

•  What's next for you in terms of your literary career?

I’m about 60,000 words into the first draft of my next novel, provisionally called ‘Phoenix’. It involves a family again, this time a brother and sister are the main protagonists, and its theme is the clash between personal ambition/self-fulfilment and family expectations and demands. I’m hoping to finish this draft by the end of September/October and then start the redrafting and editing process. I hope it will be ready to publish April or May 2015. I will probably take the indie route again. I also hope to continue writing short stories and flash fiction and will send those off to competitions

You're a creative writing tutor, as well as a novelist, what are your three top tips to an up and coming author desperate to see their work in print?

• 1) Learn the craft of creative writing and write the very best work you can. This includes reading widely and studying how other writers do it.
• 2) Be prepared to rewrite and rewrite until the writing is polished. Discipline, determination and patience are necessary qualities for writers. Value the feedback you receive whether it’s positive or negative – there is usually something to be learned.
• 3) When it’s as good as you make it, send it out or find out about self-publishing. It won’t get anywhere tucked away in a drawer.

•  What advice do you wish you'd been given when you started out as a writer?

The best advice I was given in my early days of writing novels was ‘cut, cut and cut again’. I still think that’s true, but now I realise it’s also important to develop scenes, to flesh them out or dramatise them. Sometimes a first draft is sketchy and the layers need to be added. I also wish I’d understood more of the craft of writing. Most of my fiction was instinctive or what I had absorbed subconsciously from my reading. I’ve learnt a lot about writing from teaching it.

I wish someone could have looked into the future and told me about computers and how indie publishing would burgeon. I was conditioned to believe that if your work was good enough, it would be picked up by a publisher/agent one day. I don’t think that any more, but nowadays it doesn’t matter – the stranglehold of the traditional publishers is being prised apart.

• What writing ambitions do you still want to achieve?

I want to write and publish more novels. The one I’m currently writing began life with another huge thread attached to it. I eventually had to accept the novel wasn’t working because it was actually two narratives that I was trying to jam into one, like trying to put two feet into one sock. I had to unpick them and decide which thread to go with first. But I’m itching to return to the other thread as soon as I’ve finished the current one. It’s about a young Ethiopian woman who was brought out of Ethiopia when she was about eight and brought up in England by the white middle-class English man who ‘rescued’ her and his wife. I think it will be my most challenging novel to date.

I would also love to be successful in a major competition such as Bridport or Fish publishing. I was one of ten winners for Fish in 2013 with one of my flash fictions, but have only reached the long or shortlist with my stories. But my main ambition is to be read. I would love more readers to find my books.

•   EBook or Paperback. Your vote?

Definitely paperbook. I love everything about books – the feel, the smell, the covers, the whole experience of seeing the words on the page. I occasionally read on my kindle, but for me, it’s a poor substitute.

•  Finally, where do you see the publishing industry in a decades time after all the recent changes we've seen?

I would like to think the stagnant heart of traditional publishing will have finally gone and traditional and independent publishing can co-exist as equals. I get worried when I read items such Amazon’s plan for book streaming – customers pay so much per month and have access to any book as part of their subscription. That would seem to put an end to valuing individual authors. A lot of negatives are raised such as too many books and too few readers – and there’s no doubt that visibility is becoming more of a problem – but I hope the positives outweigh the negatives. As writers and readers, we have to remain optimistic.

Thank you for inviting me to be part of Triskele's Book Club, Gillian, and for asking such interesting questions.

www.lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk

Review of The Piano Player's Son by Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

By Gillian Hamer


Women’s fiction isn’t my first choice of reading genre, even though I like to think I am becoming more adventurous as I get older, but I’m glad I dipped my toe into the intriguing world created by a very talented author – Lindsay Stanberry- Flynn.
Lindsay and I met in person at the London Book Fair in April ’14 and I was immediately taken with her curious nature and wealth of experience, and was delighted to invite her to the Triskele Book Club and take the opportunity to read her latest novel.

This is a complex family saga with layers of intrigue and hidden depths. A family thrown into grief after the death of a much-loved father begins to unravel after Eva (the mother) imparts a three-decade-old secret to her eldest daughter, Isabel.

Isabel becomes the narrator; already facing a multitude of crises in her personal life, this added strain is the final straw. What follows is a story of sibling rivalry, trust and deception, and a shocking conclusion that takes the reader by surprise. Every family member is examined and the relationship within the family unit is dissected in a clever way – something that will make a lot of people uncomfortable in its realism. It’s a personal bugbear of mine that death and grief is often portrayed in books and films as something romantic and heartfelt, and yet, more often than not a death can lead to bitter in-fighting and rivalry at a time when those close to the deceased simply want peace and time to heal. The author does not hold back in showing the real face of bereavement and all its consequences.

