Where do you get the ideas to create your characters and storylines?

Everywhere. I magpie little snippets of things from my own life, from friends, from newspapers, and then sit with them and try to expand on them, fit them into a story. It might be a name, or an image – The Queen of Bloody Everything came from a picture in my head of a grainy seventies Polaroid of two children in front of a Wendy House – or something on the TV – Joe All Alone was partly inspired by a news item about a homeless boy in my London borough of Peckham, who had been going into school every day despite sleeping rough. The teachers noticed he was dirty and alerted authorities in the end.

Who or what are the biggest influences in your writing?

Most of my influence comes from speechwriting – when I’m writing fiction I think largely in terms of rhetorical tricks, and word play, as I would do with a political speech, as well as working out how to keep my audience invested with ‘ethos’ and ‘logos’ and ‘move’ my audience using ‘pathos’. The writers I admire do this, whether deliberately or not, from David Almond for younger children, through E.Lockhart for teens, to Donna Tartt and Curtis Sittenfeld for adults.

What were your favourite books as a child, and why?

They were, and still are, funny books – Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl, James Thurber. Perhaps favourite of all was the Nicholas series by Goscinny and Sempe, which, being a precocious child, I read in French. This was an influence for my own new series The Worst Class in the World. Humour is hugely underrated as a literary device and yet children and adults will seek it out.

What do you think are the most difficult aspects of writing? How do you cope with them?

I don’t struggle to get the words down as know some do (although lockdown, and home schooling has made actually being able to get time on the computer difficult), but I do struggle with the isolation a writing life can demand. I am very thankful for the advent of social media, where I lurk even when I am writing. It’s like having an office water cooler – somewhere to air opinions or ask for a little help on a sentence.

Thank you for your continued support of Bath & NES Libraries. Why do you think public libraries are important?

Every Saturday morning my dad would drop me off in our town Corn Exchange, which doubled as a community centre and library, and leave me between the stacks of Pullein-Thompsons and Enid Blytons while he did the shopping. This is where I went on adventures, fought pirates, sided with smugglers, worked out what kind of person I wanted to be when I grew up. At the time, I thought that was ‘someone in a book’. Now, I write my own stories to play out.

Without libraries I wouldn’t be a writer – we didn’t have the money for the number of books I needed to read as a child. As it was, the children’s section ran out of reading material for me and I became one of few pre-teens allowed access to the adult floor (approved sci-fi only). Books offer children the world inside their pages, they offer opportunity and ambition, and only libraries can ensure that’s equally available to every child, not just those who can pay.

Find out more about Jo on her website: joannanadin.com

This interview was conducted in 2020

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What are your top 5 writing essentials?

Put simply – my laptop, some snacks, a drink, loud music (although sometimes silence), and several notebooks. The type of snacks I have vary depending on what time of day I write and how virtuous I am feeling. They can be anything from nuts to fruit to crisps or chocolates. The same goes for the drinks – green tea or Green Cola or, when I’m on holiday, wine. I like having something to make it feel like a treat when I am settling into a session.

Who or what are your biggest influences in writing?

This is such an interesting question. And to be honest I don’t now how to answer succinctly. Everyone I’ve ever read is probably the easiest way to sum it up. As a writer I am inspired and influenced all of the time, I think when you are a writer you do read books as a writer and that changes everything. I’m always learning. But it’s not just authors and poets who influence me, conversations with friends, disagreements, chance encounters, human behaviours, they all play a part in making my writing what it is.

What do you find most enjoyable about writing?

I LOVE the first write of a new draft where the story is unfolding and even though I’ve planned it, new and exciting things always emerge. I think for me, once I get going I do like the editing process and fixing issues and plot holes, but it’s definitely the part I find the hardest. Responding to (often brilliant) feedback takes time and sometimes I find it overwhelming, even though I know I always do find a solution in the end. I find taking time to process feedback is important too. I’ll have a mini strop that I haven’t nailed something and that it needs yet more input, but then I’ll go for a dog walk or chat to a friend, and I’ll snap out of my mood and knuckle down to work everything out. Editing is not as much fun as writing, but it is where the magic happens.

Where do you get the inspiration to create your characters?

