The Author Interview featuring Kathleen Jowitt

Welcome to the Author Interview. This time, it features the lovely Kathleen Jowitt, author of Speak Its Name.

If you’re an author who’d like to take part in the series, email me: debbie@myrandommusings.co.uk

Now over to Kathleen:

1 Firstly, tell us a little bit about yourself

My name is Kathleen Jowitt. I’m the first self-published author ever to have been shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize. I also have a day job as the communications/tech lead in the education department of one of the big trade unions.

2 Tell us a little bit about your books

They’re very different from each other. Speak Its Name deals with student politics and the tensions between different flavours of Christianity. A Spoke in the Wheel on the other hand, is about a disgraced professional cyclist who has to rebuild his life from scratch after being exposed as a dope cheat.

But there is an overarching theme of coming to terms with who you are, of finding the courage to look yourself in the face.

3 Where do you find your inspiration for your books?

Sometimes in real life – there’s a burglary in A Spoke in the Wheel, for example, and I’m fairly sure that’s based on something that happened when I was a child. And the Christmas flood is based in reality, too. I put imaginary people into real life situations to see how they react.

But sometimes I’m reacting to another book, saying, ‘No, this isn’t how it happens. Look, I’ll show you: it happens like this.’

4 What, for you, is the best thing about being a writer?

It’s the opportunity to engage with things head on. I can present the world as I think it should be, or the way it is. I can work through my own conflicts and problems. And I can invite other people to share that with me.

5 And the worst?

Loneliness and self-doubt. The only person who knows what I’m trying to get from my head onto the page is me, and if I’m struggling with it, there’s nobody else who can help.

6 If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?

I’d like to be able to slow down or speed up time – to be able to sleep as long as I need, to get things finished before I need to go to bed, to stop lunch burning just long enough for me to get this sentence down…

7 Do you have any tips for anyone wanting to write their first book?

Know where you’re headed. Ask yourself what a satisfying ending (not necessarily a happy one) would look like for these characters, and go off in that general direction.

Aside from that, just pick up a pen (or turn on your computer) and start. It can be disheartening, because the words on the page are never quite as good as the idea in your head, but if you don’t begin you’ll never get anywhere at all.

8 Tell us one random fact about you

I can’t drive. I failed my driving test twice when I was at university, and since then I’ve lived in places where the public transport has been good enough for me to get around using that, or where it’s been safe enough to cycle everywhere.

9 Who is your favourite author?

That’s a tough one. I’m very into Daphne du Maurier at the moment – she has a real way with unreliable narrators (and that’s high praise from me, because it’s a trope that really annoys me when it’s done clumsily).

10 And your favourite book(s)?

The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s unapologetically melodramatic, it’s really quite informative in a bloodthirsty kind of way, and it’s very long, which means that, if I pick it up for comfort reading in bad times, something is bound to have got better by the time I get to the end. And I don’t know how he managed it in the middle of the nineteenth century, but Alexandre Dumas has two women elope with each other.

11 What book are you reading right now?

The Right Thing by Judy Astley. I’m only three chapters in, but it’s good fun so far. After that I’ll probably move on to Provenance, the new Ann Leckie book. I loved the Ancillary trilogy, and I understand that Provenance is set in the same universe.

12 Where is your favourite place to write?

I don’t know that I really have one. Most of my writing happens on the train, because it’s a defined block of time with relatively few distractions, but I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite place. So long as I’ve got a table in front of me and nobody trying to talk to me, I’m pretty happy.

13 Do you prefer to write in silence or do you have a writing soundtrack?

I tend to tune out any background noise, although I find that music with lyrics in English is more distracting. I haven’t yet been organised enough to sort myself out a playlist that’s purely instrumental.

14 What can we expect from you next?

My next book will almost certainly be a sequel to Speak Its Name, picking up the action a few years down the line. But I’ve got ideas for a murder mystery set at a fan convention and a post-Brexit Ruritanian swashbuckler, among other things.

15 Anything else you’d like to share with us?

… And my mind goes blank. Um… I take my tea with milk, and my coffee black. No, we can make coffee relevant, as it’s something that my characters think about a lot. This is a cycling stereotype that I’m using without apology, because it’s true: many, many cyclists do like their coffee.

Is that too frivolous? Here’s an interesting thing that I discovered: once I’d written my first book, I found that I didn’t read in the same manner as I had previously. I was always looking at the text, at the way that the author had put sentences together, thinking about how I would have done it if I’d been the one writing.

I studied English Literature at university, so I already had a tendency in that direction, but it’s become much more pronounced since I started writing seriously myself.

16 Where can we find you? (Links to your Amazon page and social media)

My website, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.