Introducing Helen Rappaport

Helen Rappaport, author, historian and former actress, will be discussing her novel 'Ekaterinburg', at the book festival on Sunday 16th June. 

'Ekaterinburg' tells the story of the final days of the Romanovs, the last Imperial family to rule over Russia.

Helen kindly agreed to be interviewed for the blog.

Thank you ever so much for agreeing to be interviewed.

You've written a number of books about Russian history, tell us a little bit about yourself and where your interest in Russia came from.

I came to writing quite late and by a rather long and circuitous route, but thankfully this is one profession where you can begin at any age.  My interest in Russian goes back to my teens when I first read the short stories of Anton Chekhov and fell in love with all things Russian. I remember struggling with Dr Zhivago at the age of 15, and with it the enigma that was Russia – I was hooked and have remained so ever since. I read Russian Special Studies at Leeds University, but during my time there became heavily involved in student theatre. An on-off career in acting followed, during which I also  worked as a literal translator of Russian plays for the theatre, as well as taking on small writing commissions for historical reference books.  Later, I took up copy editing and proof reading and after I moved to Oxfordshire I became an academic editor for Blackwell and OUP before finally moving into full time writing.

Your talk will be around the 1918 murder of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and his four daughters, and your next work will be about the four girls in particular, is this a favourite period of history for you and what makes it so intriguing to you and so many historians?

I was relatively late coming to the Romanovs, at my agent's suggestion. They are indeed a fascinating and tragic family – there are so many what ifs in the story that it is of course a minefield for conspiracy theorists.  I have never believed that anyone escaped the bloodbath in Ekaterinburg but the rumours still persist, making the story endlessly intriguing.
My preferred historical period is from the reign on Queen Victoria, 1837, to the end of the Russian Civil War in 1920. I find late imperial Russia particularly interesting though my interest originally was in the revolutionary movement.

This year’s festival is ‘a sense of place’, is there anything or anywhere in particular you’ve visited in Russia which feels unmistakably 'Russian', and if so, why? 

All of Russia used to be unmistakably Russian from the minute you stepped off the plane, but now, sadly the big cities are becoming very westernised and commercial and I absolutely hate that. I sigh when walking down the Nevsky Prospekt and seeing Next and Gap and all the British and US stores. I want Russia to stay Russian – and it is, quintessentially so, once you go out of the cities.
St Petersburg, for all the westernisation, still has a magical quality all its own. I adore it – it's my favourite city in the world. I have loved everywhere I have been in Russia – it has such a powerful spirit of place that it sucks you in and you are beguiled by it. I always feel very spiritually at home there.

You were an actress before becoming a full time writer, what made you change career?

Being broke, unemployed and depressed. It's a horrible profession for women as they get older, so cruel and unforgiving, and so much rejection unless you are at the top of the tree. The insecurity was terrible, although having had a period of reasonable financial security as a freelance editor I then took on another insecure life – that of the writer. And it is a very solitary life too, for much of the time.

How did you get involved with the Felixstowe book festival?

Book blogger Elaine Simpson-Long, who is friends with the organizers, asked me if I would give it my support in this, its inaugural year, and I was only too happy to do so as I am a champion of the smaller, more intimate literary festivals.

Aside from appearing at the festival, what are you looking forward to seeing and doing in Felixstowe when you’re here?  

I don't know the area at all, so I look forward to discovering it!

Helen Rappaport will be speaking at The Orwell hotel at 11.30 on Sunday 16th June.

Tickets cost £5. Click here to book your tickets.

Barbara Erskine event (very nearly) SOLD OUT

We're happy to announce that supper with Barbara Erskine on June 15th is nearly Sold Out!

Other events are filling up too, so head over to our booking page to buy your tickets before they disappear. Click here to be redirected to the ticket sales page 

If you would like to buy your tickets in person you can do so at the 'Abbeygate lighting' shop in the center of Felixstowe town (opposite the triangle near Tesco).  

Tickets for the children's events can also be purchased from Felixstowe library.

News flash! Writing Competition, Programmes, Sara Sheridan

Good afternoon all,

We have a few exciting bits of news to share with you today...

Writing competition

We are now able to offer a £50 cash prize to the competition winner, AND they will have their entry featured in 'Suffolk' magazine. Pop over to the competition page for further details.

Programme

The festival programmes have arrived and Meg and our kind volunteers have been distributing them around over Suffolk this week.

Here's a snap of the front cover:

(It's a bit small as it was taken on a phone, but it still looks pretty doesn't it?) 

The posters are on their way and should be popping up in Felixstowe town and around in the near future.

Sara Sheridan

And finally, our lovely author Sara Sheridan is featured in the Huffington Post today. You can read the feature here .

