Well it's been a little while since I last interviewed someone here. All that changes today as I welcome international best selling author (of children's and adult's books) Kate Forsyth to the blog, to talk about her latest novel, The Puzzle Ring and curses, amongst other things...
Welcome to the blog, Kate. So, to start us off, your new book, The Puzzle Ring – who’s it for and what’s it about?

‘The Puzzle Ring’ is an historical fantasy for children aged 10+. It tells the story of a girl who discovers that her family was cursed long ago, and the only way to break the curse is to find and fix a broken puzzle ring. To do this, she must travel back in time to the last tumultuous days of Mary, Queen of Scots … a time when witches were burnt and queens were betrayed and the dark forces of wild magic still stalked the land … Essentially its a time travel adventure, with lots of fascinating stuff about Scottish history and fairy lore and curses in it. It was huge fun to write!


You spent a month in Scotland, I hear, to research myths and lore – what was that like?

It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I’d longed to go to Scotland all of my life, having been brought up on the stories of my grandmother and great-aunts, who had been brought up on the stories of their grandmother, Ellen Mackenzie, who left Scotland in 1840 at the age of 14. Her story is as tragic and romantic as any old family story, and basically the story of Hannah – who finds herself heir to a mysterious old castle in Scotland – grew directly out of that family history.

My husband says I set ‘The Puzzle Ring’ in Scotland just so I could finally go there – and there’s some truth in that

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As I mentioned here, I hugely enjoyed Cally Taylor's Heaven Can Wait when I read it a little while ago. It's a terrific book, funny and sad and affecting and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. So it really is a huge, huge pleasure to welcome Cally to my blog for a little chat (and I know I say it's a pleasure to welcome everyone I interview here, but it really is - I don't interview people I don't like or whose work I don't think is awesome!).

Cally Taylor. Hello!

Hello Nik! Thanks so much for inviting me onto your blog.



First things first (let’s get this out of the way). Your book, the brilliant Heaven Can Wait, made me cry. How does it feel to have written something that made a grown man weep?

Pretty gobsmacked to be honest, and a little bit guilty for upsetting you! When I wrote ‘Heaven Can Wait’ I never imagined that

a) men would read it and

b) it would touch them

but I’ve heard back from a couple of men who’ve read it now and had nothing but positive comments (the ones with negative comments probably decided to keep them to themselves!). Interestingly the part of the book that made you cry made me cry when I wrote it and I think maybe that’s what touches people, the genuine emotion I put into ‘Heaven Can Wait’.



Can you tell us what the book’s about?

‘Heaven Can Wait’ is a supernatural romantic-comedy (yes, despite the crying there are funny bits in it!) about a woman called Lucy Brown who dies the night before her wedding and ends up in Limbo. She’s given the choice between going to heaven to be reunited with her parents or returning to earth to complete a task that will allow her to become a ghost so she can be reunited with her fiancé Dan. Lucy decides to return to earth, joins two other ‘wannabe ghosts’ in a grotty house in North London, and has twenty-one days to find love for a total stranger. The pressure is on, and it just gets greater when she realises her so-called best friend Anna is intent on making a move on Dan.



When and why did you start writing it?


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Over the summer I was asked if one of my stories could feature in a US online fiction writing course for high school students, and to cut a long story short I said yes.

Yesterday I saw the part of the course that contained my story, and that made me happy for a number of reasons. I liked that it was under the 'advanced fiction' banner (I've never been called advanced before) and I also liked that it was in the section that dealt with 'going beyond the rules'.

But the best bit was that my work's mentioned in the same sentence as Dave Eggers. Yes. Mr McSweeney's and Pullitzer Prize Finalist.

Here's a little quote:

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Welcome to the blog Faye, it’s a real pleasure to have you here. Can you tell us a little about Roast Books? Who are you? What do you do?
Hello Nik, thanks for having me on. Well Roast Books is an unusual little publishing house which produces literary titles with an emphasis on quality of presentation and design. We like our books to look good as well as being delicious to read. It’s a tiny organisation and so far we’ve produce about 4 books a year.

