A Day in the Life of ... A Proofreader

Next in our series of nosing into the life of a publishing professional, Julia Gibbs shares the secrets of a proofreader.

If you’re thinking of engaging a proofreader to work on your book, or you’ve seen one advertising their services, do you wonder what they do, and how they do it? Sometimes people think we’re like school teachers, marking work out of 10, with critical comments in the margins. But we’re not – we know that everyone, including us, needs a proofreader for their written work, and we're not going to make you stand in the corner for making too many typos! We love what we do, whatever genre the book we’re currently working on, and we take pride in giving your work that final polish.

I started working as a proofreader simply because I find the English language (and what I know of one or two others!) absolutely fascinating. If you have a minute, let me share with you what a normal working day might be for me.

7am: Get up, make cup of tea, look at emails. At least 90 minutes of my regular day is admin – sending work to clients, answering queries from possible new clients, scheduling future work, advertising my services and clients’ books on Twitter. It’s not until around 9am that I can start on whatever book I’m currently working on. I’m not going to tell you I must have classical music playing in the background or fresh flowers on my desk, etc – I don’t need anything apart from my laptop, in fact when I’m working I shut out everything else. I can work on a train or in a bus station waiting room.

10am: I try, at least 4 days a week, to go to my local dance school, where I attend Fitsteps and ballet classes. This is essential because my work is sedentary – not only is it not healthy for me to sit on the sofa practically all day, but also I find I work better if I take a breather.

1pm – stop for lunch. I give myself a proper lunch hour like I had when I worked in an office, although unlike when I worked in an office, I watch TV! At the moment I’m hooked on Homicide Hunter and White Collar.

2pm (latest) – back to work! I pretty much work through until 5.15pm. It’s a fact that you can’t concentrate for more than 90 minutes, so it’s important to know when the brain needs a break. I’ll either get up and do something like hoovering or putting the washing on, or phone my writer sister (author Terry Tyler, https://twitter.com/TerryTyler4); mind you, when I do this she normally effectively tells me to clear off because she’s redrafting/on a creative roll/in the throes of working out plot points etc. I should know better, I know what authors are like!

5.15 pm – Everything stops for Pointless on BBC1. Having been a big fan of this programme for ages, I was lucky enough to appear on it a couple of years ago. Here’s the link to my blog post with all the inside info on what it’s like behind the scenes, for fellow aficionados!

https://juliaproofreader.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/lights-camera-action-my-appearance-on-bbc1s-pointless/

8pm – after dinner, if I’m spending the evening on my own, I will usually work for at least another hour. I go to bed no later than 10.30pm, because I’m by nature a morning person and like to hit the ground running early.

The books I work on vary enormously. There’s no such thing as a writer who doesn’t make mistakes (this includes me – imagine how circumspect I have to be in my Twitter or Facebook posts!)

The reason for this is that when we read our own work, we see what we expect to see. Unless we are reading slowly and really concentrating on a sentence of, for example, 10 words, we only actually read the 1st, 5th and 10th word, and our brain fills in the blanks to make sense of it.

In an average book of, say, 80,000 words I can find anything from 400 to 10,000 corrections that need making. The advantage of hiring a proofreader to look at your work is that they are a fresh pair of eyes, and have no preconceived ideas about what you’ve written.

What I love about being a proofreader:

· Never knowing what book I’m going to discover next

· The challenge of finding errors and explaining what I’ve changed and why

· Occasional hilarious typos – I wrote a blog post about this https://juliaproofreader.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/10-funniest-typos-and-a-couple-more/


· Sometimes actually meeting the people I work for and with – a bit of a shock to those of us who work from home, alone on their computer. I have a tendency to overcompensate for the declining sartorial standards this involves, by getting all gussied up like the Duchess of Windsor if I ever go to meet clients – as in this photo of me preparing to address Wokingham Writers’ Group! See photo, me with the lovely Rosie Amber, who oversees an enormously successful review team - https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/

· Pretty much everything really

I’d like to thank all of my clients, past present and future, for making my waking hours so varied and interesting. I never know what world I’m going to step into next.

Julia Gibbs

T: https://twitter.com/ProofreadJulia

F: https://www.facebook.com/ProofreaderJulia/

E: juliaproofreader@gmail.com

Cosmic Coupling and Sextrology - In Conversation with Starsky and Cox

Stella Starsky and Quinn Cox, a real-life married couple, are modern metaphysicians, cultural commentators and astrological consultants with an international private clientele. They are the best-selling authors of Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes (Harper, 2004) and Cosmic Coupling: The Sextrology of Relationships (Crown, 2009), and have contributed columns and features to myriad publications and sites worldwide, including Vogue, Allure, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Elle and Glamour. http://www.starskyandcox.com/

Photo by Ric Ide

 To celebrate Valentine's Day, JJ Marsh finds out more.


