We are proud to announce that Felixstowe Book Festival will be returning in 2014!
The festival will take place on the weekend of 28th & 29th June, with some familiar and many new faces joining us. Watch this space for further information...
Friday 13 September 2013
Friday 14 June 2013
It's almost time....
So, the final preparations are being made... The authors, artists and performers are doing their final run through, so all we have to do is wait for tomorrow!
I hope that all of you enjoy the events this weekend and buy lots of lovely books from the stalls run by WH Smiths (at the Orwell hotel) Write the blurb (at the White Horse) and at Orwell High School, where the Trimley Station Community Trust will be hosting a second hand book sale.
There will be photos and reports appearing on this blog next week for anybody who didn't get to attend, and for those of you who did to re-live the fun.
Thank you in advance to all of the authors appearing, the venues for hosting the events and the volunteers who will be on hand to ensure that the weekend runs smoothly.
Happy festival everybody!
I hope that all of you enjoy the events this weekend and buy lots of lovely books from the stalls run by WH Smiths (at the Orwell hotel) Write the blurb (at the White Horse) and at Orwell High School, where the Trimley Station Community Trust will be hosting a second hand book sale.
There will be photos and reports appearing on this blog next week for anybody who didn't get to attend, and for those of you who did to re-live the fun.
Thank you in advance to all of the authors appearing, the venues for hosting the events and the volunteers who will be on hand to ensure that the weekend runs smoothly.
Happy festival everybody!
Thursday 6 June 2013
Someone for the young adults, Hayley Long!
Felixstowe book festival has something for everyone, including teenagers! On Sunday afternoon, young adult writer Hayley Long will be at the library chatting about books. Here's an interview with her...
Firstly, thanks for taking part in this interview.
Tell us a little bit about
yourself...
I'm small, I've got a big brown freckle
under my left eye and a little black scar on my right thumb
where I once tried to fix a rusty hole in my car door. Oh and I
write books. But I think you knew that.
You've written loads of books
for Young Adults, is it fun writing about/ for teenagers?
Yes. Well, sometimes, certainly.
I've always liked things that are visually nice on the page and
writing for a younger audience leaves me a lot of room to do creative
things with font and design and illustrations that I couldn't
really do so much when I wrote for adults. Sometimes, I use an
illustration to get a message across and sometimes I just switch to
massive
font. Just because I can and because it pleases
me. 
But then again, writing for Young
Adults is just the same as writing anything else. Very
difficult sometimes. So some days it's no fun at all and it
feels like every word is being pulled out of my brain with a pair of
rusty pliers.
Do you ever draw from your own
teenage experiences for your novels?
Yes of course. Although, I
actually wasn't very good at being a teenager. I looked about
ten and found the whole teenage experience quite stressful. But
I remember those feelings and how intense everything seemed and
I'm glad I've now finally found a use for it all.
But it's not just my teenage years which I draw on - I've
plundered my entire life. Especially for locations.
Luckily, after university, I moved around a lot so I've got a lot of
material to use! So far, I've set books in Cardiff and
Northwest London and Felixstowe... and now I'm writing something set
in Brussels where I lived for a while in my mid-20s.
What books did you read as a
teenager?
Everything I could get my hands on. By
the time I was 12 or 13, I was reading meaty stuff like Jane
Eyre and Wuthering Heights but I was
also reading those girly American romances like Sweet Valley
High. I didn't really get much out of those - I
think I was just reading them because all the other girls were.
But then when I was still about 12, I read The Secret Diary
of Adrian Mole and I absolutely loved it! To be
honest, I read pretty much anything! My dad had a copy of The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and a second world
war story called, The wooden house. I
read both of them. And he had a book called Everest,
The Hard Way by a mountaineer called Dougal Haston. I
read that too. And I also read the encyclopedia. I was a
very well read 13 year old!
What advice would you give to a
young person who wants to become a writer?
If you want to write, you will.
