March 19, 2009 7:33 PM

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Cally Taylor

Now I know I use the phrase "I'm so excited..." quite a lot here on Trashionista. In my defence it is with good reason as I do get incredibly excited about good books. However, today, with this post, I have something that I think is extra special. An interview with newly signed author Cally Taylor. And it isn't because I know her (as I do, just a little bit) but because I think she has a fantastic career ahead of her as a writer. Her book, Haunting For Beginners, is out in October this year and this is her first ever interview.

Please describe your book in 15 words or fewer:

Lucy is dead and desperately trying to be reunited with the man she loves.

How were you ‘discovered’?

I bought a copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook and wrote a list of all the agents who accepted chick-lit and women's fiction. The first one on my list was Darley Anderson (I really liked his name. I also thought he was a woman!) so I sent him my synopsis and first three chapters. That was on a Friday morning. The next Monday afternoon he rang me up and asked me for the whole manuscript. I was so excited I thought I might pass out but managed to get myself together enough to print it off, read it through (again) for typos and send it off. Six weeks later he rang me back. He liked it and it had a lot of potential, he said, but it needed some more work. I was absolutely gutted (I’d convinced myself that he'd send me a letter if he hated it and only ring if he wanted to sign me!) but, after a couple of weeks of sulking, I started to make the changes he’d requested and sent it back five months after his second phone call. Three months after that I received a phone call from Madeleine Buston. She told me that Darley had given her my revised manuscript to read on the train to Scotland and that she’d fallen in love with it. We talked about the book and her plans for it for a while and then I (tentatively) asked, “So are you my agent then?” and she said yes!

Have you always been a writer?

Yes, I guess so. As child I loved writing stories and making up plays and sent my first ‘book’ (an ‘illustrated’ story about The Evil Weed and his flower friends) to Penguin Publishers when I was eight. I even bound it myself – in pink wool! It was rejected, of course, but I wasn’t deterred.

Where do you like to write your books (in bed, a coffee shop, an office)?

Before I start writing my books I scribble down lots of notes in the notebooks that I carry around with me everywhere. Ideas for characters and plot developments pop into my head while I’m on the train, walking to town and even in the pub and I always have to stop to write them down otherwise they’re lost forever. When I actually start writing a book I type straight onto the laptop which is on my very messy desk in my tiny, cluttered bedroom.

Your favourite chick-lit book?

Tough one! It’s a toss-up between Ralph’s Party by Lisa Jewell and Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner. Those were the first two chick-lit books I ever read and they opened up a whole new world of literature to me. I realised that yes, you could write books about modern women with flaws and dreams and complicated love lives, and that other women wanted to read about them too.

Your favourite female heroine (if different from above!), and why?

My favourite female heroine ever or my favourite chick-lit heroine? My favourite female heroine ever would have to be Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. My favourite female chick-lit heroine is Cannie in Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed.

What tips would you give to any of our readers who want to become writers?

Read a lot, write a lot, get your novel critiqued by people you aren’t related to or friends with, and then polish it until it gleams before sending it out to agents.

Develop a thick skin. Criticism and rejection sting like hell but you have to learn from them, bounce back and keep writing.

Posted by Helen Redfern on March 19, 2009 in Book News, Brand new authors, British Authors, Interviews | Permalink | Comments (4)

March 1, 2009 2:36 PM

BOOK REVIEW: The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan

Sometimes a book comes along that is so magical, and so effortlessly transports you away from the everyday, that when you turn the last page you somehow feel bereft. This is how I felt about Mari Strachan's debut novel, The Earth Hums in B Flat.

It tells the tale of Gwenni, a twelve year-old Welsh girl growing up in the 1950s.  Gwenni reads voraciously, can fly in her sleep, and sees the Toby jugs in her dining room come alive; "Their fat cheeks turn redder and redder and their eyes grow darker and darker."

None of these traits endear Gwenni to her mother - she's always telling Gwenni not to be silly for fear of people thinking she's odd.  And that's on a good day - on a bad day her mother will scream and cry and tell Gwenni she wishes she'd never been born.

When a local man goes missing, Gwenni follows a series of clues: blood on the kitchen floor, the testimony of the man's children who say a black dog was with him, and the "spirit" she saw floating in the Baptism Pool one night when she was flying above the town.

Armed with the skills she's picked up from her detective books, Gwenni decides to investigate.  But she starts unknowingly to unravel the long-guarded family secrets.  And the truth will change her life forever.

This is a glorious, totally immersive novel, written convincingly from a wide-eyed child's point of view.  Gwenni observes but doesn't understand the subtle shifts that are taking place around her, and draws the sort of conclusions that will feel familiar to anyone who was puzzled by adults' behaviour when they were children.

Altogether it's an absolutely compelling read.  I can't wait for Mari Strachan's next one!

