People’s Book Prize Award winner finalist Dr Sarah Hussain takes questions from Foreshore Book Club Members across the UK. I know you were at Huddersfield University, so did this novel start there, or pre-date that time, and can you remember what the seed of this was, as a novel? HENRY, London Yes, the novel was inspired by my PhD research. I came across the amazing hill women of the Himalayas who protested to protect the trees. Having come across so many stereotypical depictions of South Asian women, I knew the best way to challenge such negative representations was to write a novel and pay homage to these unsung female activists. I was inspired by their non-violent activism and new I had to tell this story. What is the role of isolation in your creative process? IH, Birmingham I am inspired by nature. Going for walks alone helps my writing come alive. Before writing the trek section of my novel, I would go on regular walks in the woods, using my phone to record my thoughts; I would make note of the small details in relation to sight, scent and sound. When you had completed your novella Escaped from Syria, did you know at that point that you would be writing Vidhya’s story in your next novel? YF, London No. I knew I wanted to write about British/Indian connections from a postcolonial perspective, but I was inspired to write Vidhya’s story when I learnt about environmental colonialism and the hill women’s contribution to India’s independent struggle. I love how the novel manages to explore its socio-economic and political context while avoiding judgement or easy conclusions, even though it’s written from Vidhya’s point of view. Was this a hard thing to balance? EB, London Yes, it was difficult. Initially I was so engrossed in my research that I had to be really careful not to just info drop. I had to remind myself that this was a story that required me to draw on the real life lived experience of the indigenous people. There are already academic books written about the colonial period in India, but I struggled to find fiction written about the British Raj era from the native Indian’s woman’s perspective. My intention was to try and create a plausible setting that would paint a picture of the real-world Vidhya lived in, so this meant focusing on her experience within the socio-economic, political and environmental context. How did you go about creating and inhabiting an Indian teenager (Vidhya )from a different century, giving her such truth and feminist autonomy? GEMMA, Christchurch, Dorset I know it’s a different century, but as a South Asian woman, I understand what it means to grow up within that culture. My South Asian heritage means a great deal to me. Although I am British born, I hold on firmly to my ancestral values, thus I felt creating Vidhya was a very natural process. It might sound unusual, but once her character was born, I felt as though she guided me, more than her being my creation. Writers create literature, shape it, but how to be unique in that art of creating some new styles of historic fiction writing? DARLENE, Brighton My PhD research was about contributing to new knowledge, thus my intention to challenge romanticized depictions of South Asian women was a new contribution to English fiction within the British Raj era. I think the way to be unique is to write a story that challenges what people think they know about a historical period. In terms of style, I believe each writer develops their own voice that has its own unique style. I have often been advised to take inspiration from other great writers which is good advice, but it’s also great to take risks. I myself prefer a plot driven novel and I’m not a fan of purple prose, but a lot of novels I read which were set in that part of the subcontinent were heavy in description. I wondered whether I needed to conform to that style of writing, however it didn’t work for me. I wanted to write a historical novel that made readers want to turn the page and find out what will happen next, as well as learning about a period in history that they never knew about. I hope I have achieved that. Is there a book by another author that you would love to have written yourself and, if so, which and why? VERONICA, Belfast I believe every individual has their own voice, so I wouldn’t want to have written any other story that I wasn’t inspired to write myself, but I have certainly enjoyed other fiction. My love for fiction began when I read Alice Walker’s, The Colour Purple. Walker created a plausible setting that took me on an emotional journey and the best books for me are the ones that move you and make you question the world. Which do you find most challenging writing a thesis or a novel? BRIANNA, Conway The novel by far was the most challenging. I discovered this new knowledge and was eager to complete my exegesis, thus writing down my ideas including source support was not that difficult for me, especially since I have taught Academic English skills. However the novel was like building a house from scratch; getting the structure in place, before decorating and adding the final touches. I had to get the plot right within a specific historical time frame, which took some redrafting, whilst ensuring there weren’t any anachronisms. Once I managed to create a plausible plot, then I had to consider writing style and this meant word level editing, which is a lot more strenuous than writing an academic thesis in my opinion. Creating Writing is very technical and writing a historical fiction novel was most certainly a challenge, but I am very proud of taking on that challenge and writing a novel that contributes to new knowledge. BUY THE BOOK A powerful