Years ago, when I first started teaching English in a secondary
school in London and before I had anything published, I met a writer
who came to work with my class for a day. One of the kids
asked her how she got published and she said, 'It's
practically impossible,' and left it at that.
I've never forgotten that. It wasn't a helpful
answer. It's true that becoming 'a writer' is very very
difficult. But it's not 'practically impossible.'
There's no such thing. Either something IS impossible or it can
be done. And I've done it. So it's possible. So my
advice is to never give up.
You grew up in Felixstowe, tell
us your favourite things about Felixstowe for anybody who's never
visited before.
Well, let me see. It's nice
living by the sea. If you grow up by the sea, I think you
always miss it a bit if you live inland. Especially in the
summer. It can feel very claustrophobic on sunny days without
that massive great hole of open space and fresh air. What
else? I've got a weakness for those 2p coin drop machines -
there are a lot of them in Felixstowe. And Felixstowe also has
two of the very best secondhand book shops I've ever seen ANYWHERE.
If you like poking around in old book shops, it's worth visiting for
those alone.
Finally, are you a little bit
scared that any of your old teachers are going to turn up to your
event and embarrass you by sharing tales of your school days?
Ha. No, not at all! To be
honest, I'd be amazed if any of them even remembered me.
I really wasn't very memorable. Actually, it would be a good
opportunity to say thank you. When I left school aged 18, I'm
afraid to say that it never entered my head to say thank you to my
teachers. I totally took their efforts for granted. Now
that I'm older and full of much wisdomness, I realise that my state
education served me well. I really have a lot to say thank you
to those teachers for.
Hayley will appear at Felixstowe Library at 3pm on Sunday 16th June.
Friday 31 May 2013
Introducing Will Stone, poet
Will Stone is a Suffolk based poet and essayist who will be
reading his work at Felixstowe Library on Saturday 15th June. Will
has kindly answered some questions for the blog.
Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed for the blog.
First off, tell us a bit about yourself...
I am a poet and literary translator based in Suffolk, though I spend time abroad, usually in Belgium and France, because I translate poets and writers from those countries as well as to a lesser extent Germany and Austria. I also write essays, as I find this is the literary medium which best suits my work.
I am currently writing a series of essays about Belgium called ‘The Undisclosed Anatomy of Belgium’, in which I am seeking via a sort of travelogue / psycho geographic exploration, to reveal and unearth aspects of Belgian culture which are overlooked here in the UK. I feel Belgium is a blind spot, a black hole in our cultural awareness, but it was once and still is in some respects the crossroads of Europe culturally speaking, with German, French and Dutch influences. I publish essays with a number of journals and I also write reviews, mostly for the TLS but also the London Magazine and other publications. I am also a photographer and I tend to include my own b/w images in my books wherever possible and also for the covers. Both my Salt books and those with Hesperus Press all bear my own work.
You are the only poet appearing at the Felixstowe Book Festival this year, do you feel any pressure as the sole representative of poetry over the weekend?
Not really, I see all literary activity as of equal merit if it is good and no discipline has supremacy over another. I don’t subscribe to the elitism of poetry per se as the fabled ‘source’ of literature, or say novels over short stories and essays, everything is much more variegated now and chaotically diverse.
You can experience more poetry listening to the acerbic delivery of a mournfully inspired presenter such as Charlie Brooker, or listening to certain lyrics in music than reading many of the poems regularly published today, many of which are not poems at all but merely changelings, that look like poems but actually on closer inspection are found to not be the real thing
I have always admired the poet writer or the poet painter over just the painter or the writer, someone like the currently posthumously idolized WG Sebald for example, is essentially a poet writing prose, as was Robert Walser whom he admired, as was Thomas Bernhard whom he also admired. These men were writing prose and pushing its limits, because they could express themselves more completely in it than in the medium of poetry, which had been their starting point. They had quickly exhausted poetry as a channel.