Rating: 5/5

Posted by Robyn Wilder on March 1, 2009 in Brand new authors, British Authors, Debut Novels, Rating: 5/5 | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 22, 2009 4:32 PM

BOOK REVIEW: The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer

I seem to be reviewing a lot of books with ‘being Em...’ in the title.  If there is a book out there called ‘Being Eminem’, feel free to send it to me.  Anyway...

The Importance of Being Emma is the first in Juliet Archer’s “Choc Lit” series, which will bring Austen characters and plotlines and plant them firmly in the 21st century.  Can you guess which one this is based on?

This book casts spoilt rich girl Emma Woodhouse as the eponymous anti-hero, the daughter of a food magnate returned from various adventures (some of which she enjoyed at Harvard Business School) to revitalise her father’s flagging industry with her radical marketing ideas.

The trouble is, her father has also brought in the cut-throat skills of one Mark Knightley, on whom Emma had a teenage crush, and who her father tasks with mentoring his daughter.  Of course, his daughter thinks she can do just fine on her own, thank you, and wishes Mark would treat her less like a clumsy kid sister and more like a... like a... well, she’ll get back to you on that.

The story is told from both Mark and Emma’s point of view, which does a great job of building the tension, but also had me shouting, “come on would you?!” every few pages.  Both characters are painted brilliantly as both proud to the point of arrogance about their own shrewdness, yet blind to what’s in front of them.

And, as soon as they almost get it together, one of them does something to rub the other up the wrong way (and not in the right way, either).  It’s very irritating, but it keeps you turning the pages.

Tangled into the weave of this would-be love affair are some red herrings in the form of Flynn Churchill, who catches Emma’s eye, and Emma’s ditzy PA, victim of Emma’s attempted makeovers and mismatched matchmaking.  Plus some brilliant one-liners from Emma’s increasingly hypochondriac old maid-like father.

This is a good read and a clever reworking of the original (only with more sex), despite the somewhat broad brushstrokes applied to the secondary characters, and the slightly clichéd view of modern gentry sensibilities (it seemed a bit far-fetched that Emma, with all her experience and her Harvard education, would be so flummoxed by her PA’s Estuary vernacular). 

But, as I said, both Mark and Emma are characterised really well, and the plot is cleverly and effectively structured to keep you hooked till the end.

Perfect for a holiday read!

Posted by Robyn Wilder on February 22, 2009 in Books, Brand new authors, British Authors, Classic Novels, Modern Fiction, Rating: 3/5 | Permalink | Comments (4)

September 1, 2008 10:10 AM

BRAND NEW AUTHORS: Deborah Riccio

The first in what will hopefully be a new at least semi-regular feature today: Brand new (unsigned) chick lit authors! Yes, "they" may claim chick lit is "over" (we know they're wrong, don't we?), but there are still plenty of great writers writing plenty of great books and I'd like to introduce some of them to you.

First up is Deborah Riccio. Find out more about her - and read an extract from her novel - over the jump.

Deborah's writing biography:

Short story called ‘Sidney’ printed in local paper in 1980s (yeah, same Sidney as in this book).

Won a crate of Mills & Boon books and pink telephone for running-up in a Mills&Boon/BT scriptwriting competition (gave the books to Geriatric Ward of hospital).

Won a weekend in Paris for winning a Valentines Limerick competition (again local press).

Poem called 'The Things They (Don’t) Tell You’ published in anthology of childbirth called ‘Diapers & Dimples’ (page one!)

Wrote a full length screenplay called ‘Beyond the Perm’ during maternity leave (which BBC rejected and so it went nowhere else) about small-town girl going nowhere who bumps into famous comic actor in disguise who’s come to her town to escape fame and get back to his roots (a few years later ‘Notting Hill’ came out – d’you think there was any connection?!!!)

Currently 20k into 2nd Novel - ‘Life, Lopsided’ - about exploits of mildly OCD character and her family and friends.

Extract from Reconstructing Jennifer:

THE SHAGGING FOREVER THING

I still wasn’t sure exactly how keen Rob had been for us to try for a child but he’d almost leapt with joy when I’d told him it would probably take years of trying before I fell pregnant. It had taken my parents five years to conceive me and I assumed, historically, genetically, that we would probably follow suit. Rob didn’t often grin maniacally but he had then.

‘Excellent!’ he’d announced. ‘Five years of unprotected sex!’ and we’d started almost immediately.

From then on (for me anyway) the act of lovemaking had swung from being an animal act of pure lust into a carefully choreographed production of timing, position and finale. The timing wasn’t too difficult to work out. All I had to do was time the length between each period and then count 12-14 days into the next cycle and there you had it – the perfect three days during which I was at my most fertile – whether I was feeling randy or not! As luck would have had it – Valentines Day fell exactly on the twelfth night (I wonder if that’s what Shakespeare was really referring to?). The position wasn’t too much of a headache either. I liked the Missionary. It made me feel feminine and submissive and - in my fantasies - overpowered. The finale at the end of this dramatic climax was the continuing to lie on the back with hips raised above head height (presumably to give the sperm more of a fighting chance in speeding towards Ovarian City).

