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Interviews with bestselling authors
"How I did it"
The Mslexia Roadshow (supported by Arts Council England) has been touring the country since 2001, running writing WORKSHOPS and interviewing top women authors about their creativity and how they first got published. Here we have gathered together highlights from six of those interviews, each representing one of six best-selling genres.
To put the interviews in context - and to find out what’s hot and what’s not in each different genre - we also spoke to their LITERARY AGENTS.
What is a genre?
A literary genre is a word used to classify the subject matter and style of a book.
A literary genre is a word used to classify the subject matter and style of a book. A book’s genre determines how it will be marketed by the publisher and bookseller. It influences everything from the cover design and blurb to where it’s shelved and whether it will be considered worth reviewing.
Publishers’ different imprints often focus on one or two similar genres (e.g. police procedural and psychological thriller), as this enables editors and marketing people to build up an expertise in that field. Agents, too, tend to specialise in one or two genres, and to cultivate contacts with a key group of editors This is why it makes sense to try and classify your novel before submitting it. That way you can describe it accurately in your PITCH LETTER and send it to the appropriate literary agents.
The genres we are covering here are historical, women’s general, children’s contemporary, psychological thriller, literary and police procedural. But there are many (many) more, including: political thriller, historical romance, chick lit, science fiction, fantasy, horror, erotic…
Murder, mystery and history
Six of the best
I had about a year of rejections before it was accepted – but it seemed much longer than that
Sarah Waters has a PhD in English Literature and worked for the Open University before publishing Tipping the Velvet, which won the Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, Affinity, won the Somerset Maugham Award. Following the publication of Fingersmith, she was named Author of the Year in the British Book Awards and selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. Fingersmith, The Night Watch (her fourth book) and The Little Stranger (her fifth) were all shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes. Her first three novels have all been adapted for television. Sarah lives with her partner in south London.
Photo © Charlie Hopkinson
Why write if it’s a torment? Honestly, there are much better-paid torments to put yourself through!
Joanne Harris studied Modern and Mediaeval Languages at Cambridge and was a teacher for 15 years, during which time she published two gothic novels – The Evil Seed and Sleep, Pale Sister - and the bestselling Chocolat. Since then, she has written eight more novels, including Blackberry Wine and The Lollipop Shoes, and Runemarks, a fantasy for older children. She also writes short stories and has co-authored two books of French cookery. Her books are published in over 40 countries. Her most recent novel, blueeyedboy, was published in 2010. Joanna lives with her husband Kevin and her daughter Anouchka, 15 miles from Barnsley.
Photo © Jordan Smith
I don’t do joy, but there is such satisfaction in getting a book right, every comma in place
Anne Fine OBE is one of the UK’s most respected and productive authors, who was appointed Children’s Laureate in 2001-3 and has won every major prize for children’s writing. Anne also writes literary novels for adults. She graduated in politics then worked as a teacher, and for Oxfam, before she began to write. Since then she has written over 60 books for children, most of which are still in print and have been widely translated. Goggle-Eyes was adapted for television and Mrs Doubtfire became a successful film starring Robin Williams. She has two grown up daughters and lives with her husband in County Durham.
I put some music on, and let it play over and over on a loop: always some kind of melancholic droning ballad
Nicci Gerrard is one half, with husband Sean French, of the bestselling author Nicci French, whose 12 psychological thrillers include The Memory Game, Killing Me Softly and her latest Complicit. She is also an author in her own right of subtle and poignant literary fiction, including Solace and The Winter House. An experienced journalist and editor, Nicci taught literature in the UK and USA, then founded the arts magazine Women’s Review in 1985. She went on to work as deputy literary editor then executive editor of the Observer, before turning to fiction. She has four children and lives in Suffolk.
I got into the habit, on long solitary walks to school, of describing things to myself
Hilary Mantel CBE read Law at Sheffield and the London School of Economics then worked as a social worker and saleswoman before moving to Botswana with her husband, where she started to write, then Saudi Arabia. Throughout her 20s she suffered from misdiagnosed endometriosis, treated with anti-psychotic drugs, an experience recorded in her memoir, Giving up the Ghost. She has published ten critically acclaimed novels, in various literary genres; most recently Beyond Black which won the Orange Prize and the Man Booker-award-winner Wolf Hall. She is also a prolific critic and essayist. Hilary lives with her husband in Surrey.
I had every Monday off and used the afternoon to write novels – five hours a week, every week; very disciplined
Val McDermid studied English at Oxford then trained as a journalist and worked for 14 years on national newspapers in Glasgow and Manchester. Meanwhile she started writing plays (with some success), then women’s crime novels published by the Women’s Press (with much greater success). But she really hit the big time with a series of crime thrillers, beginning with The Mermaid is Singing, featuring the psychological profiler Tony Hill, which have been adapted for television under the title Wire in the Blood. Also a regular radio broadcaster, Val lives in Manchester and Northumberland with her partner, son and three cats.
Photo © Charlie Hopkinson
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