From various places and people. I’m always observing! For Keep her Safe the daughter, Anya, was inspired by a painting in a hotel I was staying at in Wales. As soon as I saw the image I knew it was her. I do lots of writing exercises at the start of a novel to really get to know each character inside out and make them fully formed. People often ask me where I get their names from or if they are people I know and the answer is no. They are their own people, and always brand new!

What are you working on next?

My next novel is another psychological suspense book. It follows two friends after they’ve suffered a shared trauma, and looks at how their behaviours are affected. Here’s the blurb so far; it may very well change…

What if, after a shared traumatic event, one person vows to live by the rules, while the other goes out of her way to break them?

Her accident was their fault. After all, they broke the rules.

Lucy follows the rules, both big and small. But recently she is frustrated by how other people always get away with their rule breaking. She takes it upon herself to deliver karma to everyone who pushes the boundaries. At first it’s fun, but dishing out karma has consequences of its own. 

Emily does as she pleases. As far as she’s concerned life is too short. She parks on double yellow lines. She doesn’t give way. And she steals anything she likes the look of, until someone starts sending her messages telling her they know what she did and that she must own up.

With the differences in their values and beliefs widening, will the guilt of surviving an accident from their teenage years prove too much for their friendship? Or will they finally tell everyone the truth about what happened the day they skipped school and broke the rules?

Rules are there to be followed, and when they’re not, the consequences can last a lifetime.

For more information on Jen visit her website: http://jenfaulkner.co.uk/

This interview was conducted in 2022

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Joanna, after a successful career in radio and TV scriptwriting, embarked on a captivating literary journey. Her first series of six novels revolve around a family-owned department store in Britain during the Second World War. Her latest series centres around ‘The Little Penguin bookshop’.

What are your top 5 writing essentials?

Peace and quiet – no music, ever –  copious amounts of tea,  AAA batteries for my overworked keyboard,  and family photos and drawings by my granddaughters, to remind me, if the writing’s not going well, of the really important things in life.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

I could be flippant and say ‘my delivery deadline’ but the truth is, I don’t really know. I only know that when I least expect it, a way for two unlikely characters to meet or a neat plot resolution will pop into my head. In terms of ideas for saga series, there are more than I have years left in me to write!

Can you tell us a little about your latest book ‘The Little Penguin Bookshop?

Carrie, my heroine, has always been a bookworm, and when she’s frustrated in her hope of joining the WAAF at the start of World War Two, seizes the chance to ‘do her bit’ by opening  a bookstall on her local station. Books – and the sixpenny Penguin paperbacks in particular,  she’s sure, will provide an escape for troops going off to fight, and a comfort to those left behind. She finds firm friends – and an enemy – on the station, and romance in the shape of an early customer, junior officer Mike. But the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, especially in wartime…

Who’s your favourite book character and why?

Jo in Little Women – possibly because she was the first literary character I encountered who shared my name! I was never as daring or outspoken as she was, but her way of disappearing  off to read while munching Russet apples (my favourite too) struck a chord with me.

What are you working on next?

I’m copy editing the next book in the series, called – what else? – ‘A New Chapter at The Little Penguin Bookshop’.   Through the horrors of the Blitz, it continues the drama for Carrie, her pilot brother Johnnie, her friends Penny and Bette, and of course, Carrie’s soldier boyfriend Mike, who’s sent on a new posting far away. It’s out in January next year and I do hope anyone who enjoyed ‘The Little Penguin Bookshop’ will want to read on…

Find out more about Jo and her new, or previous books, on her Facebook page: facebook.com/joannatoyewriter

She’s also on X: @joannatoyewriter

Her books are available on Amazon, in all bookshops, and of course, in libraries –  in print, e-book, audio and large print versions.

This interview was conducted in 2024

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Mendez, a Jamaican-British writer, authored the semi-autobiographical novel “Rainbow Milk” in 2020.

Scroll down for a recording of Mendez in conversation with Professor Rajani Naidoo.

Image Credit: Christa Holka

Has writing always been something you wanted to do, or did you explore other avenues before writing?