Sara will be hosting a vintage tea party and discussing her novel 'Brighton Belle' at 'Delicious Nutricious' in Felixstowe on Saturday 15th June at 3pm & 5pm. That's a lot of cake eating!

Book your tickets here 

Meet Guy Fraser Sampson

Guy Fraser Sampson is a London based an author and lecturer, and has published work on so many different subjects that he will be appearing twice during the Book Festival.

Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions for the Felixstowe Book Festival.

First off, please could you introduce yourself to the audience in your own words…

I sometimes think that I am several different people inhabiting the same body. I am a writer, novelist, lecturer, public speaker, investment manager. I have also been a commercial lawyer and an investment banker. I am a Londoner born and bred, though I have also lived in other parts of the world such as Abu Dhabi and Paris, as well as spending a lot of time in San Francisco. For other Londoners out there, I live in Belsize Park and my nearest tube station is Swiss Cottage. I teach at Cass Business School in the City of London but am also Chief Investment Officer with a family office in Mayfair. I have two grown-up sons, one of whom recently did a tour in Afghanistan as a platoon commander with the Welsh Guards.

How do you find time for all of your work from economics to lecturing, history, novel and detective fiction writing? What do you do to relax?

I think it helps that I am a chronic insomniac, which explains why much of my email correspondence is timed at about 0400 local time. Seriously, though, it's actually a very boring matter of planning one's time in advance and then being very disciplined about working to deadlines. Like most writers, I read a huge amount, helped by the fact that I do not have television. I also enjoy listening to music. There comes a time in every man's life when he buys a Mercedes. I haven't got there yet, but I do find myself listening increasingly to Schubert lieder and string quartets, which is probably the musical equivalent. I also retain an enormous enthusiasm for Wagner, if only to annoy the hell out of the neighbours.

The first event you do will be about the sequels you wrote to the ‘Mapp and Lucia’ books written by EF Benson in the 1920’s.
Where did you get the idea of writing these titles?

I have always been a huge fan of the originals, which I discovered when Radio 4 did "Queen Lucia" as a Book at Bedtime when I was ten. As I grew up in a house without television I haunted the local library and soon found and went through the lot. I later discovered, albeit by accident, Tom Holt's books which are of course excellent. Incidentally, Tom has been hugely supportive of my own efforts and I would like to thank him publicly for that, as well as Gyles Brandreth and Alexander McCall-Smith.

It was always my dream to continue the series, but I was realistic enough to know that it would be very difficult to find anyone willing to publish them, even after the television series. The names of all the publishers and agents who rejected "Major Benjy" would make a very long list (almost as long as those who have rejected my narrative history of the Plantagenets!). Again, I would like to thank first Jeremy Thompson at Troubador and later Lorne Forsythe and Olivia Bayes at Elliott & Thompson for having the vision and the courage to support me in my endeavours.

Your second talk will be around your recent book ‘The mess we’re in: why politicians can’t get us out of this mess’. Tell us a bit about this book and what the audience can expect from your talk.

Everyone knows instinctively that things are falling apart around us, no matter how vehemently politicians may deny this, but do not really understand how or why. "The Mess We're In" aims at two objectives. First, to offer an alternative, non-etsablishment view of what has gone wrong. Second, to make this both intelligible and interesting for the general reader. Gratifyingly, the unsolicited feedback which I have received suggests that hopefully I have succeeded. I think it will resonate particularly with those "of a certain age" (45+) who are starting to realise with horror that the whole concept of a financially comfortable retirement can be consigned to the rubbish bin.

How different is writing fiction and detective fiction to writing about the economy and politics?

Very different, which helps actually, as I usually have at least two books on the go at any one time. I find it relatively easy to switch from fiction to non-fiction, even within the course of the same day.

Non-fiction is actually easier in the sense that you should know what is going into each chapter before you write it, which also means that you do not have to start at the beginning and work your way through if you don't want to, but can build the book up in modular fashion. Of course, there is the question of all the research which has to come first, but I do think that the actual writing process is much easier, at least for me (all writers are different).

With fiction you have a rough idea of how you want the plot to work out but really no more than that. For me it works best when the characters take over inside your head and start almost writing the book themselves. This can take you to some very surprising places but is enormous fun. With "Major Benjy" I started with the first scene but nothing else, and the story (and the ending) changed at least twice as I was writing it. With "Lucia on Holiday" I really had nothing more than the idea of moving the characters away from Tilling, and the location was inspired by a real life hotel in which I was lucky enough to stay. Again, various plot elements changed or vanished altogether. With "Au Reservoir", my current venture, I have the ending and an idea for the beginning, but nothing in the middle.