Lindsay’s strength as a human being seems to be her ability to understand the frailty of human nature, the complexity of family life, and shows us great insight into building a collection of characters that – while not all likeable – are all believable and realistic. Her strength as a writer is in her ability to create a plot that is gritty with a strong narrative and yet, offer us prose has the lightest of touches and a style that is original and compelling.

A must-read for anyone with an interest in family sagas and women’s contemporary fiction.

Self-Publishing with Matador.

Today we are delighted to welcome Sarah Taylor from Matador to the Triskele blog. Sarah is Marketing Manager at Troubador Publishing, and editor of the Self-Publishing Magazine.

Hello, Sarah. Can you tell us when and why was Matador set up? What is the relationship with Troubador?

Troubador Publishing Ltd, established in the 1980s, is a traditional publishing house and the parent company of Matador, our self-publishing imprint. Matador was launched in 1999 as a response to the wealth of authors approaching us to publish the sort of books a mainstream publisher never would – like biographies, niche non-fiction titles and local interest titles. Matador established itself from the start as high-quality self-publishing, combining the freedom of self-publishing with the quality and distribution of traditional publishing.

In the 15 years that Matador has been running, we’ve grown to a 16-staff-member imprint, offering a full range of publishing, marketing and distribution services, printing over 300 books a year. Not only do we still help the authors we used to – those with the niche, smaller interest titles – but we also help authors who want to print larger amounts of their book and have their books stocked by bookshops across the country. Self-publishing is not a one-size-fits-all process, and the variety of methods we offer can be tailored to an author’s specific self-publishing goal.

What specifically does Matador offer authors?

Matador is all about ‘serious self-publishing’ – we have always placed a great deal of emphasis on quality, and on producing books that wouldn’t look out of place next to books published by Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, etc. We’re also a bespoke self-publishing services provider – we can do as little or as much as an author wants us to: we don’t have packages or regimented offerings. Editorial work, typesetting, cover design, ebook conversion, marketing, distribution – it all depends on what the author wants for their book. Most of our books have longer print runs that are printed upfront (i.e. 300-500 copies), but we publish Print On Demand books as well. We also offer ebook publishing, either on its own or alongside a physical book – which is a really popular option.

Who is it suitable for and how is it different from going it alone?

Our services are suitable for anyone who wants to self-publish their book and wants a company who can undertake some, most, or all of the different processes involved! Going it alone requires an author to outsource all of the many components involved in self-publishing and bring them all together. Not only can this be very time-consuming, but some of the processes are very difficult to do on your own – for example, distribution is tricky to outsource well, but it’s a vital part of publishing a book if you want to sell your book to the trade.

Typically, what does it cost to publish a book through Matador?

There isn’t a typical cost, as we don’t offer packages, and because it’s all based on the specific book, size and pagination. We also price-check with the different printers that we use so that we can offer the best costs for an author. That’s why we always ask authors to send us a manuscript upfront, so that we can provide an obligation-free quotation. Some authors want to opt for all of the services we offer, and some select specific ones, so prices vary.

Do you have any editorial input in the books you publish?

We turn down about a quarter of the manuscripts that are submitted to us – generally where we feel that the book isn't ready for publication, for example if it needs more work than an copy edit would cover, or if we feel that there would be legal issues with it. If we don’t feel that a book is ready for publication, we’ll give the author feedback – and often these authors go off and work on their book and come back with a manuscript that we can accept for publication. We don't gate keep in terms of content, but we do have a quality control in place!

Who has the final say on design?

As it’s self-publishing, the final say lands with the author. We’ll always provide advice and guidance where we can, and let an author know if we think something isn’t right for their book or genre, but at the end of the day it is up to the author. Our production team take a great deal of pride in their book design and work hard to ensure that our titles are bookshop quality.

Do you link your authors up with editors and designers?

Yes, as well as offering our own editorial and design services in-house, we also provide link-ups to external editors and cover designers – for example, illustrators, map creators and graphic designers.

What if they want to use their own cover?

As long as the specifications fit, it’s high-resolution enough and there are no copyright issues, they are free to do so! Some authors supply their own cover; some use their own front cover and we do the spine and back; some just supply an image for the front cover; and most authors ask us to design their full cover from scratch! The production team can provide feedback and advice on all aspects of cover design, including whether an author-supplied cover is of suitable quality.

Do your authors own their own ISBNs or does Matador provide them? Who owns the rights? Who is the publisher of record?

We own all of the Matador ISBNs, but not in terms of copyright to the work – we’re simply recognised as the publisher/owner of that ISBN. If an author wants to use their own ISBN they can do, but they then need to handle setting up the data with Nielsen and ensuring that the data is disseminating correctly. If we use our ISBN, then we handle all of the bibliographic data management for a title – but again, it doesn’t mean that we own the rights to that book. We do however subscribe to Nielsen’s enhanced data service, which gives our records more prominence when viewed by book buyers.

