Interview with poet Nigel Tetley

Poet Nigel Tetley joins me today to chat about his collection of poetry, It’s a Funny Old World.

Welcome, Nigel. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

It started with a telephone call. In 2001, another teacher I had got to know in a neighbouring school called me one November evening to ask me if I would agree to write some children’s stories for a new numeracy project that she wanted to pilot in her own primary school. Her idea was to teach basic mathematical ideas through the medium of story. To this day, I do not know what made her think of me because, as I told her at the time, I had never written creatively in my entire life. I had only ever written irrelevant, boring, academic stuff at university, and I hadn’t even been particularly good at that. My only writing experience had been on philosophical and religious ideas, and now, as a teacher, the only writing I ever did was when I was either marking homework or churning out reports (which, all the evidence suggested, nobody read anyway). I didn’t have an imaginative life, I told her. I was a teacher, after all. She would have none of it, however, and so, if only to get her off my back, I reluctantly decided to give it a go. The moment I started was one of total astonishment. I felt that I had come home.

The numeracy project drew to a close, but I carried on, and I have not been able to stop; nor do I want to. Like a true addict, I don’t care about my dependency. All that matters to me now is my next fix. I have since branched out from numeracy topics to a diverse range of subjects and to a broader range of readers.

Please tell us about your current release.

It’s a Funny Old World is a collection of twenty poems written primarily for teenage readers who regard themselves as reluctant readers. The twenty pieces are short and accessible enough not to be threatening, but broad enough in their range of topics to stand a good chance of hooking the reader in.

What inspired you to write this book?

In my job as a teacher, I am continually confronted with the fact that most young people have a purely functional understanding of reading; that the one and only purpose of reading is to gain necessary information. The idea that one can approach a text in exactly the same way that one can instinctively approach, say, a piece of music, for example, is alien to most young people, in my experience. This book is a small attempt to change that mindset. Thus, the book is primarily for those who think that reading has got nothing to do with entertainment.

Excerpt from It’s a Funny Old World:

THE ACTOR’S SOLILOQUY

                                                I am not who I am,

                                                And I am who I’m not,

                                                I’m a living and stark contradiction,

                                                I express what is true,

                                                Yet my life is a lie,

                                                I’m a fact even though I’m a fiction,

                                                Every move that I make

                                                Is an act of pretence,

                                                A sham from beginning to end,

                                                A sheer fabrication,

A glorified lie,

                                                Whenever I play Let’s Pretend,

                                                There is no human drama

                                                I cannot take part in,

                                                I perform every role unrestricted,

                                                But alone in my room,

                                                There’s no sign of myself,

                                                Like a tenant now long since evicted,

                                                My essence is merely

                                                Dramatis Personae,

                                                A bundle of roles with no core,

                                                An identity void

Of a real, solid self,

                                                A collection of parts, nothing more,

                                                So when I use the word ‘I’

                                                In the course of a script,

                                                What is meant by this pronoun’s grammatical span?

                                                Am I me when I act or somebody else?

                                                Just who is now speaking:
                                                The mask or the man?

What exciting story are you working on next?

Ten Finger Rhymes (to teach the first five cardinal and ordinal numbers).

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I have never considered myself to be a writer. After all, Shakespeare was a writer, and I’m no Shakespeare. What I am is somebody who loves to play with the English language in the hope that I will entice others to do the same.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I am a teacher, and so writing is just a hobby for me, but one of the great things about writing is that it is a hobby that you can take anywhere. For example, I wrote the words to one of my pieces when stuck in a traffic jam. I wrote another during a free period at work when I should have been marking, and I wrote yet another during a school staff meeting. That’s the beauty of writing. You can do it anywhere, anytime, under any conditions, and nobody ever knows what you’re up to. It is the greatest form of escapism, ever.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I never write anything down until the whole piece is finished in my head.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a musician. Thankfully, the world was spared that particular affliction.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

My earliest memory is that of writing out each of the twenty-six letters of the English Alphabet, over and over again, and each time being mesmerised at how the shape of each one exactly matched the sound that it made. That perfect correspondence is one that still bewitches me to this day. How is it that each letter looks like its sound? (If you haven’t ever noticed this before, go back and have a fresh look. You’re in for the shock of your life.)