Having now removed the splinters from my flesh caused by the sudden
collapse of my soapbox, I must confess I have a responsibility of a kind I must confess I have a responsibility of a kind as the sole flag bearer for poetry at Felixstowe’s important opening festival and I hope that I can acquit myself well and that my work is appreciated by whoever has the resolve to attend my reading.
You've appeared at numerous literature festivals previously, what do you enjoy most about reading your poetry in public?
Not all poets like to read their poems, and like drivers there are those who are naturals and take to the road without thinking, as if the car were an extension of their body, and those who drive but don’t really enjoy it and remain a nervous passenger despite being at the wheel.
I do enjoy the chance to read, since it’s like revisiting your poems through a back door, taking the tradesman’s entrance and thereby surprising them. You come upon them anew when you hear your own voice reading them, and they tend to breathe in a way they do not when you write them originally and they are set heavily on the page connecting with eyes only.
Reading is an art and takes practice but also sensitivity, and a certain timing. It can be very satisfying to feel an audience waiting on your next line, or even applauding after a poem, but an unknown audience is like a wayward fish which must be landed, you have to judge the tautness of the line so it does not break…every audience is different and the place you are in makes an enormous difference too, as does the way you are introduced.
A reading is above all a performance but however good the performance, it is in the end the content that matters. No amount of peripheral tinkering can hide the fact that the poetry itself must stand up.
What inspires you to write poetry?
I cannot really adequately answer this question, its like asking, what inspires you to breathe…or what inspires you to put the empty milk bottles out. It is something that has to be done, there is no conscious decision to pick up a pen and a notebook.
There is a certain tension which happens to afflict the mind and the logical alleviating mechanism is to express through words a fragmented image of this inwardness in an attempt to make it more bearable, the existential motor if you like is forever functioning in the poet, always threatening to overheat, while in most people it is simply shut off through a system of diversion so they can get on with their lives. They have it rather easier I would say, but people always imagine poets are exotic mysterious creatures whose lives are exciting and unconventional when in fact they are often alienated, depressed and suffering greatly, because they simply have a skin too few…and cannot protect themselves from their own lethal idealism. One thinks of one of our greatest modern poets who was in fact a songwriter and musician, Nick Drake, in this respect, a textbook case.
As a (sometime) Suffolk based poet, what do you think that this new literature festival can bring to Felixstowe and Suffolk?
I was really pleased when I heard about this literary festival starting in Felixstowe, as I am fond of this town which I visit regularly, and which I think is a very underrated place with an authenticity and ambiance of a certain Englishness more common to a past era. Felixstowe now appeals to me more than the other more well known heavily visited towns along the coast further north such as Southwold and Aldeburgh in the area where I live, which have become gentrified seaside retreats shorn of atmosphere, especially Southold, which has recently lost all its bookshops and in the last two years been invaded by chain retailers and up market London clothes boutiques.
Felixstowe on the other hand still has two of the best second hand bookshops in the east of England. The cultural health of a town used to be delineated by its bookshops.
I think the festival will draw in some people to Felixstowe who may be surprised, and will be good for the town to have some sort of writerly infusion for a couple of days. However my great fear is that once the wave of gentrification has sated itself on other more obvious places it may turn its sights on this unexploited town. The last thing the nicely mixed population of Felixstowe needs is an influx of four by fours and Mercedes estates. For then it will just end up like everywhere else, a façade equating to suburban expectations but with nothing behind it…looking the part but mourning its squandered soul. But the festival can only enhance the life of the town and serve to sweep out any remaining dusty corners for a few days…
Please could you share your favorite poem (of your own) to feature on the blog?
I don’t have a favourite poem, but here is a small airborne one people seem to favour…and another with a Suffolk bias.
STRAGGLERS
The sunflowers still face east in death.
No-one has told them
their bleached fronds are hanging broken.
Perhaps a bird’s weight will help draw them
gradually to the ground.
No-one shall come and admire them,
or spontaneously decide to steal them,
rushing back to the car with their looted flame.
Only a few drab pheasant hens and partridges
bark feebly around their husks.