How easy is it to make changes to ebooks and pbooks post-publication?

If an author wants to make changes to their paperback or ebook, they’re welcome to do so. They can make changes to their existing paperback book – like using revised text or a new cover – and then do a reprint. With ebooks, it’s easier to make changes because we can simply upload new files – it’s also easier to change the pricing of an ebook, whereas printed books usually have the price printed on the back.

How does the payment of authors work?

Royalties are paid quarterly and are sent via BACs, along with a full statement that includes how many books have been sold in that quarter, what channel the books have been sold through and how many copies the author has left.

What distribution channels are Matador books hooked into?

We have accounts with Orca Book Services (part of Marston), who distribute a large amount of our books – and we are on direct supply via Orca to Waterstones. We place a number of our titles each month with Star Book Sales, an established book repping company, who in turn promote titles to retailers nationwide. They work on a national level with big buyers, including Waterstones and WHSmiths, who they present forthcoming titles in that month to, and they also have reps working across the UK, who present titles to bookshops in each region.

We also have accounts with Gardners and Bertrams, the two biggest UK book wholesalers, and we can fulfil orders from our warehouse, ensuring that we can supply bookshops across the UK. We also offer a Print On Demand overseas distribution service to the US, Canada, Brazil, South Africa and Australia. In addition, we offer a full ebook distribution service, distributing industry-standard, DRM-protected ePub and mobi files to hundreds of major retailers and libraries worldwide, including Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, Nook and Scrib’d.

What sort of marketing do you give your authors?

We have a full range of services for authors that they can take according to their needs – including paperback marketing, which involves us marketing our authors’ books to the trade, to increase book sales, and to the media, to generate media coverage and in turn boost sales. We also offer ebook marketing and use an ebook review site called NetGalley that allows NetGalley members (nearly 200,000, spanning a variety of reviewers, booksellers, librarians, media professionals and educators) to download a DRM-protected free copy of the ebook and then review it and share feedback. We also offer social media marketing, which involves us getting authors set up on Twitter and Facebook, and a full range of marketing materials – including postcards, bookmarks, posters – plus book trailers, inclusion in our IPR License scheme and much more! We’re always on the lookout for new marketing opportunities that we can offer our authors and are often launching new services and improving our existing ones.

Do Matador authors support one another – with practical issues, say, or with marketing?

A lot of our authors are in contact with each other, yes – both on Twitter and in real life! We find that they help each other a lot by providing advice on various aspects of self-publishing, giving valuable feedback and assisting each other with marketing and promotion. They even buy each others’ books!

Lots of our authors meet and network at the industry events that we hold, like The Self-Publishing Conference and our Self-Publishing Experience Days. We’re passionate about providing unbiased advice to self-publishing authors, which is why we hold these events, and also why we publish the quarterly Self Publishing Magazine.

Tell me about the Matador author conferences.

We hold the annual Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester, which is a full-day event packed full of informative sessions on a variety of topics. Self-publishing authors can pick and choose which seminars to attend, allowing them to tailor the day to their own project, and in the breaks they can mingle with other delegates and the self-publishing speakers. Many experts in the industry come and hold session – last year our Keynote Speaker was Alysoun Owen, the editor of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, and we also had representatives from Nielsen and Kobo. Our third annual Conference is in May 2015 and booking opens later this year: http://www.selfpublishingconference.org.uk/
We’ve moved the Conference to a Saturday this year to allow attendees to network at a post-Conference drinks party!

We also hold Self-Publishing Experience Days across the year at printers across the country. Around 10-15 delegates come along and members from the printer and Matador talk about various aspects of printing and publishing, and advise authors how best to go about the various processes themselves – the authors then get to look around the printing firm so they can see how their book will be produced and ask any questions about their specific self-publishing project.

What happens if an author wants to leave?

An author who publishes with Matador owns the copyright to their work, so if they choose to they can withdraw the edition they have with us or let it go out of print. Authors aren’t tied into lengthy contracts.

Tell us some of your success stories? What are you particularly proud of?

Success comes in many guises for our authors, because our authors have varying self-publishing goals and therefore different definitions of success. We’ve had a lot of authors being signed up to mainstream publishers – including Gollancz, Headline, HarperCollins, Palgrave Macmillan and Transworld – plus authors who have won book prizes (we’ve had two category winners at the British Sports Book Awards, and at The People’s Book Prize), as well as authors who have sold out their print runs. We also have authors who appear in national papers and magazines and on TV and radio, plus authors who have signed film/TV rights with external companies. We’re proud of all of our authors – and we’re proud that we help them to achieve their self-publishing dreams.