And I made quite sure Rob didn’t see me in this post-coital position. He’d either have thought me quite mad or decided I was taking it all a bit too seriously and he seemed to be so looking forward to another four years and eleven months of unprotected sex. I didn’t want to disappoint him. By the time he’d come back from the bathroom all freshly spruced up I figured I’d given Team Sperm all the assistance they needed for this performance.

It had been my Birthday the following week. Rob had given me gifts of love. Little tokens of daftness: a cherry muffin with a candle on top for breakfast; two dozen red roses delivered to my office (one dozen for each Birthday as his wife) and a gorgeous romantic meal in the evening at our favourite Italian restaurant – taxis both ways so we could get pissed and not worry.

You know how sometimes you just 'know' something? Something you can't possibly know really? I guess it's what people call intuition. And it’s a funny thing, isn’t it? The minute Rob entered me that night after the Birthday meal and following the rather sexually-charged taxi ride home (who ever really tires of being felt up in the back of a cab?) I knew. Instinctively. It just felt different. Okay so it was a little more adventurous than we’d been of late, pure lust – forget the choreography for a change, but it just all felt different – ‘down there’.

And I didn’t even expect my period that month.

It would have been like waiting for Concorde to turn up at the bus stop for the 108 to the town centre.

Talk about being in-tune with your body!

This must have been what was meant in all those ‘nurturing nature’ pieces in women’s magazines. I’d never really identified with it before but now – Blimey! Talk about being in…. Sorry I already have.

Was I turning into a Mother Earth? I’d never thought it possible. Truth was I didn’t even know whether I actually liked children. Oh alright then – I didn’t. Like children. They scared me. Not frighteningly so but just the look on their faces was enough to send me into paroxysms of paranoia. They looked like they knew every-bloody-thing and I knew nothing – and they knew I knew they knew! Scared the pants off me. Some still do if truth were told. You know that kid who played Damian in the Omen trilogy? To me – all kids have ‘that look’. That’s the look I’m talking about – you know what I mean. The look that says ‘you’re incredibly stupid and I should know because I know everything’. Oh, and ‘I could kill you with just one thought if I really wanted to’. And if you try anything to shake this paranoia off – like pulling a funny face or simply smiling cheerily to show them that they don’t scare you, half of you just knows that they’re going to give you such a look of disgusted supremacy that you can’t bear to do anything at all. Except maybe whimper silently.

Of course they’re not as scary as Dwarf circus clowns or Punch and Judy shows but then that’s probably just me.

Deciding that Mother Nature - being the amazing creature that she is - would decide on the fate of my… fate…. I let the following few days just ride and didn’t say a thing to anyone. If it was a glitch then so be it – a late period then so be it – a phantom pregnancy because I quite liked the idea of being pregnant now – so be it. It was quite liberating to actually have a secret, especially from Rob. He usually knew everything. I didn’t have to tell him half the time. He said my eyes gave everything away. My mum had always said that too. God, I hadn’t married my mother, had I? All sorts of Oedipus stuff started to swirl about. Hormones. Another sure-fire sign then.

The day I did the urine test I couldn’t stop shaking. I don’t know how I managed to aim my pee at the end of that stupid stick, I really don’t. But I did. Even then I doubted my certainty. It had been a week since the no-show of Concorde at the bus stop so I didn’t really need much more confirmation than that.

A minute is at least an hour and a half on the clock-face of the hopefully expectant mother.

Rob didn’t leap with joy from the bed when I told him that night.

He didn’t even put his book down as a matter of fact.

‘Look!’ I was wafting the stick-thing about gently as if I was conducting an orchestra of whale-song (you never knew, a sharp movement may have dislodged the blue line and made it zigzag or something…)

‘What?’ he’d looked up, a vague air of annoyance about him.

‘I’m pregnant!’

He looked right at me now, touching his glasses in an intelligent fashion. ‘You’re what? You’re pregnant?’

‘We’re pregnant! We’re going to have a baby!’ The book was down now. And the glasses were coming off.

‘How do you know? Are you sure? Have you done one of those test things?’

I wafted in the string section with my blue-tipped baton and watched him swallow unnecessarily and quite hurtfully I thought, hard.

‘Ok then.’ He sat back on the bed looking a little winded. ‘Alright then. When?’ It sounded just like he was asking when tea would be ready. I bit back the urge to say ‘half past three darling – do you want your crusts cut off?’

‘Oh … about November time – sometime between the fourth and the fifteenth– something like that…’

‘November…. Hmmm. Pregnant. Okay then.’ I expected him to ask me to jot it down in his diary so that he wouldn’t double book or something. He returned to his reading.