The whole field has discovered perfection
in giving up.
All will fall by December, scythed by frost.
Massed grey limbs will litter the patch,
empty seed heads upturned who stare
at that milky socket where a beleaguered sun
fumes uselessly in the traps.
Even as they go down and before the final
humiliation of the plough,
a few last seeds might creep away,
heroic stragglers who somehow brave
the ebony machinery of rooks.
THE SWIFTS
Powered by screams
and the black bat twist of their wings,
they slice through the insect cloud.
Heavenly dogfight, no quarter given,
the plunder ravished unseen.
Round they come again,
cyclists on a bend
clinging to their manic carousel.
The air cannot hold them.
The sun slips from their sleek
gunmetal backs.
They are gods.
Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed for the blog.
First off, tell us a bit about yourself...
I am a poet and literary translator based in Suffolk, though I spend time abroad, usually in Belgium and France, because I translate poets and writers from those countries as well as to a lesser extent Germany and Austria. I also write essays, as I find this is the literary medium which best suits my work.
I am currently writing a series of essays about Belgium called ‘The Undisclosed Anatomy of Belgium’, in which I am seeking via a sort of travelogue / psycho geographic exploration, to reveal and unearth aspects of Belgian culture which are overlooked here in the UK. I feel Belgium is a blind spot, a black hole in our cultural awareness, but it was once and still is in some respects the crossroads of Europe culturally speaking, with German, French and Dutch influences. I publish essays with a number of journals and I also write reviews, mostly for the TLS but also the London Magazine and other publications. I am also a photographer and I tend to include my own b/w images in my books wherever possible and also for the covers. Both my Salt books and those with Hesperus Press all bear my own work.
You are the only poet appearing at the Felixstowe Book Festival this year, do you feel any pressure as the sole representative of poetry over the weekend?
Not really, I see all literary activity as of equal merit if it is good and no discipline has supremacy over another. I don’t subscribe to the elitism of poetry per se as the fabled ‘source’ of literature, or say novels over short stories and essays, everything is much more variegated now and chaotically diverse.
You can experience more poetry listening to the acerbic delivery of a mournfully inspired presenter such as Charlie Brooker, or listening to certain lyrics in music than reading many of the poems regularly published today, many of which are not poems at all but merely changelings, that look like poems but actually on closer inspection are found to not be the real thing
I have always admired the poet writer or the poet painter over just the painter or the writer, someone like the currently posthumously idolized WG Sebald for example, is essentially a poet writing prose, as was Robert Walser whom he admired, as was Thomas Bernhard whom he also admired. These men were writing prose and pushing its limits, because they could express themselves more completely in it than in the medium of poetry, which had been their starting point. They had quickly exhausted poetry as a channel.
Having now removed the splinters from my flesh caused by the sudden
collapse of my soapbox, I must confess I have a responsibility of a kind I must confess I have a responsibility of a kind as the sole flag bearer for poetry at Felixstowe’s important opening festival and I hope that I can acquit myself well and that my work is appreciated by whoever has the resolve to attend my reading.
You've appeared at numerous literature festivals previously, what do you enjoy most about reading your poetry in public?
Not all poets like to read their poems, and like drivers there are those who are naturals and take to the road without thinking, as if the car were an extension of their body, and those who drive but don’t really enjoy it and remain a nervous passenger despite being at the wheel.
I do enjoy the chance to read, since it’s like revisiting your poems through a back door, taking the tradesman’s entrance and thereby surprising them. You come upon them anew when you hear your own voice reading them, and they tend to breathe in a way they do not when you write them originally and they are set heavily on the page connecting with eyes only.
Reading is an art and takes practice but also sensitivity, and a certain timing. It can be very satisfying to feel an audience waiting on your next line, or even applauding after a poem, but an unknown audience is like a wayward fish which must be landed, you have to judge the tautness of the line so it does not break…every audience is different and the place you are in makes an enormous difference too, as does the way you are introduced.