How and why did it get started?
I was interested in the idea of literature that was suited to the modern lifestyle, reading for on the spot entertainment, so I decided to produce some contemporary novellas. There is a dearth of interestingly presented book. Not enough new authors are given the opportunity to publish their work. So Roast Books began as a remedy to these things. An A-Z of Possible Worlds [see my interview with its author here - Nik.] was a really exciting project, because the short stories can be read individually, at the readers’ convenience, but are packaged as a complete work. …….

What do Roast Books do best?
Take chances! I am proud of the care and attention that goes into each title, and I think in the case of ‘An A-Z of Possible Worlds’ the packaging really suits the work, we haven’t compromised on that just to make it easier to distribute.

Who’s the ideal reader of a Roast Books title?
Five foot four, brown hair, glasses, with a healthy amount of facial expression. Oh and book lovers.

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Here's what you do: Write a story where the first letters of each word are in alphabetical order.

Here's mine.

All because Christopher didn't expect five girls here in June Kevin lost. My natural opinion's pretty quiet really. So the unlikely victor was x-rated yet zesty.

Care to have a go and share yours? Just for a bit of fun?

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Welcome back, Vanessa. Last time you were here we were talking about short stories. Now you’ve edited a guide to them. So, Editor Gebbie, could you tell us a little about Short Circuit – A Guide to the Art of the Short Story?

Thanks Nik, it’s great to be back, and thanks for the invite. I love being Editor Gebbie! It’s been a terrific project: knackering, exciting, challenging and frustrating by turns. Compiling something like this, identifying the right writers, working with all 24 of them, has been at times like herding cats – with myself the worst of the cats to herd, I might add. But I am very very proud of the finished book.



Who’s it for?

It’s for anyone who wants to write short stories. Maybe someone who had a go, and discovered that actually, writing good ones is not as easy as some people think! It’s aimed at students on writing courses, maybe at the universities, maybe not. It’s aimed at people who are already writing them, and want to do it better, stronger, differently. It’s aimed at people like me (they always say write for yourself, don’t they??) who may want a refresher. A ‘shot in the arm’. A reminder that when things don’t go right that there are a whole load of superb writers out there who share that feeling and can offer insights, ideas, inspiration.

But also, I’ve been told it is a good companion volume for anyone who enjoys reading short stories, to understand the craft behind the scenes, to be introduced to the works that inspire the writers. It’s a fun, fascinating and engaging read.



How much do you think good writing/ story telling is down to intuition, as opposed to what can be learned from How-To books, forums, and workshops?

Good question! I’ve met a few ‘how-to’ books that didn’t help me to the ‘how’ at all, and were just platforms for ‘look at moi!’ from the author.

But is good writing/storytelling just something we are born with? Let’s look at storytelling first. That’s innate in us all. It goes back to dark nights in caves, round the fire, weaving stories to explain the rising of the sun and the movement of the stars night on night. When you listen to a voice telling a story, are in the presence of the teller, it is a mesmerising experience. You can get totally caught up with the world of the story. The word ‘novel’ seems to have its origins in the ‘news’ taken from one town to another, and relayed by word of mouth… then slowly, so the story goes, the sequence of events were juggled to make people wait to find out what happened… to make a better ‘story’…as people listened, they were caught up in the events of that other town.

It’s not so easy for the written word to have that transporting effect on the reader. But with a following wind and a bit of peace, the reader can sink into a story and disappear in the fictive dream in the same way – and there are good strong craft skills behind that, in the writing. Each time the craft falters, the writer stumbles into the reader’s space, and the dream breaks. A badly crafted piece will not have the same mesmerising, dreamlike effect effect on the reader.

