Q&A

What was the inspiration for A New Map of Love …

The idea of writing about a country antique dealer during the 1960s had been in my mind for some time, because that was what I grew up with. 

Other than the fact that my father was called George and that I do recall him setting up a mahogany dining table and chairs to eat his lunch at the side of the road, there is no real resemblance between him and George Baxter. George just seemed like the right name for the character.

I was also inspired by The History of Mr. Polly by H.G Wells. I love the character and the Edwardian humour and parts of it make me laugh out loud.

… and Letter From A Tea Garden?

Eleanora is one of George’s more tricky customers in A New Map of Love. I started to wonder – who is she? How did she become so crusty and difficult? And her past started to come to me in all its eventfulness and haunting sadness.

My eldest half-sister disappeared with her husband to work in a tea garden in Assam, India in 1960, a few months before I was born. But it was not until I started researching this story that I visited one myself. Along with my general interest in India, the story began to develop…

Is a sense of place important to you in writing a novel?

Very. I love writing about Birmingham and in this case, the Thames Valley where I come from, and India.  I like to set stories in particular locations and try to evoke their atmosphere, especially when they mean something to me.

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?

It’s always been something I just do. The term ‘aspiring writer’ seems to be more about being published than actually writing. I think I have always been a writer.

What is your writing routine – do you have a favourite time and place?

I am definitely a morning person. I write in a room at the back of our house which is very peaceful and looks out on our garden. As a contrast to my other stories, I wrote both of these in longhand to begin with, which feels freer than typing and I love having notebooks full of closely written script. Writing by hand, you don’t need to be at a desk and I would often take my notebook and write somewhere else in the house or even down by the river.

What do you find is a helpful support to your writing?

Taking exercise, yoga, getting a decent amount of sleep, eating properly, doing creative things which do not involve writing, being with other people who are not writers, being with other people who are writers.

I have always found it really valuable being part of a writers’ workshop, which I did when I lived in Birmingham, then later in Reading. It means a lot to have a writing community.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you do?

Before I had my four children, I was training to be a nurse and never managed to get back to it. At the time when I was training, at Selly Oak Hospital, in Birmingham, I found it completely absorbing and worthwhile and loved working with people. I’m glad not to be working in the beleaguered structures of the NHS just now though and really feel for them.

What are your favourite books?

There are the ones I grew up with and will always love and go back to – all the Bronte sisters, Dickens, George Orwell, Arnold Bennett, Paul Scott… 

I love to read international literature from almost any part of the world – Andrei Makine, Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche, Barbara Kingsolver. And many Indian - or of Indian heritage - writers, such as Rohinton Mistry, Anita Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri and Aravind Adiga.

There are the ones that make me laugh with their sheer, brilliant and precise and very English daftness…. H.G Wells, E. M Delafield, E. F Benson, Alan Bennett – and Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Townsend Warner – there are so many.

 And then there are the works in progress of a lot of friends!

What’s your advice to aspiring writers?

If you have trouble starting, tell yourself you will write just for ten minutes. You will probably end up doing quite a bit more.

Think hard about what you personally want from writing – total artistic freedom, self-expression, acclaim, money, a job, to be liked or admired… They may not all be compatible.

Try not to be swamped by the enormity of the book market. It’s true there are a lot of books out there but you have your voice and perhaps one day you will be one of them.

Do it because you love it. There are no other good reasons to be a writer.