Lizzie Lane, author of over 70 books including the Honey Driver series set in Bath, shares her writing journey with us.
My word, that sounds so pretentious don’t you think? Even to my ears. The truth is that I never set out to become a ‘writer’ or, more accurately a storyteller whose books have been in the top thirty bestselling paperbacks and best seller worldwide. And here I take a breath; seeing at least ten of my titles in Bath Library.
I’ve been writing books for over thirty years, had over seventy books published, won the BBC New Writers’ Award and had my own column in the Saturday edition of the Western Daily Press for several years.
So how come? When did I first start telling stories?
I think the answer must be when I began reading. Books were a precious commodity in the fifties when I was growing up in a council house in Bristol. My nearest library was Marksbury Road in one direction and Filwood Broadway in the other. The rest of my books were bought at jumble sales. That was my reading, but I should also mention that my mother was a storyteller relating the events of her childhood when poverty was rife, and books were most definitely beyond the reach of ordinary working-class people.
She also related details of her life during World War Two, the home front stuff, the characters she’d known, the continual seeking of food and cutting down of yet more jumble sale items to make toys at Christmas or modernise an old-fashioned coat for herself.
No modern appliances of course. No washing machine. No tumble drier. There was a boiler for the clothes in the corner of the kitchen and a mangle out back for squeezing the water out, a washing line for hanging it out to dry.
So, this was the basis of the books I write, nostalgia, yes, but I feel it’s important to know that history give readers the opportunity to learn of times gone by. We only pass this way once, experience our time once, but with each book we can yet again experience the joys, despair and tribulations of worlds gone forever – or imagine the unimaginable and ride a unicorn around the rings of Saturn.
Visit Lizzie’s website: lizzielaneauthor.com
This article was published February 2025