You can learn more about our authors in our Media Centre – plus via our Twitter feed @matadorbooks, which is a great place to catch up with new developments and author news!


Thank you, Sarah!

Sarah Taylor is the Marketing Manager at Troubador Publishing, where she has worked for over four years. She is also the Editor of The Self Publishing Magazine. She studied at English and Journalism at De Montfort University, Leicester, and has over seven years of publishing experience. Sarah works with self-publishing authors daily to help them market their books and has given numerous speeches at industry events on a variety of self-publishing topics.

Quirk

I’m JW Hicks, author of Rats, and this is my first outing on the Triskele blog; here’s hoping it’ll be a comfy ride.

I’ve been considering a by-line, and this is what I’ve come up with:- The Maunderings of an Addict of Quirk.

The dictionary definition of quirk is as follows:- idiosyncratic, odd, capricious. Flukey even.

I look for quirk when searching for reading material. Today quirk is easy to find, what with dramatically graphic covers, juicy blurbs, and reviews – there are shed loads of informative reviews to be found, in newspapers and online.

When I was young my local library didn’t have categories. If you wanted science fiction, the paranormal or indeed anything out-of-the-ordinary, then you damn well had to search the shelves, book by dusty book. (You didn’t dare ask old stone-face, she’d just glare, or worse say something patronising.) So, I’ll be sharing my favourite reads with you, hoping to tease you into enjoying my quirk as well as hopefully finding your own.

Quirk comes in many guises, in YA fiction, General fiction, sci-fi, crime, and so on. Quirk, you’ll find, is everywhere. Just look.

My first quirky review is of Carol O’Connell’s Mallory’s Oracle. A detective novel with more than a generous dollop of Quirk.

When you’ve finished reading Mallory’s Oracle you will feel bereft. Straightaway you’ll start searching for another Mallory fix. Be comforted, Oracle was only the start of the series; you’ve ten more to satisfy your craving.

Oracle lays the groundwork for the other ten and introduces you to a most remarkable female detective. If you’re looking for ‘Quirk’ Kathleen Mallory, a 5`10``, blonde, green eyed beauty with a heart of stone, has it in spades. As the series progresses you will learn of how and why Mallory has become what she is; a woman with an ice-cold machine-like brain and a sociopathic personality which enables her to solve the most convoluted, mystifying crimes... and yet somehow manages not turn you, the reader, against her. There is something deep inside Mallory that occasionally surfaces to surprise you. But then you get to thinking, is she finally demonstrating empathy, or putting on a rather clever performance?

Mallory, a feral eleven year old thief, was adopted off the streets by Detective Louis Markowitz and his wife. She learns love, or at least feel the closest thing she can manage to it, for her adopted parents. Fifteen years later, Mallory has followed Markowitz into the NYPD, and is the leading light of the computer department. Her youthful criminal talents not lost, but hidden.

When Louis Markowitz, the man she idolises, is brutally murdered, she uses her compassionate leave to find his killer – by any means in her power. Her formidable hacking skills being only one arrow in her quiver of talents. Others being her relationship with Charles Butler an old friend of her father’s, and Sergeant Riker, a NYPD cop. Only those two men dare to touch Mallory in any way or refer to her by her Christian name.

Along the line, Mallory uncovers a complicated plot that deals with magic, séances, and insider trading.

As O’Connell’s novels progress, so does the gradual unearthing of the terrible secrets that lie in Mallory’s past. Each novel is as breath-holdingly powerful as the one before.

Fascinated by Mallory’s author, Carol O’Connell, I looked for but couldn’t find a website, email address or any other means of contact. As a last resort, and after reading the Publishers Weekly interview with the author, I emailed Louisa Ermelino, Reviews Director, asking permission to use the content on the Triskele blog. She gave permission, and here it is!


An interview with the author, Carol O’Connell. (May 31, 2013) With the permission of Publishers Weekly http://www.publishersweekly.com

Photograph by Sigrid Estrada

An Unlikable Lady Detective: PW Talks with Carol O’Connell.

In Carol O’Connell’s It Happens in the Dark, Kathy Mallory’s 11th outing, the New York Special Crimes Unit detective investigates the murder of a Manhattan playwright.

Tell us a little about the genesis of Kathy Mallory.

Whenever I go out on tour, someone will ask if Mallory is autobiographical. It always startles me. I like to think that I show no markers for a sociopath. Mallory is purely a work of imagination. This answer disappoints everyone.

What do readers make of Mallory’s lack of lovability or even likability?

After my first book was published [Mallory’s Oracle], I received an envelope full of religious material from a fan who wanted to save my soul. That’s when I knew I was on to something.

Mallory’s drive remains as intense as ever, and she’s still lacking in warmth.