A reading is above all a performance but however good the performance, it is in the end the content that matters. No amount of peripheral tinkering can hide the fact that the poetry itself must stand up.
What inspires you to write poetry?
I cannot really adequately answer this question, its like asking, what inspires you to breathe…or what inspires you to put the empty milk bottles out. It is something that has to be done, there is no conscious decision to pick up a pen and a notebook.
There is a certain tension which happens to afflict the mind and the logical alleviating mechanism is to express through words a fragmented image of this inwardness in an attempt to make it more bearable, the existential motor if you like is forever functioning in the poet, always threatening to overheat, while in most people it is simply shut off through a system of diversion so they can get on with their lives. They have it rather easier I would say, but people always imagine poets are exotic mysterious creatures whose lives are exciting and unconventional when in fact they are often alienated, depressed and suffering greatly, because they simply have a skin too few…and cannot protect themselves from their own lethal idealism. One thinks of one of our greatest modern poets who was in fact a songwriter and musician, Nick Drake, in this respect, a textbook case.
As a (sometime) Suffolk based poet, what do you think that this new literature festival can bring to Felixstowe and Suffolk?
I was really pleased when I heard about this literary festival starting in Felixstowe, as I am fond of this town which I visit regularly, and which I think is a very underrated place with an authenticity and ambiance of a certain Englishness more common to a past era. Felixstowe now appeals to me more than the other more well known heavily visited towns along the coast further north such as Southwold and Aldeburgh in the area where I live, which have become gentrified seaside retreats shorn of atmosphere, especially Southold, which has recently lost all its bookshops and in the last two years been invaded by chain retailers and up market London clothes boutiques.
Felixstowe on the other hand still has two of the best second hand bookshops in the east of England. The cultural health of a town used to be delineated by its bookshops.
I think the festival will draw in some people to Felixstowe who may be surprised, and will be good for the town to have some sort of writerly infusion for a couple of days. However my great fear is that once the wave of gentrification has sated itself on other more obvious places it may turn its sights on this unexploited town. The last thing the nicely mixed population of Felixstowe needs is an influx of four by fours and Mercedes estates. For then it will just end up like everywhere else, a façade equating to suburban expectations but with nothing behind it…looking the part but mourning its squandered soul. But the festival can only enhance the life of the town and serve to sweep out any remaining dusty corners for a few days…
Please could you share your favorite poem (of your own) to feature on the blog?
I don’t have a favourite poem, but here is a small airborne one people seem to favour…and another with a Suffolk bias.
STRAGGLERS
The sunflowers still face east in death.
No-one has told them
their bleached fronds are hanging broken.
Perhaps a bird’s weight will help draw them
gradually to the ground.
No-one shall come and admire them,
or spontaneously decide to steal them,
rushing back to the car with their looted flame.
Only a few drab pheasant hens and partridges
bark feebly around their husks.
The whole field has discovered perfection
in giving up.
All will fall by December, scythed by frost.
Massed grey limbs will litter the patch,
empty seed heads upturned who stare
at that milky socket where a beleaguered sun
fumes uselessly in the traps.
Even as they go down and before the final
humiliation of the plough,
a few last seeds might creep away,
heroic stragglers who somehow brave
the ebony machinery of rooks.
THE SWIFTS
Powered by screams
and the black bat twist of their wings,
they slice through the insect cloud.
Heavenly dogfight, no quarter given,
the plunder ravished unseen.
Round they come again,
cyclists on a bend
clinging to their manic carousel.
The air cannot hold them.
The sun slips from their sleek
gunmetal backs.
They are gods.
Will Stone will appear on Saturday 15th June at Felixstowe library between 2.45 - 3.30pm.
Tickets cost £3 and can be purchased online here
Tuesday 28 May 2013
Events by genre
Several people have said that with so many events it hard to chose
between them. Meg has produced this handy list so that you can decide
on the best events for you:
Non fiction
Guy Fraser Sampson - Sat 15th 1.30 The Mess We're In-a look at our financial crisis
Helen Rappaport Sun 16th 11.30 - The murder of Russia's last imperial family and the resurgence of Russian Orthodoxy in the present day
Thomas De Wesselow Sun 16th. 3.30 The Turin Shroud-truth or fiction?