Kirsty McKenna discusses her book The Dying Swan, and the line between real and imagined places in her work. The Dying Swan, a gripping drama surrounding the hunt for an elusive killer known for trademark ritualistic burials, dramatises not just how girls or women are victim to sexual abuse and its shattering impact, but the normalisation of inappropriate sexual attention. McKenna’s novel also provides a backdrop gleaned from real life experiences. “I thought of Tess as a child kidnap victim due to one of my childhood memories and an extremely near miss,” the author explains. “I was about seven and had walked to the local shop to buy something and as always, my dog Rags followed me. Rags was a stray that my parents had taken in and our bond was so close. He was a black raggy looking dog. “I crossed the quiet road to get tom the shop and as I got to the other side a car pulled up. A man with very dark hair and a beard asked me to come over to the car, I was apprehensive as adults always tell their children not to approach strangers but when an adult like the man asks a child to do something they do it. The man said he had some sweets for me so I headed for the car, as I got closer my dog lunged in between myself and the car growling at the man and foaming at the mouth, my dog simply would not let me pass. The man quickly drove off as Rags was trying to get him through the window.” Though her storytelling in The Dying Swan may be fictitious, McKenna packs it with chilling realism. The author grew up amid a serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, aka The Yorkshire Ripper who killed 13 women and attacked at least eight more between October 1975 and November 1980. “He lived just across the valley in neighbouring Frizinghall,” McKenna said. “The tension at that time was awful. Women had to be chaperoned everywhere for their own safety. My mum worked at the local picture house and dad would walk to meet her, so she was safe. “The man who tried to entice me into his car that day looked awfully like Peter Sutcliffe. I know he attacked adult women and not children, but you never know.” Born in Shipley, West Yorkshire, to a Glaswegian father who was a builder and a Yorkshire mum who was a housewife, McKenna worked in casinos most of her life. During her early thirties, she studied law, gaining a law degree. Ten years ago, she followed the calling of her Celtic roots and moved first to Glasgow, then settling in Argyll and Bute near the town of Dunoon. She started studying archaeological research as she was always interested in what lies beneath her feet, becoming “obsessed” with a module titled Death and Burial, which focuses on ancient ritual burials. “I passed with a postgraduate diploma but realised I didn’t like academic writing, although I thrived writing theoretically,” McKenna recalls. “When I studied archaeology, I became fascinated with ancient burials and skeletal remains, I knew a little about osteo archaeology and so my character Dr Tess O’Brien was created. Her beauty and vulnerability are based on an article I read about Picassos muse The Girl with The Ponytail, Sylvette David. In her interview she spoke about the downfalls of being so beautiful and those were negative attention and childhood abuse. Tess’s looks are based on Sylvette, someone so stunning that all genders stop and stare. I also wanted Tess to have suffered trauma, she is not a victim but a fighter.” In McKenna’s beautifully written and painstakingly researched The Dying Swan, the protagonist Dr Tess O’Brien flees to Scotland following a painful breakup, seeking refuge in Glasgow University’s archaeological department. Haunted by the trauma of her teenage kidnapping, she is drawn into a chilling investigation of murders and war crimes worldwide, uncovering disturbing parallels to her past. “I have a good friend Lucy Rose who was an archaeologist and she being exceptionally beautiful and blond also inspired my character,” McKenna said. “Tess is kind, funny and a good friend who is also extremely intelligent, I want people to like her, to aspire to be her, when she is sad, angry, happy, or scared I want people to feel it. She loves hard so when she falls in love it is all consuming and she has a trusting nature in some respects. “Tess is obsessed with bones, this might seem macabre to some but to her this is where she feels most comfortable, she also feels compassion and empathy for the victims she excavates, knowing full well that could have been her as a thirteen-year-old victim of sexual predators. “In the writing I also look at how girls or women are victim to sexual abuse, comments, assault. I wanted to show how most women at some point in their lives have been victims to inappropriate sexual attention so much so it can seem normal. I wanted Tess to highlight this.” Kirsty McKenna’s The Dying Swan will be out in paperback in the Spring. – the first novel in the Dr Tess O’Brien crime series. Image : DAVID COHEN on Unsplash