My first attempt at a degree was in automotive engineering (I lasted nine months), before I enrolled on a three-year acting course (on which I lasted three months). As a child, I would say I wanted to become a writer the way other children did astronauts, train drivers and firemen. I had (biblical) books while they had toys, and so I dreamt in the same way, but it was never something to take seriously. I was to become an elder within the Jehovah’s Witness community and hold down a humble paying job that would sustain myself, my wife and children until God’s Day of Judgement ended this current evil system and the need for money. The ministry was supposed to be my full-time preoccupation. As I grew out of that mindset, writing gradually replaced it, but I hadn’t set myself on a direct path, and felt I had to gain life experience and develop a new sense of self in the world. I always wrote for myself, but because so few black, male, queer, working-class writers were visible to me, it seemed a foolish thing to chase. Somehow, though, I never doubted I would one day become a published author. I worked in restaurants, wrote on my days off, and took opportunities to publish journalism, act in plays and narrate audiobooks when they came up.

What inspires you and gets the creativity flowing?

Deadlines.

Has your acting and voice work experience informed how you write and tell stories?

Norman, the Jamaican immigrant whose first-person narration opens Rainbow Milk, was created by means of acting and voice techniques. As a person who experienced sight loss, and who in the first place was a much bigger man physically than I am, it was important for me to understand what it would feel like for him living in a cramped house, looking after two very small, mobile children he can barely see. So I tried out life in his shoes, so to speak; I was living with a young family at the time, and their child’s toys and clothes were strewn around the house, so I blindfolded myself and tried to get around, and quickly became disoriented. In creating Norman’s voice, I did a lot of research to support the sort of man he might have been, in terms of his skill as a gardener, and his outlook as the youngest child in his family, for instance. I’m pretty good with accents and, coming from a Jamaican background myself, I was easily able to access his voice and way of expressing himself. I recorded an improvised monologue, the transcription of which became the first draft of his story.

What inspired you to write Rainbow Milk?

I began writing to trace the trajectory I underwent by leaving the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses – and the future of everlasting life I was taught would be my inheritance if I kept my faith – coming out as gay and becoming a sex worker. I was estranged from family and living in London, dealing with a sexual assault and a very uncertain future. I had no one to talk to, so I began to write personal essays to check in with myself and try to understand what had happened to me. It was from this material that I drew Rainbow Milk.

Rainbow Milk delves into issues of race, class, sexuality, freedom and religion across generations, time and cultures – how did you approach bringing all these elements together?

It happens as a matter of course because these are all qualities that are alive within me. My identity, as an Afro-Jamaican-British, queer, working-class descendant of the Windrush generation (and furthermore of enslaved people) who was raised within a religious cult, among white working-class people with whom neo-fascist parties were popular, is thoroughly intersectional, and so every event I experience, every thought in my head, everything I see, all my problematics and all responses to my presence, will be shaped by those factors.

What are your favourite books or authors?

I revere different books and authors at different times for different reasons, and at the moment, Toni Morrison stands out. I can’t think of another author who shot straight out of the block with such complex, challenging and affirming work as she did with The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon.

Finally, what are you currently reading or any recommendations for our readers?

I’m very behind in my reading of contemporary fiction, but I’m just about to start Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze. It’s a semi-autobiographical account of a young man’s concurrent experiences as a gang member and a literature student. I’ve met him a couple of times now, and he is a special, unique and extraordinary human.

This interview was conducted in 2021

Rainbow Milk : Mendez in conversation with Professor Rajani Naidoo

This online event happened on 28th of October, 2021.

It was hosted by University of Bath Library and Bath and North East Somerset Council for Black History Month 2021.

Find out more about Mendez on their website: authormendez.com

The post Interview With Mendez appeared first on BaNES Virtual Library.

In October 2023, we welcomed Alex Wheatle to speak at Bath Central Library about his novel Cane Warriors.

Alex sadly passed away in 2025.

Cane Warriors is based on the true story of an eighteenth-century slave uprising, centring on the teenage Moa and the decisions he must make as a ‘cane warrior’ fighting for freedom from the Jamaican plantations.

“Cane Warriors is one of the most important narratives I have ever written because it focuses on a part of world history that has been ignored and understated. It’s time that Tacky and his fellow Cane Warriors are remembered…”

– Alex Wheatle

Alex has been working in partnership with State of Trust and The Beckford Tower Trust, with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund on linking the story of Cane Warriors and Tacky’s Rebellion with the history of Beckford Tower, Bath through dance.

As well as welcoming Alex, we were also fortunate to host an exhibition reflecting on the journey taking Cane Warriors from page to performance through dance and music.

