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FEATURED AUTHOR: SUSIE KELLY
I started writing short stories and poetry sporadically about 10 years ago. After several futile attempts at writing novels, I decided instead to create an adventure and write about it – hence my first book "Best Foot Forward – the Misadventures of a Walking Woman", the account of my solo backpacking trek across France in 1998, now published by GreatUnpublished.
The reason for writing was that my head was always bursting with phrases and ideas, and I was driven to putting them down on paper to make room for the next lot.
I like reading biographies, historical fiction, humour, contemporary literature. Anything by Maeve Binchy, Gerald Durrell, W Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh, Joanna Trollope, Bill Bryson, Thomas Hardy, Louis de Bernieres. Nothing too cerebral, and nothing by Shakespeare.
Very difficult to choose just one favourite author, I really couldn’t say.
My advice to writers starting out is to believe in yourself and your work, keep a diary, and squeeze your thesaurus dry.
The character I would most like to meet, and she features in many books, is Eleanor of Aquitaine, because she lived in one of history’s most turbulent and fascinating eras, was Queen of two countries, mother of two kings, did her own thing, had enormous power which she wielded mercifully, managed to live to the advanced age, in those times, of 82, and spent much of her life in the area I live in and love.
Biography
My home is in an ancient farmhouse, in need of much renovation, in south-west France, which I currently share with four dogs, one old horse, two goats, three cats, two parrots, six hens, two Koi carp and innumerable goldfish.
When the demands of these creatures and the garden allow, I spend most of my time writing. I’m currently working on my second book, an account of the first few years of living in France, assailed by drug addicts, displaced Polish giantesses, exploding cars and cookers, and an endless stream of expatriates who expected me to be permanently and freely available to undertake for them tasks of varying complexity, due to their erroneous belief that I was lonely, bored or in need of something to do.
There are two further books in the pipeline.
The qualities I regard as most important in life are compassion, courage and a sense of humour.