Educator and writer Shivan Davis talks about his tragic, tender and wholly unforgettable debut novel, On Winter Hill. How would you introduce On Winter Hill to your readers, and what do you hope they will take away from it? I would probably introduce On Winter Hill as a meditation on first love and friendship. I’d describe it as a coming-of-age story grounded in a sense of place. Hopefully readers will find it true to life and enjoy spending time in the company of the main characters. Can you remember what the seed of this was, as a novel? The seed of the novel arrived through a dream. I keep a notebook beside my bed to record particularly vivid or profound dreams and this particular dream ended up being the final chapter of the novel. I hastily wrote down the gist of it and knew almost immediately that I had the essence of a novel in my hands. In a sense it made the writing process of the first draft easier as I knew how the story had to end, I just had to work out a route towards arriving at that destination. What inspired the choice to use an idyllic setting to explore such unsettling themes? I followed the age-old wisdom of “write what you know”. As well as that, I always felt the need for the action of the novel to occur from around May to September. The novel charts the memories of the narrator so it was important that the events I described took place against a familiar backdrop for me to build a world around the characters. The theme of grief pervades the novel. What inspired this decision? Alongside providing a framing device for the novel, I hoped that the theme of grief would intensify the memories of the narrator and explain his decision in the prologue to meditate on this episode of his life. The recollections of the main character Sahil and his first love Elena, their getting to know each other, that initial attraction , the intensity of their conversations, are the mainstay of the novel. How were they to write, and where did these characters come from? The characters in the novel, including the narrator are either semi-autobiographical, literary composites or entirely invented. Sahil is fairly autobiographical although I have deposited parts of myself in a number of the characters, particularly George. I really enjoyed writing the dialogue between Sahil and Elena. I knew from the beginning that I wanted the novel to take place over the course of a single summer which meant that the progression of their relationship had to develop quickly and intensely without straining the reader’s credulity which was tricky. In terms of the source of where they come from, I suppose I took the stuff of life, remolded it and embellished it. Sahil and Elena losing their virginity together plays quite a crucial role, symbolically in the novel. What was your thinking around this and what it means to Sahil? It definitely serves to make their relationship more intimate and comfortable— something reflected in the ease of their dialogue in the subsequent chapters. I think it’s an event that means more to Sahil than Elena. It makes the ending more painful for the narrator and the overarching storyline more meaningful, at least that was my intention. Your work is elegantly and thoughtfully written, so how much time do you spend crafting your sentences, on average and at the most? I learned a lot about the writing process through this novel, in particular just how much of the process boils down to editing and redrafting. ‘On Winter Hill’ went through a number of redrafts and, in terms of crafting sentences, what helped pare the writing down was reading the manuscript aloud, time and time again, and being subsequently directed by the ear, not the eye. Are there writers whom you admire or have influenced your writing? A few novels in particular influenced On Winter Hill, namely ‘The Leopard’, ‘Nevermind’, ‘The Country Girls’, ‘My Antonia’, ‘Old School’, ‘Mayflies’ and ‘Giovanni’s Room’. In terms of my favourite writers, I’d have to name Cormac McCarthy, Edward St Aubyn, Edna O’Brien, Clare Keegan and James Baldwin. On Winter Hill by Shivan Davis is published by Foreshore in March in paperback. ABOUT THE AUTHOR SHIVAN DAVIS is an English novelist and educator. Alongside teaching, he has written on educational issues and has been published in Schools Week and TES. He has appeared on Newsnight and Times Radio and regularly contributed to The Graham Norton Book Club.