We reflect on the audience’s conversation with Alex Wheatle and explore some of what was discussed with the Q&A below. This content is an edited version of an audio recording of the event.

Alex, tell us about your inspiration for writing Cane Warriors?

The first seed was planted when I was serving time after the Brixton uprising of 1981. Brixton was very volatile in those days… tension built up not just over weeks and months but for several years and it all exploded in April 1981.

I found myself serving time in prison. My cellmate, a Rastafarian by the name of Simeon, was very well read. He had a little bookshelf in the cell that I shared with him. One of the books that he offered me to read was the Black Jacobins by the great Trinidadian writer CLR James.

This planted the first seed in my head when it came to Cane Warriors.  I had that in my mind for many years.

Later, when I was finally reunited with my father in Jamaica in 1987, we had this blazing row because I had discovered he was the person who placed me into care and so I wanted many answers from him. That first meeting was very tense but the next morning we were both civil and he asked where I would like to go on a day out.

So, we took a day trip to Firefly house where Noel Coward once resided, near Fort Haldane. I later discovered that this was once a British Garrison.  At the time, I didn’t link that this was one of the places the legendary Chief Tacky attacked; where he got his arsenal of weapons from to fight the English in his attempt to free the slaves.

When I was at school, I wasn’t really taught anything about Caribbean history. I was told that my ancestors were slaves with no context. So after I became an established author, I really wanted to write something about Jamaica and the history of slave revolt.

I picked this one out because my mother, a James Bond fan, grew up in Richmond which is in the St Mary parish. Ian Fleming only lived about 6 miles away on the North coast. She remembers him emerging from his compound Goldeneye that overlooked the Caribbean Sea.

I didn’t realise at the time, and my mother didn’t realise that where she lived and was raised was where the plantations were. The Frontier and Trinity plantations that Chief Tacky and other cane warriors descended on.

So that compelled me –

“OK I’ve got to write this story now … all the bits are falling into place… I must now complete the puzzle.”

– Alex Wheatle

Cane Warriors is fictional piece based on real events. What can you tell us about Cane Warriors and the value of storytelling vs fact?

For me, it was important that I write Cane Warriors, to make young people aware of what empire was all about and to educate people. We can watch news reels and we can be shown Edward Colston’s statue being pulled down, but I think we need the storytelling and the facts too.

We need young people to be aware of what happened. How slavery made so much money, who was involved in it, who suffered because of it and who benefited.

Before the pandemic, I went on tour in Germany (my books do well in Germany!). What impressed me was that school pupils were obliged to learn about the Holocaust as part of their curriculum. For me, Germany have accepted the horrors of the past much more readily than we do in the UK.

I’m really hoping that a project like Cane Warriors will prompt those people who decide what should be taught in schools to look at stories like this but also the whole experience of slavery in the Caribbean.

There are many things that we need to aware of and in my own way, I am writing about an untold history about my ancestors. I have been ill for the last year but when I am out and able, I hope to visit schools to talk about the book, to introduce them to this history which I feel has been denied to schoolchildren for so long.   

Stories come to us from the past. I felt I could attract more of a readership if I turned Cane Warriors into fiction, to dramatize it, rather than spending 5 or 6 years trying to make it completely correct.

“I have the bare facts, the basic structure of the story, let me build on that with my own fictional storytelling.”

– Alex Wheatle

By offering a moving, dramatic story, people are more likely to read it [more than if I wrote a textbook].  To see a story performed on stage really does help young people to see the context of a story, to dramatize it. This is what led me to contact Deborah and State of Trust.

Dance is a perfect way to tell a story. We hope to take the Cane Warriors performance around the country, to engage people with the storytelling through dance.

Alex, can we explore the past, family connections and your education?

My mother escaped a violent marriage in the early 1960s. She had five children with her husband in Jamaica. She left her children with her parents in Richmond, St Mary and came to the UK to make a new life for her, and supposedly eventually her children. She settled in Brixton in 1961, where she met my father who is also from Jamaica. They had a relationship, and I was a product of that relationship.

When my mother’s husband had discovered what had happened, my mother had to return to Jamaica and sort out her affairs and I was left with my father.  There wasn’t the help there is now for single parent families, so my father tried to raise me by himself.  In the end I was taken into care, and he also returned to Jamaica believing that I would be raised by decent people but that was not the case.