Craft is a skill and it can be taught. But one thing that stultifies the learning experience for this awkward cuss is that I always find this - if a single person is trying to tell me how to do something as complex as creative writing, I lose patience as soon as one thing they say differs from my own experience. But give me a range of tutors, with slightly different approaches, ideas, voices… I may be more willing to listen. To try new things. To come closer to my own creativity – and no one else’s.

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My very short story, Say My Name has just gone live over at the brilliant Word Riot - click here to read it.

And if you'd like to hear me reading it you can click here.



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Fact: a proper publisher (book, magazine et al) will NOT charge you to publish your work. It's the other way round.

Yes, there are a good number of very good mags and e-zines who don't pay, but you are getting readership, credits to put on your CV etc.

It's a nice (and rare) thing to be asked to contribute to a magazine. So when I received an email from First Edition magazine earlier asking me to do just that I was chuffed (I thought it may have had something to do with the story I sent them in July - it wasn't and I've since withdrawn it).

And then I read on.

And was not chuffed. I was angry and pretty bloody insulted.

They weren't asking me to contribute. They were giving me the 'opportunity' to have my short story published online as part of their downloadable e-book content.

Customers would pay a nominal fee (based on word count), which sounded okay.

And then:

And all I'd have to do is send them the work. They'd edit it, convert it into their electronic format and pay for distribution (what distribution???) etc

AND IT WOULD ONLY COST ME £25.

Cost. Me.

Nope!!!

As I said, proper publishers do not charge writers to publish their work.



So what's going on here? I thought First Edition was a great idea. A print mag for new writers. Sold on the High Street as far as I remember.

I've just checked their guidelines.

They don't pay contributors (aside from a non-specific cash prize to the best in a category).

The do sell advertising space.

And now they're charging to people to publish something which, as far as I can understand, doesn't have to pass any sort of editorial scrutiny.

Where's the money going, First Edition? And why the sudden change?

I'm going to email a copy of this to First Edition and offer them the opportunity to explain themselves. I hope they've made a very silly mistake because if they've not, it's a pretty cynical exercise in exploiting the new writers they originally claimed to be supporting.

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When I first started taking fiction writing seriously I joined an online group and Emily Gale was not only one of the first people I met there, but also one of the most helpful. Emily was already a better writer than I was (and still is) so I've got a lot to thank her for.

I am really pleased to have her here on the blog to talk about her book. It's a genuine pleasure. This interview is being posted with a smile.



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Elephants in Our Bedroom is, quite simply, one of the best books I've read. It is a very strong contender for my book of the year (watch out Kimball, Smailes and Tillyer!). You can read what I had to say about it here.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I am to have its author, Michael Czyzniejewski, here on the blog for an interview. And what an interview it turned out to be...



Welcome to the blog, Michael. It is one heck of a pleasure and an honour to have someone whose writing I admire so much here.

Thanks, Nik. I’m glad and honored myself—especially to talk to someone who spells “honored” with a “u.”



First of all, could you tell us a little about your short story collection, Elephants in Our Bedroom?

It’s a book I’d worked on for a long time. Those stories mean a lot to me, as they’re me finding my voice, finding myself as an artist. To see someone grab onto that, acknowledge it, and most of all, read it, verifies what I’ve been doing.



But in more simple terms, it’s a book of 24 short stories, most of them about how people can’t seem to figure out how to relate to each other anymore, with a lot of absurd concepts and images thrown in.



The stories in Elephants in Our Bedroom put me in mind, in themes and quality, of the work of Aimee Bender and Etgar Keret – who are probably my two favourite writers – and that’s got a lot to do with the unlikely and fantastic situations your characters find themselves in. Where do these situations come from? Is there a process or do they just happen?

I purposely try to come up with something that I think is clever, funny, challenging, impossible, uncomfortable, and bizarre all at the same time. I spend a lot of time thinking about things. Once I have something, though, I can run with it. It’s like moving the furniture around in your living room. Only certain things work, and once you find it, you just sit back and appreciate the news angles that you can look at things.

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