Thanks for stopping by today! All the best with your writing.

Interview with writer Leslie Croxford

Writer Leslie Croxford joins me today to share a bit about Deep Sahara. The book is both a psychological novel, partly poetic in places, and an investigative story. Leslie considers this mixture a strength. The book needs suspense, as in increasingly finding the insects are deformed because of nuclear testing, and emotional resonance as in the quest for the protagonist’s father. Either without the other would impoverish the novel.

During his virtual book tour, Leslie will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Leslie Croxford is a British author and Senior Vice-President of the British University in Egypt. Born in Alexandria, he obtained a doctorate in History from Cambridge University. He has written one novel, Soloman's Folly (Chatto & Windus), and is completing his third. He and his wife live in Cairo.

Welcome, Leslie. Please share a little bit about your current release.

In Deep Sahara, a man, recovering from a nervous breakdown provoked by the death of his wife, takes advice from a family friend and retreats to a monastery in the deep Sahara to sketch desert insects for a book.

Upon arrival, however, he comes upon an appalling crime: the murder of all the monks. Numb and exhausted, he declines a police chief’s urgent suggestion that he leave. Despite his shock, the desert seems to promise solace, a vast nullity against which he can take stock of himself and do his work.

Yet, over the following weeks and months, his solitude is broken by a succession of encounters, all strange but somehow connected to him. Each appears to conceal some kind of secret. Even the insects he has come to study are mysteriously deformed, embodying an awful, hidden reality…

The man is forced to confront the echoes of one of the darkest moments in modern history, and to come to terms with the deepest mysteries of his own past.

Deep Sahara is a suspenseful exploration of one man’s emotional resurgence, rendered sparingly with great physical and psychological precision.

What inspired you to write this book?

I’d long had in mind some kind of a story about a monastery, because I knew some monks personally and used, as a student, to stay in monasteries as if they were YMCAs offering cheap holidays. Then in the 1990s I heard about the murder of monks in Algeria. And from that point on I had atmosphere, setting and the starting point for my plot.

Excerpt from Deep Sahara:
The main character lives in Rome and the novel starts as follows:

The front door has just closed. I’m finally alone in the apartment, using this morning’s stillness to begin the account I’ve been wanting to write for days. It’s a letter to myself after the battering I’ve received from the media – not to mention the anonymous death threats – for attacking the so-called “pillars of society”.

I need to sift through all that happened at the end of the world, coming back to me now like some dream. For the Sahara’s a place of mirages you can actually photograph: palm trees, oases, expanses of cool water, silent cities – there, but unreal. Conjuring up the past, I want to reassure myself that all I have claimed to have found among those shifting sands, on returning here to Rome, far from being the figment of my imagination critics allege, is actually the case: that the experience of unearthing – of understanding – what I have revealed has made me into a new person.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I have almost finished another novel about an English historian revisiting a Spanish pueblo where Albert Speer’s driver had convalesced after decades in Russia as a POW. He has an affair with the driver’s ex-lover, drawing him into an unexpected review of Speer, himself and of the nature of history.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I saw the film of TREASURE ISLAND at the age of 5 I wondered how movies were made. I was told they were based on books. As a result, I thought of myself in terms of film, as an actor but also as a writer of stories.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I am a university administrator, currently Senior Vice-President of the British University in Egypt. So, I have had to use every spare minute for my writing. This has made the development of novels longer than they’d be if I were a full-time writer, but it does make me ponder themes and characters more deeply than I might otherwise do.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I like to write as soon as I get up, in pyjamas, over breakfast. My wife doesn’t appreciate this since she enjoys breakfast and would like us to have it together. Apart from that, I read over my paragraphs repeatedly to make sure that they flow. And I follow the advice that no reader should have to read a sentence twice.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

As I say above I was first fascinated by film, but this was a mixture of wanting to be an actor and inventor of stories.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I feel I am influenced by film. If I can’t see a scene in my mind’s eye, I don’t consider it successful.