The way I was raised, I was always informed that I was inferior to anyone else because I was black. When I asked about my parents and family, I was told they were ‘back in the jungle’. I grew up with low esteem, feeling inferior to my white counterparts.

When I moved to Brixton, I started to learn about African culture and the civilisations. All that was denied to me growing up. That is why I campaign that when history is taught in our schools. It should not just be about Kings and Queens, it should be varied especially now in the UK we have so many children in schools whose parents and grandparents come from all over the globe.

I attended quite a number of schools, but I remember one history teacher- he was so excited about his role in life and that excitement was picked up by the kids.  He dramatized it, the way he presented the stories and I believe that is the way history should be taught. To enthuse the young people in front of you.

“Children should be able to see themselves in history. I never saw myself in history.”

– Alex Wheatle

If you want to hear more, watch this video of Alex Wheatle talking about Cane Warriors and his own life story: https://vimeo.com/859207894.

Use the buttons below to find out more from Deborah Baddoo MBE, Artistic Director of State of Trust and The Beckford Tower Trust, about a project established with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, to link renowned author, Alex Wheatle’s story of Cane Warriors and Tacky’s Rebellion with the history of Beckford Tower, Bath through dance.

Keep up to date with the project:

https://www.stateoftrust.net/cane-warriors

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Watch the reading and fascinating interview here!

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Bath based author Harriet Evans is a Sunday Times Top Ten bestselling author including A Hopeless Romantic, The Love of Her Life, Happily Ever After and The Garden of Lost and Found.

She spent a number of years working in the publishing industry before becoming an author full time.

What are your top 5 writing essentials?

Earplugs! Earplugs are the most important thing for me. People who can bash out thousands of words in cafes with noise around them baffle me. I have a brain like a day-old chick and am so easily distracted I have to be in sensory deprivation to be able to write.

Comfortable set-up – I have bad RSI and so need a separate keyboard, a wrist rest, and a screen raised up a level, as well as a proper office chair. But too often I ignore all that and end up writing in bed especially if it’s cold.

A blank wall – either at the library or in my office at home. I can’t look out of the window otherwise I just stare at people walking past chewing my pencil and making up stories about them instead. At home my wall has props to help me with the book I’m writing at that moment stuck up on a magnetic board – family trees, photos, timelines, pieces of research, paintings, whatever works.

Company – if I don’t arrange to meet up with people I go mad. Writing is lonesome. Your mind does stupid things if you don’t take it out for an airing fairly often.

Time – I have two small and lovely but time-consuming children. They keep turning up at home demanding food and attention. There’s never enough time.

Who or what are your biggest influences in writing?

The writer who’s had the biggest influence over me in terms of her persona and career would be someone like Dorothy L Sayers. She wrote the books she wanted to – big, knarly, intellectually satisfying murder mysteries and as a result they were wildly successful. Then she just went off and translated some Dante and wrote religious poetry plays. She didn’t let anyone put her in a box. I admire that so much. My books aren’t anything like hers, but after two decades of being both an editor in publishing and  a writer I know how writers are often labelled to try and make it easier to sell them and often that hurts sales rather than helps.

The person whose books I most admire is Elizabeth Jane Howard. She is hugely underrated; she’s one of the greatest 20^th century novelists. Every book is nigh-on perfect.

If any of your books were made into films who would you have cast as the leading actor/s?

My novel A Place for Us would make a great ITV drama I always think. I have cast it all in my head. Judi Dench as Martha the matriarch, Denholm Elliott as her husband (unfortunately he’s been dead for thirty years but he’s perfect for the role so we’ll have to get round that). Julian Barnes making a surprise late-career switch in his acting debut as their eldest son Bill, Suranne Jones as his wife, Miranda Hart as his sister Florence, Olivia Colman twenty years ago as his daughter Lucy and Lily James as Cat, daughter of the mysterious Daisy who never comes home. As you see the cast list needs some time bending to work (but that’s the good thing about fantasy cast lists).

You are a keen supporter of libraries. Why do you think libraries are important?

Libraries should be like doctors and dentists – an essential service, and librarians treated with huge respect. I have been to prisons as part of the Quick Reads scheme and seen the damage done to young people when they’re excluded from the world of books and can’t keep up in a world where everything is online and literacy is so vital.