Sometimes readers ask for a kinder, gentler Mallory. I explain that if I do that, I’ve got no book. These are character-driven novels, and I like the way the lady drives. In that respect, she has a vehicular-homicide way about her: always a challenge to go through a red light before it can turn green. I suppose I could try to warm up her image by giving her a dog, but the dog would be frightened all the time.

Why does art play a major role in several Mallory novels?

I was raised and educated to be a painter, so I wrote in the closet. When I left school, it was with the objective of becoming a starving artist and dying in the gutter. I messed up that idea when my first book was published. And now, through no fault of my own, I seem to have stumbled on job security as an author.

How would you characterize Mallory’s deductive style?

A lot of Mallory’s display of deductive reasoning is based on her unique sense of sport, tossing something out there just to make your head explode. But then a solid rationale unfolds as one’s brain matter is peeled off the ceiling. She has no superpowers, just a good intellect and the skill set to do the job. Also, as Woody Allen once said, “It’s amazing what you can do when you’re neurotic.”

What keeps Mallory from becoming a PI?

I never flirted with the idea of a PI. They are never involved in open homicide cases; they could lose their licenses for interfering in one. They have very little in the way of resources, no access to evidence, and zero authority. If I were to write a book about private detectives, a novel that would not cause readers to laugh in all the wrong places, it would be a deadly boring book.
—Bob Hahn



Right it’s me, JW, again. Next time I’ll dive into the world of Quirk and talk of CJ Cherryh, my favourite sci-fi writer.

I hope you’ll join me in that other dimension.

Interview with Al Brookes, author of The Gift of Looking Closely

This month on the Triskele Book Club, Catriona Troth interviews Al Brookes, author of The Gift of Looking Closely, winner of the Guardian Self-Published Book of the Month, July 2014.

As someone who also published her first book in her fifties, I can definitely empathise with the comment, “So, everyone has a book in them... thank goodness mine is out of me.” Has this book been a long time in the making?

It took me ten years to write The Gift of Looking Closely. I always expected to write novels, even as a child, so I turned out to be a very late starter. But the truth of the matter is that I couldn’t have written this book sooner – I didn’t really know what I wanted to say until later in my life.

So, yes, it really has been a long time in the making – most of my lifetime. I’m enormously satisfied that it’s out in the world at last!


Can you identify a first spark of inspiration? Did you start with the idea of assisted suicide or did that develop out of the story?

In 2003, I saw a programme on the television about a terminally ill man called Reg Crewe, who travelled to Switzerland to have an assisted suicide at Dignitas. His wife and daughter went with him, and I was deeply moved by their support for him and their courage.

That stayed with me. I began to think about different situations, alternative perspectives. I wondered what it might be like for a relative to support an assisted death when they didn’t really want to… and from there I moved to the concept I developed for the novel, which was that someone might actually be tricked into helping someone commit suicide. But it was that programme that got me thinking and provided me with the first spark of an idea for the novel.


That exhortation to the reader – ‘You be Claire, then, and I’ll watch.’ – is daring and unusual. Why choose to tell the story in this way?

Asking the reader to step into Claire’s shoes is my way of creating a more intense reading experience. It didn’t feel enough just to use the second person. I wanted to take it a step further; as if to say to people, I really really want you to feel this.

Once I chose to tell the story in that way, I found it really suited me; it felt like a really comfortable place to write from.

It is quite daring and unusual – but there are an awful lot of books in the world already. I figured that if I was going to write (yet another) one, I should at least aim for something original.


Claire’s ‘gift of looking closely’ reminds me of Mary Norton’s letter to a young fan, when she describes growing up as the short-sighted sister of a gaggle of long-sighted brothers – focusing on tiny things in the hedgerows because she could never see the distant, fleeting objects they tried to show her. Do you share that gift? What sorts of things cause you to look closely?

I love the idea of the young Mary Norton focusing on the tiny things because she was short sighted! I wasn’t short sighted as a child, I was just fascinated by close up-ness. I wanted to sink into the detail of things.

The sorts of things that cause me to look closely now are invariably things in the natural world – flowers and wet stones and bark and insects and leaves. And moss, especially.

I also like to look closely at emotions. How do I feel, what do other people feel, honestly and deeply? What makes us tick? I trained as a counsellor and even though I don’t practice any more, I still tend to be very aware of the emotional landscape at any time.


It’s not an easy decision to publish a first book yourself, and there are many reasons for doing so. Why did you make the choice? Are you glad you did?

In 2013, the first chapter of The Gift of Looking Closely won a competition run by a Brighton-based publisher, Myriad Editions. That was fantastic; it really motivated me to get the novel finished, to find out whether they would want to publish it. In fact when they saw the whole book, they didn’t want it. They hadn’t expected it to go off in the direction of assisted dying. At the same time, two agents had a look at it and said it wasn’t for them, either.