Links:

Buy link | Amazon UK

Thank you for being a guest on my blog!

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Interview with chick lit author J.G. Dow

Today’s special guest is chick lit author J.G. Dow and we’re chatting about Jane of Manchester.

Welcome, J.G. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I was born in Huddersfield and went to University in Manchester to study Social Science. I got into writing in my twenties, starting off with poetry and moving onto novels. I like socialising a bit and reading and listening to a wide range of music as well as a bit of walking now and then.

Please tell us about your current release.

Jane of Manchester is a fun, easy reading type chick lit novel with funny parts as well as the odd reflective bits when Jane is trying to figure out what she wants in life. Light reading.

What inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to write something a bit different from what I had done before and as I studied in Manchester, it seemed the perfect place to set the novel.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m currently working on the Jane of Manchester sequel and I’m nearly finished so there won’t be too long a wait until it’s out there.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I tried poetry and realised I liked that but mainly after my first book which was a sci-fi.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

At the moment, I do it part time but want to try and make it full time if I can get enough readers. I write in the evenings, although it probably would be better to write earlier so I may change writing times soon and see how that goes!

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I don’t really have one although I drink a Berocca vitamin drink while doing it so maybe that’s a quirk!

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I didn’t have a clue!

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I enjoy playing guitar and used to want to play in a band but I think writing is probably more satisfying in the long run!

Links:

Facebook

Thank you for being here today, J.G.

Interview with novelist David Melville Edwards

I’m wrapping up the week by chatting with David Melville Edwards from the UK about his new novel that he categorizes as contemporary fantasy, crime, humor. The title is The Spirit of the Age.

Welcome, David. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

My day-job C.V. says I have spent the last thirty five years as an independent IT consultant working all over the world combining strategic vision with a mastery of detail. I have been married even longer, have four children, and following a recent house move swapped the last child for a demented parent.

Please tell us about your current release.

The Spirit of the Age takes a young Muslim woman from multi-cultural urban Hounslow, and transplants her into the Police and an arranged marriage in rural, tourist-y Dorset. The story follows her and her new neighbours over a year as she grapples with a crime wave and they meld into a community.

What inspired you to write this book?

Writing a novel was on my bucket list. I write software, technical documentation and consultancy reports every day, so I am always writing. Assignments for Penguin Random House may have caused the novel to crystallise, to the extent that I could see the whole thing in my minds eye. So one evening I thought, I can do this, and sat down to write it.

Excerpt from The Spirit of the Age:

Chapter 18

The sun was long set so the vigil being kept by the bare trees round the village green had to be imagined by the time that Sireen, wearing a black T-shirt and grey yoga pants, got round to drawing the curtains in the front room. James had changed out of his business suit when he’d come home from work, and was now sitting on the sofa wearing a plain blue Polo shirt and worn jeans. Sireen joined him. They looked rumpled and comfortable as they opened their laptops together.

To get in to the right frame of mind to tackle Reverend Sheila's challenge, they browsed back issues of the BBC's weekly hymn-fest, ‘Songs Of Praise’ on the i-Player app before attempting to compose using Sequencer apps.

James adopted a systematic approach. This should be easy, he thought. Set sequencer to first instrument, 'Grand Piano'. First line, key note, six random notes, key note again; second line, key note, four more notes, dominant; third line, same as the first; fourth line, same as the second but with the key note replacing the final dominant, giving me any number of tunes with the eight/six/eight/six note pattern called 'Common Metre'. I could automate this.