The closure of libraries, the act of stopping children being able to walk to a local library, is heinous. Alan Bennett said it is a form of child abuse. The way it is slowly, surely, being denied to some children who if they were nudged towards books at the right age might have their lives transformed by reading is something that if I think about it makes me hot and really panicky.

I can’t overstate how wrongheaded it is that local libraries are shutting and that people all too often think those community libraries, not staffed by trained librarians, are an adequate substitute. They are not. Libraries should be properly funded, located locally and stuffed full of initiatives to drive people in. Because when they’re gone people will realise all too late what they’ve lost.

Find out more about Harriet and her books on her website: harriet-evans.com

This interview was conducted in 2020

All image credits: Harriet Evans

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Tell us a little about your Ant & Bea series

The Ant and Bea Mysteries is a cosy crime series, set in and around a supermarket in a fictional English market town (cough, cough, Keynsham). My ‘detectives’ are Bea, a bright and kind checkout worker, and Ant, a seemingly gormless trainee, with a troubled family life. I love the supermarket setting, as, when you think about it, all human life is there. In my books the staff at Costsave are like a big, extended family, and they really do care about their customers. I think this year we’ve seen how much we all rely on food store workers and appreciate the lengths they have gone to to keep us all fed and safe.

What’s ‘Expiry Date’ about?

Expiry Date is the third book in the series and was so much fun to write. It pulls together a few threads set off in the first two books and develops the characters, tugging at their heartstrings a bit. One of Bea’s favourite customers is missing, with her two small children. At the same time a body is found in the foundations of a former factory. Bea gets caught up in an investigation which comes uncomfortably close to home, making her question happy childhood memories. As a bit of light relief, Costsave forms a workplace choir, with a surprising star soloist. I loved writing this one – starting work on a new Ant and Bea book feels like meeting up with old friends.

You run a Cosy Crime Club on Twitter – could you tell us more?

This has been one of my highlights of this horrid year. As I had a book coming out in June, but am part of a shielding household, I was looking for ways to connect with readers online. My publisher came up with the idea of having a crime book chat on Twitter, as that is my social medium of choice. Now #cosycrimeclub meets every fortnight, at 11.00am on Tuesday mornings, and we talk about books for 45 minutes or so.

Mostly it’s a general chat about what we’ve been reading and what we’d recommend. Sometimes we have a special guest (e.g. Vaseem Kham, SJ Bennett, Julia Chapman, Rowan Coleman) and quiz them about their books. It’s turned into a lovely, friendly, positive corner of Twitter. We invite people to make a cuppa and have a biscuit/cake (not compulsory), have a break from the news and chat with like-minded bookish friends. I thought it might peter out, but we’re going from strength to strength. Perhaps you’ll join us? You just have to use the #cosycrimeclub hashtag to join in!

You wrote the narrative and questions for our library murder mystery event ‘12 Days of Murder: A Festive Fatality’ – can you tell us a little about your process, how you wrote the narrative and built the story?

This was both a delight and a head-scratching challenge! It was a surprisingly difficult brief – involving writing an original murder mystery, with links to the local area, libraries, etc. all in bitesize chunks that could be released on social media over 12 days. After a few days flailing around and panicking, I tackled it from many angles at once. I developed a list of characters and motives, then looked at locations around Bath and North East Somerset and thought about how to include them both in the mystery and in a set of quiz questions.

Next I drafted the mystery and tweaked it a few times, then I broke it down into sections, slotting in quiz questions at the end of each section. I revisited the end to provide an extra twist or two – interestingly this is something I usually do with my novels. I think I’ve finished them, but then realise they need a bit more fiendishness at the end. I hope that people enjoy following the story and ‘playing along.’

You are also part of our ‘Bath Bloodhounds’ book group (who appear in the murder mystery) – what do you love about reading and writing crime fiction?

I’ve always read a lot of crime fiction. For me, there’s some sort of comfort in a good crime book – you know that there will be resolution at the end, and, usually, a sense of justice being done. There’s also the intellectual challenge of trying to work out whodunnit in many books. The best crime books are a magnificent blend of character, plot, setting and suspense. (My personal favourite is Jane Harper, who achieves this blend time after time.) I enjoy writing crime, partly because there are conventions to follow – although these can be subverted. In developing a crime series, I’m also able to develop characters and their relationships and there’s a lot of comfort in spending time with characters that you love.