The Changing Face of Childhood 5pm Sun 16th
Dementia and Mum Michael Fassio 4pm Sat 15th
A Sense of Place-Our festival theme
Boris Starling 9.30 Sat 15th- our opening event!
Rosy Thornton- Writer's workshop on settings in novels and short stories Sun 9.30 am
Rosy and Linda Gillard on the subject 12 noon Sun 16th at the White Horse Barn
Short stories and Poetry
Will Stone 2.45 Sat 15th Library reading from his collections including poems from his new collection to be published early next year.
John Saul 7pn Sat 15th
Bedtime story for grown ups- our closing event - 8pm Sun eve
East Anglian murders
Mark Mower Murder in Suffolk 12 noon Sat 15th
Jim Kelly "Murder in East Anglia" 3pm Sun 16th
Food connections
2 Vintage tea party sittings
Supper with Barbara Erskine Sat eve
Breakfast with Stephen May on Sun morning
Fantastic food for a fitter future- cookery demo 2.30 Sun
Bedtime story for grown ups- with hot chocolate and biscuits Sun eve
Writing related
Julie Hearn 10 am Sat
4 writing workshops
A writer's life 3.30 Sat
Blooging and Books 3pm Sat
Jake Wallis Simons- How to Look for the Story in everyday Life 11.30 Sat
Set in or soon after 2nd world war
Jake Wallis Simons The English German Girl 3pm Sat
Sara Sheridan's 2 vintage tea parties- based on Brighton Belle and London Calling set in post war Brighton and London
Love Loss and Parachute Silk - Liz Trenow 4.30 Sun 16th
Set in the period between the wars
Nicola Upson 1930's England novels featuring real life author Josephine Tey (and Hitchcock in the latest)
Guy Fraser Sampson who has continued writing the Mapp and Lucia books
Free events ( but get your ticket online or at Abbeygate lighting)
Journalling workshop for adults Sun 10-12 at Write the Blurb
John Saul 7pm
Fantastic food demo Sun 2.30
Dementia and Mum Sat 4pm
People I haven't fitted in above!
Barbara Nadel- 2 events 11 am Sat ( Cetin Ikman and Agatha Christie and 1.30 Sun talking about her new crime seriesset in East London and perceptions of East End crime and current reality.
Deadlier than the Male- 2pm Sun 16th - panel on why murder is so satisfying to women writers and readers.
Children's events are listed in the programme and on the website.
You also have Alison Stockmarr's art on dislpay at the library and the White Horse
and if you are feeling creative check out Alison's " Make a Home for your Book which has been listed under children's events but is open to adults with or without children and will be relaxing and fun. Alison will make you very welcome!
Non fiction
Guy Fraser Sampson - Sat 15th 1.30 The Mess We're In-a look at our financial crisis
Helen Rappaport Sun 16th 11.30 - The murder of Russia's last imperial family and the resurgence of Russian Orthodoxy in the present day
Thomas De Wesselow Sun 16th. 3.30 The Turin Shroud-truth or fiction?
The Changing Face of Childhood 5pm Sun 16th
Dementia and Mum Michael Fassio 4pm Sat 15th
A Sense of Place-Our festival theme
Boris Starling 9.30 Sat 15th- our opening event!
Rosy Thornton- Writer's workshop on settings in novels and short stories Sun 9.30 am
Rosy and Linda Gillard on the subject 12 noon Sun 16th at the White Horse Barn
Short stories and Poetry
Will Stone 2.45 Sat 15th Library reading from his collections including poems from his new collection to be published early next year.