Just at that point, I was given a diagnosis of cancer. That made the decision to self publish a great deal easier. I knew it was important to me to get the book into the world, I didn’t know how long I’d be feeling well, or even how long I’d be here. I didn’t have time to spend sending it out and waiting for responses from agents and publishers. I decided to do it myself.

I’m delighted I did. It’s been a massive learning curve and I still have a great deal to learn about the industry. But I love the fact that my book is available and people are reading it and engaging with it. And I’m completely well again now.


Al Brookes, like S.J. Watson and J.K. Rowling, is potentially a gender-ambiguous author name. Was that a deliberate choice on your part?

I like the fact that Al Brookes is gender ambiguous, but I didn’t choose it for that reason. I’ve been called Al for the past 25 years. It’s just my name!


The switch from the introspective world of the writer to the extrovert world of a book-promoter is not an easy one- perhaps not unlike Claire’s decision to let go of her carefully constructed shell! How is the transformation going for you so far?

It really isn’t easy at all, is it? I find it quite difficult and it makes me quite anxious in some ways – not the process of the book being seen, I love engaging with people to discuss the book, I enjoy doing readings, running writing workshops and generally offering my tuppence worth – I’m not particularly shy! But having to generate sales opportunities, negotiate my way into bookshops, badger folk to post reviews… I find all of that pretty horrible.

However, I have this idea that if the book is good enough, it will eventually find its way to the readers who will appreciate it… That was one of the reasons I entered the Guardian competition.

The Gift of Looking Closely won the Guardian’s Self-Published Book of the Month in July 2014. What role do you think awards like this have on the way self-published books are perceived by readers?

Awards like this don’t change the fact that lots of self-published books are rubbish. But they do highlight the fact that there are some outstanding self-published books to be found. At the moment, readers are discovering the self-published books they want to read via blogs and review sites, Amazon ratings, social media and good old fashioned word of mouth. Mainstream awards provide these readers with another route of discovery – and they offer some of the best of self-published work to a new audience of readers. Hopefully, they will also encourage bookstores and libraries to be more open to the idea of stocking self-published writers.


You’re sitting in your favourite writing space. What can you see?

I can see a lined page, and I have a pencil in my hand… and I’m not alone.

My favourite writing space is not a specific physical place, it’s with a particular group of people. I’ve belonged to the same writing group for the past ten years – we still meet and do writing exercises together. That’s my favourite writing space, with that group of people. It feels safe and brave and positive and accepting.


Do you read other indie (self-published) authors? What’s your top indie recommendation?

I’ve read some self-published authors. But as a reader, I’m not hugely concerned whether a book is self-published or traditionally published – it really is just about the quality of the writing. I read writers like Margaret Atwood, Arundhati Roy, Ali Smith, Martin Amis. I love literary fiction; I love writing that crafts the language and takes risks. 

Thank you, Al.

Thank you for asking the questions – I’ve enjoyed exploring the answers.



The Gift of Looking Closely is available through Amazon or from Al Brookes' website www.albrookes.co.uk

You can read Catriona's review of The Gift of Looking Closely here on BookMuseUK.

Gifts of the Journey – Writing about Family History

Author, Bernice L. Rocque has kindly agreed to tell us how she wove her genealogy research into  a heartwarming family story.

Ten years ago I started to write stories about my family. It was a desperate move, really, an emotional reaction to an epiphany about “essence,” triggered by the slow goodbye with my parents. I hated the thought that who they were as people would be lost—in a relatively short time.

Records exist for people who lived centuries ago. The “essence” of most people, though, disappears in 3-4 generations. Just ask ten people older than fifty (non-genealogists) to describe what their great-grandparents were like.

I’ve researched my family history for decades, yet failed to comprehend the implications of this fading phenomenon—until it became personal. The insight hit with a thump and set me thinking. What could I do to preserve the essence of my loved ones for future generations?

Within days, I spotted a notice. The public library’s writing groups were welcoming new members. The next step I took—brought many unexpected gifts.

The first gift was membership in a writing group.
Member feedback on writing pieces, topics, and exercises acts like a magnifying glass. With insights, ideas, and encouragement, this fellowship has fed my efforts to capture the essence of my family members—first via nonfiction vignettes, and then in my fiction novella with its Author’s Notes.



The second gift was that writing stories became a passion, like gardening and genealogy. As my skill improved, it was clear that writing stories WAS illuminating the essence of family members, with a magic similar to those fascinating holograms from the movie, Star Wars. The greater surprise, though, was that the PROCESS of writing gladdened my heart.