‘You’re pleased aren’t you?’ Even his clear unexcited-ness hadn’t wiped the smile from my face. ‘You’re going to be a daddy!’

‘November….’ He repeated. ‘Okay.  Good. That means we won’t have to spend Christmas with your parents.’ He returned to his book, pushing the glasses back up his nose.

Not exactly the reaction I’d hoped for. But before any tears had formed or any kind of lump had begun to develop in my throat, I quickly decided that perhaps Rob needed time to digest this news. He’d be different in the morning. He was probably pissed off more than anything – now he’d have to forgo the remaining four years and ten months of unprotected sex. He’d be lucky if he’d get so much as a tongue down the throat for the next eighteen months at least if some of the women’s magazines were anything to go by!

Oh God…. what had I done?

Later, as I lay in the darkness with my palm on my stomach I sent little vibes inside to the growing cells within. ‘It will all be okay,’ I told it. ‘We both want you and you will be the most loved little thing on this earth – you wait and see.’

THE SPILT MILK THING

‘Oh my God!’ My mother’s voice was a shrill as a peacock’s. And I’d never seen her move quite so fast. ‘Look! Thomas! Quick – get the teacloth! Quickly I said!’

Milly’s face was a mixture of bewilderment and entertainment. She’d only ever seen displays of this comic magnitude on the Teletubbies. She watched with interest as her Grandmother tore the cloth from my hastily returning dad’s hands and hurled herself at the spillage on the carpet.

‘It’s ruined!’ She wailed. ‘Ruined! Look at this – it’ll stink to high heaven!’

‘Mum,’ I started – conscious that Milly’s face was now pinking slightly and tears had started to well in her confused blue eyes. ‘It’ll be fine. It’s only milk. Here – use this…’ I offered a baby wipe, which she couldn’t have stared at with more disgust if it had had a swastika printed on it.

‘What is that?’ she screeched.

‘It’s a baby wipe – I tell you what, I swear by them – they get rid of anything off anything and I don’t know what I ever did before I had Milly because they’re a miracle invention…’ I leant over to scoop Milly up and away from the ‘carnage’. ‘They’re great, aren’t they Milly?’ I tickled her gently, not wanting her to become distressed as my mother continued to swoosh and swipe away at the ‘damage’ my little girl had done.

My dad returned to the scene with a bowl full of water and washing up liquid. God, some things never changed did they? That was their answer to everything. They just never moved with the times. They probably didn’t even have a spray gun of Dettox in the house. How archaic could you be?

My mother was still muttering and tutting to herself.

‘How did it happen?’ Dad asked.

‘Just dropped it!’ Mum almost spat, re-enacting Milly’s little slip-up as if it might just secure her a call-back to RADA. ‘Straight on the floor!’

‘Now hang on a minute!’ I started. Acutely aware that Milly was being held accountable for this and she had never in her life been made to feel guilty or responsible or anything bad for any spillage or damage howsoever it had occurred in our house at home – this was not going to start happening now!

‘The bottle slipped off the table’ I helped. ‘Look – it’s a shiny surface, the table must have tilted a bit and the bottle slid off…an accident’

It was one of those ‘TV dinner’ tables that open up like a deckchair in front of your chair. Polished to within an inch of its life (unlike the mantelpiece that held so many photo frames and ornaments I was amazed it didn’t groan with the strain as well as the bad taste and dust) it was no wonder the bottle slid off. Torvill and Dean would have had a hard time standing still on it.

‘It’ll stink!’ My mother continued.

‘Dettox spray.’ I said calmly. ‘That’s all you need. Washing up liquid won’t stop the smell – this is Dettol in a spray – kills bacteria, stops odours, brilliant stuff.’ I was beginning to sound like an advertisement. ‘Have you got some?’

The look on mum and dad’s faces was priceless. It was a look I now remembered from being at home when 'Tomorrow’s World’ had been on the telly. In particular the one about the advent of CDs. They’d been showing their viewers exactly what could be done to a CD and it’s virtual indestructibility (of course we all know now the bloody things jump just as much as vinyl!). But the minute the strawberry jam had been wiped off and the thing had still played perfect music, the look they gave each other was - well, the same as the look they were now passing each other. Sheer disbelief that this kind of thing could actually exist in their lifetime - coupled with the worry that maybe it could also produce some mind-altering waves that would one-day lead to global brain-melt. My Nan had had the same reaction to the Mash advert aliens but that’s another story.

‘I’ll take Milly down the road to get some.’ I said.

-

If you're an agent or publisher and you'd like to snap Debs up, email me at editor [at] trashionista.com and I'll put you in touch.

Posted by Keris on September 1, 2008 in Brand new authors | Permalink | Comments (3)