John Saul 7pn Sat 15th
Bedtime story for grown ups- our closing event - 8pm Sun eve
East Anglian murders
Mark Mower Murder in Suffolk 12 noon Sat 15th
Jim Kelly "Murder in East Anglia" 3pm Sun 16th
Food connections
2 Vintage tea party sittings
Supper with Barbara Erskine Sat eve
Breakfast with Stephen May on Sun morning
Fantastic food for a fitter future- cookery demo 2.30 Sun
Bedtime story for grown ups- with hot chocolate and biscuits Sun eve
Writing related
Julie Hearn 10 am Sat
4 writing workshops
A writer's life 3.30 Sat
Blooging and Books 3pm Sat
Jake Wallis Simons- How to Look for the Story in everyday Life 11.30 Sat
Set in or soon after 2nd world war
Jake Wallis Simons The English German Girl 3pm Sat
Sara Sheridan's 2 vintage tea parties- based on Brighton Belle and London Calling set in post war Brighton and London
Love Loss and Parachute Silk - Liz Trenow 4.30 Sun 16th
Set in the period between the wars
Nicola Upson 1930's England novels featuring real life author Josephine Tey (and Hitchcock in the latest)
Guy Fraser Sampson who has continued writing the Mapp and Lucia books
Free events ( but get your ticket online or at Abbeygate lighting)
Journalling workshop for adults Sun 10-12 at Write the Blurb
John Saul 7pm
Fantastic food demo Sun 2.30
Dementia and Mum Sat 4pm
People I haven't fitted in above!
Barbara Nadel- 2 events 11 am Sat ( Cetin Ikman and Agatha Christie and 1.30 Sun talking about her new crime seriesset in East London and perceptions of East End crime and current reality.
Deadlier than the Male- 2pm Sun 16th - panel on why murder is so satisfying to women writers and readers.
Children's events are listed in the programme and on the website.
You also have Alison Stockmarr's art on dislpay at the library and the White Horse
and if you are feeling creative check out Alison's " Make a Home for your Book which has been listed under children's events but is open to adults with or without children and will be relaxing and fun. Alison will make you very welcome!
Friday 24 May 2013
In the news (again!)
As mentioned earlier on the blog, we were featured in the East Anglian Daily Times & Evening star this week. Follow this link and you will see the article featuring a lovely snap of yesterday's interviewee, Ruth Dudgall.
We're also featured in this months 'Suffolk' magazine which will appear in shops today.
Happy Reading!
We're also featured in this months 'Suffolk' magazine which will appear in shops today.
Happy Reading!
Thursday 23 May 2013
Felixstowe's Queen of Crime, Ruth Dugdall
Ruth
Dugdall is a local crime writer and will be appearing at the
Felixstowe Book Festival on Sunday 16th
June.
Thanks
for agreeing to take part in this interview.
Firstly,
please could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m
Ruth Dugdall, a Felixstowe based crime novelist. I have three
published novels, all of them set in Suffolk. 'The James Version' is
a historical fiction based on the murder of Maria Marten in the Red
Barn, Polstead.
'The
woman before me' and 'The sacrificial man' are modern psychological
thrillers, and the central character is a probation officer, drawing
on my own previous career.
As
I have spent most of my working life with criminals,
it is natural that my novels are `crime`
though I am far more interested in motivation and the psychology of
crime than simply uncovering `who dunnit`. This is why all of my
novels start after the crime has been committed and the criminal
caught; they are concerned with why the crime happened and the
frailty of humanity.
Have
you ever feel that your subject is too dark or worrying to write
about?
I
am drawn to the darker side of humanity, and always have been.
Several
years ago I came across the story of Armin Meiwes, a German who had
advertised on the Internet for a willing victim whom he could kill.
This story fascinated me, and I wanted to know more about why Meiwes
had placed such an advert but also about the `willing victim`, Bend
Jurgen Brundes.
My
research led me to other cases where people have met on the Internet
and then chosen to die together, in suicide pacts.
Why
would someone choose to die with a practical stranger?