We love seeing your photos and artwork online, you are so talented!  Does your art and photography inspire your writing, or are they another creative outlet?

Thank you! My photography definitely feeds into my painting and drawing, but it feels like this uses a different part of my brain to writing. I do think it’s useful to be able to visualise settings and scenes, though. Sometimes I ‘see’ my books as if they were films and my job is to describe the scene in my head. I do enjoy doing all sorts of things, although there’s an element of guilt involved, which I’m trying to train myself out of – when I’m painting, I often feel that I should be writing, and vice versa if I’ve got commissions waiting. I do feel incredibly lucky to have all these things in my life, though. They’ve all helped me cope with the enforced ‘indoor’ life this year.

Any new writing projects on the horizon?

I’ve taken a little break from Ant and Bea this year and am writing a standalone thriller. I wrote the first draft very quickly but am now (endlessly) redrafting to try and improve it and hopefully make it more commercial. It’s darker than my other crime books and I’m enjoying the challenge of doing something a bit different. Who knows if it will see the light of day? Perhaps it will be a bestseller! Such is the writing life. You have to travel hopefully…

Connect with Rachel online:

Twitter: @RachelWardBooks

Twitter: #cosycrimeclub (Every 2 weeks, Tuesdays at 11am)

Online: uk.bookshop.org/shop/RachelWardBooks

Online: www.rachelwardbooks.com

This interview was conducted in 2020.

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What are your top 5 writing essentials?

1. A writing space that inspires. I love my writing space. Before my book deal with Embla, I used to write on the sofa or from my bed. Shrinking myself and my ambition in case it was never realised. It took a publishing house buying my book before I considered myself deserving of space. I regret that now. I wish I’d believed in myself enough to invest in a desk. To procure things I found beautiful. To create an inspiring nook that was all mine. You deserve space. Take it.
2. Snacks. How will you ever make it to that word count goal unless you have a chocolate orange to motivate you?
3. Walks. Almost all my plot holes and writing woes can be resolved after a walk around my local park in Frome. Also, my two cocker spaniel puppies – Ivy and Maple – wholeheartedly approve of this as a writing essential.
4. Sounding boards. I did and undergraduate and a master’s degree in writing, and once I graduated, I really felt the loss of the workshop groups, so I created my own. I am forever bouncing ideas off my loved ones. I even give chapters of my work in progress to friends as I write. Their feedback in invaluable – their honesty, criticism and praise make me a better writer.
5. Reading. It really is important to read widely. There is merit in every genre. If you don’t have time to sit and read a physical book, listen to audiobooks. I play mine during walks with the dogs, when I’m at the gym, cleaning my house or doing boring life-admin tasks. I’m so grateful to Daphne Kouma and Georgia Maguire who bought One Small Mistake to life so brilliantly.

June is National Crime Writing Month. Who is your favourite crime author and why?

It’s almost impossible to choose only one because there’s a wealth of talent within the genre. I think I’ve read almost everything B.A. Paris has written – her storytelling is suspenseful and seamless. Charlotte Bigland’s debut It’s Not Me, It’s You is a whip-smart, contemporary take on the genre and I keenly anticipate her next novel. Sarah Goodwin, author of Stranded, writes dark, atmospheric tales that are laced with delicious prose. If you pick up a book by any of the aforementioned authors, you won’t be disappointed.

How do you research and plan before beginning to write?

If you looked at my search Google history, you’d be concerned. There’s everything from baby name websites to questions like “Which oral poison is odourless and tasteless?” and “How long does it take a body to decompose in the height of summer?”. If I can’t find answers online, I will seek answers from people in the field I’m researching. For The Perfect Match I had a few queries regarding police protocols so I contacted ex-detective turned crime author Caroline Mitchell who was super helpful.

I also really enjoy visiting places I intend to set scenes. In the book I’m writing now, tentatively named Never Coming Back, part of the story is set in St Ives so I’ve done a few trips there to get a feel for the place. In terms of planning, I usually have the first and last scene of a novel in my mind before I start outlining chapters. Scenes play out in my head like a film with the dialogue coming first. I am constantly making notes on my phone but I don’t sit down to write until I have a rough outline for every chapter.