The third gift was that researching the book reconnected me with my relatives.
Working on the book, Until the Robin Walks on Snow took me “home” to Norwich, Connecticut a few times a month, for interviews with family and others, as well as research at the Otis Library. Telephone calls and emails with cousins caught us up on each other’s lives while generating information and reflections for the developing book and future stories. One of my cousins shared a 1920s family artifact I did not know existed. As we gazed at the large copper pot, my uncle explained how my great-grandfather made liquor from mash. A few weeks later my uncle surprised me with a small model of the distilling system. His engineering mind drew on the memories of a “child” whose hands had carried the snow inside to cool the vapor stream!



The fourth gift was the change in research pattern from “vertical” to “horizontal.”
What a pleasure to plop myself down in an era, like my cousins and I once did in the meadows of our youth. So, instead of “vertical” research to further my family tree back in time, the “horizontal” approach behind the book concentrated on life in the early 1900s. I used an iterative method to develop Until the Robin Walks on Snow—alternating waves of interviews, writing, and library-type research. Residing in the narrow time period deepened my understanding of everyday life and produced numerous authentic details. It also yielded bonus items. During interviews, sudden diversions in memory recall, such as my uncle remembering the fingerlocks that secured the farm building doors, led to useful conversations and colorful detail for this book and future stories.



The fifth gift was a second “aha.” Fiction was less difficult to write than I imagined. Writing fiction is not easy, but writing Until the Robin Walks on Snow, was easier for me than writing a strictly factual narrative. I knew where the story would start and end, but chose not to prepare a detailed outline. The process of recreating an event from my family history did feel organic. The facts suggested the skeleton. The family history and research (medical, setting, history, and weather) provided the organs and blood vessels. Knowledge and impressions of the characters (reconstituting their essence) fleshed out the book’s muscular tissue. Fiction and literary devices, much like sinew, connected all the story elements. The book’s format acted like skin. With a little patience, and sometimes a “sleep on it” approach to dilemmas, the most logical story emerged.



The sixth gift was the discovery—of other works of fiction based on family histories.
If like me, you are interested in reading more historical fiction based on family history, take a look at the Goodreads List, Fiction Based on the Author’s Ancestors. Many authors and readers helped me to assemble it, and to them I am indebted. Here’s the link:

The seventh gift has been the generosity of authors and readers. Communication with authors and readers from all over the globe has inspired me, as I acclimated to this new creative endeavor. In that regard, I would like to thank author Liza Perrat, for inviting me to contribute this guest blog piece. We’d love to know your thoughts on writing about family history.

Doris Kearns Goodwin recently said, “The people we love will live on so long as we pledge to tell and retell the stories of their lives.” I so agree. Every day, I am grateful for the gifts of this writing journey.

Bernice L. Rocque is a writer, educator, family historian, and avid gardener. She grew up in Norwich, Connecticut in the surroundings described in her novella, Until the Robin Walks on Snow. She has authored numerous business articles associated with her work in libraries, training and development, and project management. Articles she has written about her family have appeared in the Norwich Bulletin, Good Old Days magazine, and Family Chronicle. Ms. Rocque lives in Connecticut, USA.

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Here is our full review of Until the Robin Walks on Snow.

Writing from the heart - location

Menai Suspension Bridge

By Gillian Hamer

A strong sense of location is a key part of the Triskele Books brand. All of the novels published under our collective carry that USP. Whether it be medieval France, 1980s midlands, Roman Britain, cosmopolitan European cities or the deserts of far-flung Palmyra – location and its relevance are vital to our stories.

Crime novel set on Anglesey

You may know that I have so far based all my novels around North Wales and the island of Anglesey, and I’m delighted how many readers mention how much they love the sense of place, that the location comes alive for them, much in the same way a character would.

I truly believe that writing about a place that you love, which inspires you, is a huge part of writing a successful book that will end up being loved by, and inspirational to, others.

Over the years via book clubs and online groups, I’ve met a handful of talented writers who all share my passion for Wales, and choose to set their novels there. Some live there, some were born there, and some are simply inspired to write there. Whether it is the passion of the people, the depth of history or the beauty of its surroundings, it seems we all take something equally important from this small Celtic land. 

I’ve asked a selection of these writers the same question, and I’m intrigued by their answers. Hopefully for writers out there who aren’t sure how to handle the setting of their novels, some of these replies may make you realise just how vital location is in a cross section of genres.

 

QUESTION: What is it about Wales that inspires you to include it as a setting in your novels?

KIT HABIANIC

www.kithabianic.com

There’s a theory that first novels are almost always coming-of-age novels in some way. Add to that the First Commandment of the writing class: write what you know … maybe it was inevitable I’d set my first novel in Wales.
The Miners’ Strike was a defining event, but its effects are felt to this day. Until Our Blood is Dry is a novel about loyalty and belonging and choosing sides.
Although the book is set in a very specific time and place, given the austerity and the job losses, the widening gap between haves and have-nots and the rise of parties that blame all these problems on immigrants, these questions remain urgent and valid.