The
Sacrificial Man is about a man named Smith who advertises on the
Internet for a woman to help him to die. It is also about Alice, who
responds to the advert and assists Smith.
My
work as a probation officer taught me that every action, even the
most heinous or bizarre, has a story behind it which can place the
act in some sort of context.
I
decided to write a novel that could explore some of the questions
cases like Meiwes and other Internet suicide pacts can raise.
I
think that answers your question about `is there any subject that
would be too dark for me to write about`. The answer is no.
How
did you go from being a Probation Officer to being a published
author?
It
took me a long time to find a publisher, and it came about because I
entered a competition.
The
Woman Before Me won the 'Debut Dagger' in 2005, which was a watershed
moment for me. Until then I’d thought of writing as a hobby – I’d
self-published my first novel (The James Version) but was still
working as a Probation Officer. The Dagger gave me the confidence to
resign and dedicate myself to writing full-time.
The
day after the Dagger awards I signed with a top agent and the novel
was going to be submitted to six major publishing houses. I thought I
had made it…
But
that would have been just too easy. 'The Woman Before Me' didn’t
get picked up by the major publishers. They worried that it was “not
commercial enough”, and that it didn’t fit neatly enough into the
“crime novel” box. It went into the bottom drawer and I started
to write my third novel, 'The Sacrificial Man'. I have to tell you,
this was all pretty soul-destroying and I was really beginning to
wonder if I was just kidding myself and I should just go back to
work.
Then,
in the summer of 2009, I saw the Luke Bitmead bursary advertised in
Writer’s News. It seemed perfect for 'The Woman Before Me'. The
bursary aims to promote and publish a new writer each year, and was
set up in memory of Luke Bitmead, a talented writer who sadly
committed suicide.
When
I won the award in October 2009 I cried through much of the ceremony,
knowing that I would finally see my novel in print. So, after waiting
nearly five years, I finally achieved my goal!
As
a Felixstowe based writer, you must have been very excited to hear
about the first Felixstowe Book Festival taking place! What impact do
you think that the book festival will have on the town?
I
am hugely excited about the Book Festival! I think Felixstowe has
something of an image problem, and it wouldn’t be the obvious place
for a Literary Festival, but it’s time the town stepped into the
light. There are many people who love books here, and I’ve been
both surprised and thrilled at the turnout to the author events held
by the local library.
When
Meg (the festival) organiser first told me her plan I thought it was
ambitious, and when I look at the programme I see that her ambition
has been realised. Such a rich feast of events, with something for
everyone. I applaud her tenacity and vision and strongly home that
Felixstowe folk get behind this event so it can become a yearly one
in the town. The success of Art on the Prom shows what we can
achieve, so come on people, buy a ticket and get blown away by
everything the festival weekend has to offer!
Has
Felixstowe made many appearances in your writing?
'The
Woman Before Me' is set in Felixstowe, with many recognisable places
described – including the Palace Cinema, and The Grosvenor, haunts
of mine. Also, Rose gets a job in a local hotel. Did I mention that
my parents own a guesthouse in the town…?
To
say my work draws on what I know is an understatement. Probably more
accurate is that it reveals a part of my soul.
Many
of the authors have never been to Felixstowe before, could you
recommend a few things to do or places to visit while they're in
town?
We
have a great beach – much better than other Suffolk coastal towns!
You can actually swim and build sandcastles. We even have donkeys. The
Spa Gardens are lovely, and nearby is the brand new Fludyer ArmsHotel, where you could sit and enjoy the view from the terrace.
Visitors
will be very much involved with all of the events, but if there is
time to take a walk to the Ferry, running alongside the Links golfcourse and passing the Martello Towers. The café down there does a
mean breakfast and if you’re lucky, you may spot a seal.
Ruth
will be appearing on the 'Deadlier than the male', panel which features herself, Sophie Hannah and Michelle Spring discussing women and crime
writing. The event will take place at The Orwell hotel on Sunday 16th
June between 2 – 3pm.
Tickets
can be purchased here.
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