You write detective fiction under a pseudonym, why do you keep this identity a secret? Can we have a clue?

I now realise that writing in lots of different genres confuses people, many of whom want to put things and individuals into nice neat pigeon holes. For example, I write about history, economic history, hard core finance (for professionals), soft core finance (for the general reader), and cricket. I also write the Mapp and Lucia books, and have recently published a book on cricket ("Cricket at the Crossroads") albeit this is about class and colour prejudice as much as it is about cricket. Detective fiction would almost certainly be at least one genre too far! In fact, in hindsight I wish I had written the Mapp and Lucia books under a pseudonym - perhaps Rudolf da Vinci ...?
The detective book is not yet finished, but will be published by Elliott & Thompson in 2014. It is intended to be the first of a series based in and around Hampstead - (so that's your clue!).

What attracted you to the Felixstowe book festival?

I was introduced to Meg by my good friend Elaine of Random Jottings fame. She knew that I had spoken at quite a few festivals. I was really attracted by the idea of being part of getting something new off the ground.

What are you looking forward to doing in Felixstowe aside from appearing at the festival?

I have never been to Felixstowe before and so am really looking forward to exploring. It is also always a great opportunity to meet and talk with other authors. I am particularly looking forward to the book bloggers' session, since both Elaine and Simon are good friends.

Guy will be discussing his 'Mapp and Lucia' books between 11 - 12pm, and 'The mess we're in' between 1.30 - 2.30pm on Saturday 15th June. Both events will take place at The Orwell hotel.

Tickets can be purchased from the booking website.

Introducing Simon Thomas, writer of 'Stuck in a book' blog

Simon Thomas writes the book blog Stuck in a book and will be talking about blogging with fellow veteran blogger Elanine Simpson-Long of Random Jottings on Saturday afternoon at the White Horse pub.

Thanks to Simon for taking part in this mini interview for the blog!

Tell us a bit about yourself for the readers who haven’t come across you before…

I always describe myself as the only Christian vegetarian twin I know - that covers three pretty important bases for me! I live in Oxford, where I'm finishing off a DPhil in 20th-century English literature - which brings us, of course, to books and my blog Stuck-in-a-Book. Although I read quite a range of things, the focus is definitely on pre-1960s fiction, with an especial fondness for anything about spinsters, for some reason!

What made you start writing your blog?

I started in April 2007 when I should have been revising for the undergraduate finals. It was basically a revision-avoidance technique! I knew a few other bloggers (including Elaine of Random Jottings) who were part of an online book group I'd been in for three years at that point - and I thought, if other people are enjoying it so much, then I'd join in too.

Which book blogs do you regularly read?

At least half the time I spend on the internet is spent reading book blogs, so it's difficult to answer this question comprehensively!  So instead, I'll just pick three - Claire, The Captive Reader at thecaptivereader.wordpress.com, Rachel, Book Snob at bookssnob.wordpress.com, and Harriet, Harriet Devine's Blog at harrietdevine.typepad.com. Although I read blogs from around the world, I have to admit that the bloggers I read tend to be anglophiles.

Do you attend a lot of literature festivals, and if so do you have a favourite?

No, is the short answer to this! Living in Oxford, I have been to various events over the years, but that's the only experience I've had of literature festivals. A highlight of that would be seeing P.D. James and Jill Paton-Walsh discussing 'Agatha Christie vs. Dorothy L. Sayers'. (In case you're wondering, I'd choose Agatha every single time.)

The festival’s theme is ‘a sense of place’ – have you read any novels which have given you a real feeling of a place? Have you felt the urge to visit somewhere after reading about it?

I often struggle to get a sense of place from novels, which makes the exceptions even more resonant in my mind.  It's seemingly only cold locations which come across strongly to me, so I'd have to choose the snow-filled landscape of Stef Penney's 'The Tenderness of Wolves', and the icy lake of Marilynne Robinson's 'Housekeeping'. Neither has made me desperate to visit the places they're set, though - I'm much more drawn to the Swedish and Finnish settings of the wonderful novels and short stories Tove Jansson (best known for the Moomins) wrote for adults. 'The Summer Book', especially, makes me keen to hop on a boat and enjoy the Scandinavian islands. One day!

Where is your favourite place?

I love the countryside, and I love interesting houses, so I think my favourite place in the world is Blackwell House, overlooking Lake Windermere in the Lake District. It's a stunningly beautiful arts & crafts house, mostly panelled in dark wood, except one room - the one which overlooks the lake - which is entirely white. I've been three times, always on incredibly sunny days, and the impact of that room after the darkness of the other rooms is quite stupendous. 

Aside from attending the book festival, what are you looking forward to seeing and doing when you’re in town?