In contrast, Sireen cycled through the different sounds the sequencer could make, fixed on the 'Glass Harmonica', and set off across the virtual keyboard heading who knew where, evoking echoes of a distant sea amidst the general Sixties Avant Garde vibe that naturally grows out of dual uncoordinated performances.

James tried dropping sequences from Sireen's improvisation into the variable elements of his pattern, but they seemed shorn of their power by the act of excision. Not one of James and Sireen’s ditties showed any promise of joining the blessed few Common Metre tunes that have real emotional impact. “Perhaps there's a reason why serialist hymn tunes haven't caught on”, said James.

What exciting story are you working on next?

The sequel!

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I've always considered myself a writer. What is new for me is the idea that I might be a novelist. I'd have to complete more novels to be comfortable with that label.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I do write almost full-time, but not fiction. Software comes first. I write fiction in the evenings. My approach is to proceed a chapter at a time, and to try to write the chapters in a single sitting.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

A tendency to use different meanings of the same word multiple times within a few lines. I usually edit them out, but I'd be interested to learn if anyone else finds that this happens.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

An archaeologist. Well, a treasure hunter really. The dream faded when I realised that treasure-hunting wasn't supposed to be what it was about. However, I still hope to take up detectoring someday.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I'd be really, really happy if you bought my book!

Links:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Amazon 

Thanks for being here today, David!

Interview with novelist Stevie Turner

I’m happy to introduce you to Stevie Turner today. She’s chatting with me about her new novel, a women’s fiction called, Repent at Leisure.

Bio:

Stevie Turner grew up in the East End of London and was fortunate enough to attend an excellent primary school which encouraged creative writing. After winning a writing competition at her school, Stevie began to keep a diary and often added little stories and poems to it as the years went by.

By the time marriage and motherhood came along, Stevie and her husband Sam had decided that the country life was preferable to bringing their sons up in London. The company Sam worked for had re-located to Norfolk, and they felt the time was right to make the change. They moved to a quiet, picturesque village in Suffolk, East Anglia, where their boys could roam free as they grew. Stevie found work as an office clerk and still kept a diary, but did not take up writing seriously until 2013. By this time her two sons had left home and she had more time to herself.

Stevie’s debut novel The Porn Detective was self-published in October 2013 and took her 30 years to write. A London agency debated representation, but after a long, agonising week’s wait for Stevie she found out that unfortunately the agency had decided not to go ahead. However, she now had the writing bug big time! Stories started filling her head based on news items she had read and life experiences she had undergone, and she could not wait to get them down on paper.

Her second book The Pilates Class was a light-hearted, humorous read, giving way to the more serious suspense/ thriller A House Without Windows, which won a New Apple Book Award in 2014 and a Readers’ Favorite Gold Award in 2015. It is now being translated into German.

Stevie then tried her hand at historical fiction, penning a short story ‘Lily’, which was a joint winner of the Goodreads’ eBookMiner Book of the Month Contest in August 2015, and then came the suspense /thriller ‘For the Sake of a Child’, which had been runner-up in the same eBookMiner Book of the Month Contest in October 2014.

After November 2014 Stevie took early retirement from her 13-year position as a medical secretary in a busy NHS hospital, due to after-effects from treatment for thyroid cancer. The following year, 2015, was the most prolific year for Stevie. She began to write full time and penned another 6 novels and 2 short stories, by which time she was happily in remission from cancer for a second time. She even wrote a romance, A Most Unusual Romance, partly based on the treatment she had undergone back in 2005 when initially diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer.

By the time her latest novel Repent at Leisure was finished, Stevie had decided to approach the independent publishers Creativia, based on a recommendation from one of their current authors. She was impressed with their book marketing Street Team support, and at the quick response to emails and queries.

Creativia published Repent at Leisure in March 2016 complete with a beautiful book cover, and currently the company goes from strength to strength, taking on new authors daily. Stevie was pleased at recently being informed that ‘Repent at Leisure’ has been placed on the shortlist for The Escalator Writing Contest.