 Wales offers a rich seam of protest and dissent. ‘Until our blood is dry’ refers to the General Strike of 1926 in a line from the poem Gwalia Deserta by Idris Davies.

JAN RUTH

www.janruth.com

Short answer: The historic landscape.

Medium answer: The mountains, the churches, the wild ponies, the burial grounds and druids circles, the sky at dusk, the smell of the wild hedgerows, the sound of the language. 

Long answer: Snowdonia kick-started my stalled obsession with writing in a very positive way. I am certainly in my creative comfort zone tramping up the hills on a moody day. There’s no better way of plot busting. The tiny church of St. Celynin (sometimes known as Llangelynin) is a great find for historians, spiritualists, all kinds of artists, and a certain weary walking writer! It’s quite a climb, some 900 feet above the village of Henryd, but sheltered from the Irish Sea by the comfortable bulk of Tal-Y-Fan. It proclaims to be the most remote church in Wales and due to its location, it is actually better accessed on foot or on horseback, but that’s just me wearing my whimsical hat again. I guess you could ride a quad bike or get a 4x4 along the green lanes and tracks up from the village, but that would spoil the experience considerably. Someone said that ‘The centuries of men’s hands on the same stones put the feeling into a place’. I can relate to this and there’s no better way of making that connection than scrambling over those very same walls and finding a way across the hills. Even the names of the mountains are laced with enough magic to fuel the effort.

The church is named after a 6th Century prince, Celynin, and it is a widely held belief that the remains of the settlement close by was also his home. Inside, there are inscriptions on the white-washed walls of The Ten Commandments and The Lord’s Prayer, and strangely enough a skull and crossbones. The Welsh language, being the oldest (still spoken) language in the world, lends so much more romance and intrigue to any story, even though I don’t understand all the words. One of the well-preserved benches is dated from 1629 and dedicated to Reverend Owen Bulkeley, former rector. Oh, I’d love to go back to those times just for a few hours, to maybe listen to the man reading his sermon and sit with the congregation. Instead, we have to be content with mere historical recordings and the remnants of those times, in whatever form they present.

JUDITH BARROW

www.judithbarrow.co.uk

The coastline, the countryside. Nature. The innate pride of the people resonates with my own pride of my roots. I understand the dignity of it.

Wales can be used as a wonderful backdrop to literature; the detailed descriptions of the lure of its mountain and coastal scenery, its castles and great houses, ancient cathedrals and ruined abbeys, modern museums and centres of industrial technology. And, although not in my books (yet!), the history of the mining valleys, where, despite the social injustices, the resolute nature of the people shines through even today.


CONRAD HUGHES

www.smashwords.com/profile/view/conrad

The remoteness of the Island (Anglesey) in the winter months when the winds and rain are horizontal and the sheer awesome beauty of the mountains touch my soul. They are settings, which are perfect as backdrops for my writing at times.



J.W. HICKS

new Triskele associate, author of forthcoming novel, RATS

Its beauty. When I was young, visiting Barry Island, Porthcawl and Penarth were my holiday delights. When my children were young our holiday destinations were the unbelievably beautiful island of Anglesey and every nook and glorious cranny of the Gower Peninsular. Who could ever forget being the sole walkers on Rhossili beach in an early Spring snowstorm? Magic, pure magic.


JUDITH ARNOPP

www.juditharnopp.com

The history of Wales is not widely known the other side of Offa’s Dyke and I think it should be. The castles and tiny medieval churches are dripping with history and, if you are adventurous enough to turn off the main road, the ancient pathways are still visible. It is very easy, especially in rural Wales, to stumble on the past when you least expect it. Some areas are timeless, and the countryside is so gorgeous, so lush and green and fragrant, you can’t help but use it as a back drop for a novel. It would be mad not to.


CHRISTINE STOVELL

www.christinestovell.com

My fictional locations are entirely made up, although Penmorfa in Move Over Darling is inspired by the romantic rugged landscape where I live. The same location also features in my work in progress.

BOB SUMMER

www.bobsummer.co.uk

Wales has everything I need to tell a good story. Beautiful countryside, stunning coastline, historical features, a great variety of characters to draw from, the list goes on. But the setting is less about placing the story geographically and more about mood and emotion. There are parts of Wales that, for me, are incredibly atmospheric. Snowdonia, of course, is stunning and where I live, the Pembrokeshire coast is quite spectacular. If ever I’m stuck for ideas, or I’m at a crossroads in a story, a walk with the dog along the coastal path clears my mind and most definitely inspires.



Snowdonia National Park