What do you think makes a successful crime novel?

I’ve always been drawn to character-led stories. I look for characters I can relate to, am amused by, or can root for. This is a hot take, but I love a spikey, difficult, unlikeable narrator or even an unreliable one – I find them fascinating. For me, dark humour and sharp writing are important and a tightly woven plot is essential, especially in crime fiction.

What are you working on next?

I’m working on the first draft of my third novel, and I am engrossed. One Small Mistake did incredibly well which meant the bar was high for The Perfect Match. All of a sudden, I had a readership and a publishing house who I didn’t want to let down. I put a huge amount of pressure on myself which made the second novel a struggle. Luckily, The Perfect Match has been just as loved by readers as my debut which meant I went into writing my third book with a lot more confidence. Here’s a mini blurb: After witnessing her sister’s abduction when they were children, Caitlin is sure Olivia is never coming home. Sixteen years later though, Olivia returns. But is this woman who she claims to be or is she an insidious imposter? Caitlin is determined to discover the truth or die trying…

This interview was conducted for Crime Reading Month in 2023.

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Could you tell us about your book Sometimes in Bath?

I came to live near Bath from London about 15 years ago. At first I found the city a touch, how shall we say, staid?…smug? But that was probably because I’m originally from a northern industrial town, so when it comes to beautiful places, I can be a touch, how shall we also say, envious. And, in any case, how can anyone with romance and joy in their soul not very soon succumb to That Old Bath Magic, the delightful concentration of 2,000 years of history standing stone by stone together and conjuring such wondrous names as Bladud, Alfred, Beau Nash, Horatio Nelson, Jane Austen and more? So, being a journalist turned short-story writer, what better than stories set throughout that history? And thus Sometimes In Bath.

What are your methods for researching and planning your own stories?

As a journalist, I’m much interested in the lines and borders between fiction and fact (yes, I know). Whenever I watch a film about actual people and events, I really want to know what’s true and what’s not. So in Sometimes In Bath, each story is followed by an Afterword explaining just that and giving fuller details of the period and people, with recommendations of where to go and what further to read. So there was quite a lot of research, which I really enjoy, even if I’m too fond of whimsy and byways to be a serious historian.

I’m not one of those people who’s sniffy about Dr Google and Professor Wiki, either: they’re great starting points, but, as with everything, you need to check, check and check. And that, of course, is where Bath’s splendid library services come in!

What do you find are the most difficult aspects of writing?

Most of it! Short stories – or at least mine – are very dependent on plot, and I find it hard work devising something convincing and entertaining. You readers will be the judges of how well I succeed.

Where do you do your writing?

I’m lucky enough to live in an old water mill on the River Frome (but before you get too resentful, should point out that it nestles between the railway station and Asda). Still, I have a pretty good view as I stare out of my office (spare room) window and sigh despairingly and look blankly, even if there’s currently a building site just up there. (A trip and wander round Bath works wonders, I find.)

What originally motivated you to want to write?

My dad was a grocer, so I’m afraid, rather disgracefully and disloyally, my original motivation was not to be a grocer! I tried the law, discovered that it demanded rather too much dry intellectual rigour and not enough creativity, and so ended up in journalism, which has its own rigours, believe me, but seemed rather more fun, and revealed to me that, among other things, I had a certain facility for making people smile.

Can you tell us about any other projects you have coming up?

Yes, I’m now working on a similar idea to Sometimes In Bath: it will be called Sometimes Last Century and will have stories set throughout the twentieth one, starting with King Edward VII in a certain amount of frantic bother…And you can catch me at the Bath Festival in November, hopefully…

Sometimes in Bath is a captivating story-tour through the city’s history. Beau Nash, Old King Bladud, young Horatio Nelson, Jane Austen’s Mr Bennet, the Emperor Haile Selassie and many more spring to life in episodes shimmering with the curious magic of Britain’s oldest resort and premier purveyor of good health, happiness and romance for the last 2000 years. Each story has an afterword distinguishing the fiction from fact, adding enthralling historical detail – and giving visitors useful links to Bath’s many sights and fascinations Sometimes in Bath is warm, witty, wistful and will be loved by all who come to and from this most enchanting and enchanted of cities.

This interview was conducted in 2020.

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