Stevie still lives in the same picturesque Suffolk village that she and Sam moved to in 1991 with their two boys. She is now working on a collection of short stories that she hopes will be published towards the end of the year. One of her short stories, ‘Lifting the Black Dog’, was recently published in ‘1000 Words or Less Flash Fiction Collection’ (2016). She has also written an article ‘Look on the Bright Side of Life’ which was included in the recently published book ‘They Say I’m Doing Well’ which are articles about mental illness, proceeds of which go to the charity MIND.

Stevie and Sam enjoy attending rock festivals and concerts in their spare time, and especially love visiting the Isle of Wight, their second home, and of course the Isle of Wight Festival, which to them is the best festival of all! They also enjoy family life with their grown up sons, daughters-in-law and four grandchildren, all of whom still live close by in Suffolk.

Welcome, Stevie. Please tell us about your current release.

Paul McAdam wakes up with a strange girl in his bed, but has no idea who she is or where she has come from.

Cat Taylor worms her way into Paul’s life, eventually moving into his flat. The arrangement suits Paul quite well until he meets Anita Fairfax, the love of his life and the girl he wishes to marry. Cat has to go, but Paul finds that she is not interested in moving out.

When Cat is found dead in Paul’s flat, he's the #1 suspect, even though there's not a shred of evidence. Anita and Paul are happily married, but she soon begins to wonder whether her new husband could have been Cat’s killer all along...

What inspired you to write this book?

I love to write about convoluted (sometimes dysfunctional) family relationships and human emotions and jealousies. Repent at Leisure was just waiting to be written!

Excerpt from the first chapter of Repent at Leisure:

Part 1 – Paul; Chapter 1; January 1, 2000

           

            Darren must have spiked my bloody drink again; I’ll kill the bastard.

            I sit up in bed, rub my eyes and give her the once over as I inch back the covers. She’s naked and reasonably good-looking, but the blonde hair doesn’t quite reach the roots and the face is caked in make-up. I’ve always liked the natural look, so God knows why I went and picked her. Perhaps I didn’t; probably Darren gave her a good time and then lumbered me with her after I’d passed out.

            My mouth’s as dry as a badger’s chuff, and my head is throbbing. I need some coffee. Whoever she is sleeps on as I climb out of bed and slide into some jeans. As I open the bedroom door I can see Darren, fully clothed and dead to the world on the settee. We must have had a fucking ace time of it last night; if only I could remember.

            The noise of the kettle brings Darren out of his stupor. As he comes into the kitchen his mullet’s awry like he’s got a surfboard on his head. Yawning, I reach for two mugs from the cupboard and heap a spoonful of coffee in each. I indicate with a thumb over in the direction of the bedroom.

            “Who’s the bird?”

            Darren hacks up enough tar to fill all the potholes along the M1.

            “You’re asking me? You’re the one who was with her all night.”

            “Yeah, but some bastard spiked my drinks.”

            My look of venom informs him in no uncertain terms whom I suspect of perpetrating the crime. Darren, innocence personified, shrugs his shoulders, picks up the kettle, and pours boiling water into the mugs.

            “Nothin’ to do with me, mate.”

            “Yeah, and my dick’s two foot long.”

            “You should be so lucky.” Darren adds coffee to an extra mug. “Here; give her one.”

            “I already did, didn’t I?” I sigh.

            “Possibly; you were going at it hammer and tongs in there last night.”

            “Shit.”

                       

What exciting story are you working on next?

I am working on a collection of short stories, which is nearly finished. The stories are all based on significant life events.

When did you first consider yourself a writer? Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I only really began to write seriously 3 years ago, and now write full time, having taken early retirement last year.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A doctor, although I was hopeless at Maths, Chemistry and Physics, so it didn’t work out!

Links:

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