I have been to Felixstowe before, because my grandparents lived in Suffolk, and I remember there being a brilliant secondhand bookshop. My fingers are crossed that it is still there, and I'll be leaving room in my suitcase on the offchance!  Aside from that, I rarely get to see the sea, so that will be lovely.

Finally, what book are you stuck into at the moment?

I always have a few books on the go at once, so prepare yourself for a list! I'm reading 'A Woman of My Age' by Nina Bawden, 'Oxford' by Edward Thomas, 'A Reader on Reading' by Alberto Manguel, 'The Egg and I' by Betty Macdonald, 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett, and 'That Secret City: Visions of Oxford' by John Elinger and Katherine Shock.  That's actually quite restrained for me, believe it or not!

Simon and Elanie will be speaking at the White Horse pub between 3 and 4 pm on Saturday 15th June.

Tickets for the event cost £5 and can be purchased here

Simon's blog can be found at stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com

Breakfast with Stephen May

Stephen May will be appearing at the Felixstowe book festival on Sunday 16th June to discuss his  second novel 'Life! Death! Prizes!'.

Stephen kindly answered a few questions so that the audience can get to know him in advance of the festival.

As you ask interviewees on your own blog, please give us a biography of yourself in 50 words...

Reader. Writer. Daydreamer. Innocent bystander. Sceptical. Curious. Radical but suspicious of change. Father. Husband. Son. Brother. Resident of West Yorkshire by way of Bedford, Colchester and Ipswich. But half-Scottish. And, like Flaubert, I attempt to be a bourgoise in my life so I can be an anarchist in my art.

You’ll be discussing your 'Costa prize' nominated novel ‘Life, death, prizes’ at the book festival, tell us a bit about that book for the reader’s who’ve not yet read it.

A single mother is killed in a botched street robbery - leaving behind two boys aged 19 and 6. The older boy, Billy, narrates the book as he struggles to become a kind of mum, dad and everything else for his little brother. He hopes that love and wit will be enough. And they're not quite. It's based partly on my experiences of being a very young and ill-equipped dad (I became a father while still at college), partly on my over-long acquaintance with menial jobs and the trigger was being involved in a failed mugging a few years back. With any luck it makes people laugh, makes people think...

How did you get involved with the Book Festival?

I love Felixstowe. My in-laws live here, so any excuse to come down basically...

You are a person of many talents – teaching, writing for TV, script writing as well as having published two novels – what are you working on at the moment?

You are very kind. I have just completed the screenplay for Life! Death! Prizes! and finished editing my next novel Wake Up Happy Every Day which is due out in Feb 2014. And I'm working on my fourth novel Stronger Than Skin. I'm busy because I've just begun to realise how short life is.

The theme of this year's festival is ‘a sense of place’, how do you capture a sense of place in your writing?

As economically as possible. I don't go in for a lot of scene-setting or long descriptive passages... I don't like these as a reader either. My books tend to be set in or around small towns because that is where the essence of Britain lies I think. I'm interested in ordinary people trying to show grace under pressure. I'm much more interested in people than places, though of course people are shaped by where they find themselves.

Where is your favourite place?

Possibly the hot pool at Grettirslaug in North-western Iceland. Possibly the view at Lumb Bank in Heptonstall in West Yorks where I lived for six years. Possibly Edinburgh in the first week of September just after the festival. Possibly here now. (I'm sitting at home in my silent kitchen. just me, no one else. Bliss)

Aside from appearing at the Felixstowe book festival, what are you looking forward to doing when you’re in town?

I'm going to see some old friends. I'm going to drink some Adnams ale. Possibly both at the same time.

What will your talk be like on Sunday June 16?

With any luck it'll be like a convivial brunch with some of your most interesting friends. It should be more of a free-flowing conversation than a talk. We'll have a laugh...

Stephen will be appearing on Sunday 16th June between 10 - 11 am at the Orwell hotel. Tickets are £5 + booking fee and include coffee and a danish.

To buy your ticket go to the booking website

You can find out more about Stephen and his work on his website www.sdmay.com .

Young people's writing competition

No one gets left out at the Felixstowe Book Festival - we have a writing competition for the younger folk too!

The theme for this competition is 'Imaginary lands' and prizes will be supplied by WH Smiths (Thank you WH Smiths!).

The age categories are as follows:

7 - 9 yr yrs
10 - 13 yrs
14 - 16 yrs
17 - 19 yrs

Please state which age category you fit into on your entry so that it can be judged accordingly.

All entries will be judged by professional writers.

Entries should be submitted by email to info@felixstowebookfestival.co.uk by 7th June. Any inquiries can be emailed to this address too.

Happy writing!