People have reactions across the spectrum to their astrological sign, from fascination to disbelief. But everyone is interested in sex. You’ve combined a knowledge of the zodiac with a curiosity as to behavioural patterns. That seems to come from an understanding of people and a knowledge of archetypes.

We like to watch. Seriously, our shared interest and ultimate immersion in astrology all began with observation. Beginning in our student days, we noticed that men and women of the same sign were often very different from each other. Such that, as an expression of our own brand of humanistic astrology, we consider the Zodiac to have twenty-four gender signs. Still, unlike work with private individual clients, successfully writing on the subject of general sun-sign astrology requires exposing specific elements of truth about each of the signs.

 
Over decades of observation we have discerned twenty-four distinct archetypes, under which we all in turn fall, and wherein we share, with others of our sign, more than meets the eye. Obvious traits in appearance and behavior unite folks under the aegis of their sign; while there are deeper, more metaphysical motivators at play. You can't escape your archetype, we say, and we credit the symbolically rich Zodiac with offering infinite insights into we the people born under them. And our archetypes don't get checked at the bedroom door: Sex and sexuality are important elements of personhood and so, in our philosophy, our signs likewise determine our intimate predispositions and proclivities.

Sextrology, your exceptional bestseller, is far more than A-goes-with-B-but-leave-C-well-alone. It is erudite, witty and draws on a range of concepts, examples, mythology, symbols and well-known icons. It feels full of stories.

We conceived Sextrology to function on a number of levels simultaneously. The Sex- in the title was meant to signify gender first and sexuality second. We definitely wanted to get our original philosophy out there, and really build an argument. But we wanted to temper those more academic suppositions with a supple, straightfoward style. It isn't your granny's astrology. We like to think we read like lively, heady dinner party conversation, at turns serious and sophisticated and funny, comparative in sociology, religion and literature, weaving myths and fairy tales and pop references into something approaching seamless. We want to tickle funny bones as well as challenge minds on the subject. Not to mention have a little stylistic fun with the erotic bits.

We are all full of stories. And, for some reason we can't fully understand, those born under the same sign do share a similar plot. Be it real, metaphorical or metaphysical. As we continue to trace the myths and legends of multiple archetypal figures associated with any particular sign, these stories do serve, in many ways, as parables for those born under it.

In addition to the book, you have written regular astrological columns and advised some A-list celebrities: Mario Testino and Scarlett Johansson are among your purported fans. Everyone seems in awe of your accuracy and insight. How did you develop your expertise?

Through constant practice of our craft and continued exercise of our intuition. Yes, a substantial majority of our clients are in the entertainment, art and fashion industries. As a team we bring different talents to the table. Astrology is a language of symbols and the distinct arrangements of the planets in the various signs and astrological houses. The overall pattern they form, in a person's astrological charts, speaks volumes. There are upwards of eighty-four schools of astrology. We are humanistic astrologers. And we center on helping clients make the most of their potential, providing them tools for negotiating their would-be patterns and pitfalls. We all have them. We work on our craft and the technique of interpretation, focusing on the here and now with our clients; while allowing for occasional, as we say, "off the page" flashes of intuitive insight.

Dividing the Zodiac into 24 signs was groundbreaking. You have a different take on Virgo Man and Virgo Woman, for example, whereas previously one size fit all. When it comes to sexuality, you cover straight and gay males/females of each sign, but how does someone who is transgender or identifies as non-binary read this?

When Sextrology was published in 2004, we unfortunately weren't having the same conversation about transgenderism as we are today. There are many meaningful transgender myths and archetypes —Hermaphrodite, Tierisias and Caenis to name a few—that we dig into, and from whose cosmic power and inspiration individuals can draw.

Most friends who've transitioned have done so in the years since we first published Sextrology. As it was, we had to petition publishers for equal measure of gay and straight content. In Cosmic Coupling, hetero couples are dedicated two pages while gay and lesbian chapters only get one. Cue soundtrack about book size, the cost of paper and affordability.

The upshot is we've come a long way in the fifteen years hence. Now, no sociological conversation can disclude the transgender movement and the stunning effect it's having.

While some astrological partnerships seem better starred than others, your emphasis seems to be on awareness of our own and each other’s habits and tendencies. It’s eye-opening in some ways and familiar in others.

We can only change ourselves. And while, yes, reading the chapters in Sextrology pertaining to loved ones will offer an insider's guide to that individual in many ways, the main tenet of our work is personal development, you doing you, to use the vernacular. In Cosmic Coupling, which treats all possible 300 gay and straight combinations, the character of the relationships become the focus. Two people may form any relationship, still the relationship itself becomes this third entity. There are actually twenty-four relationship-chapters pertaining to any one reader of Cosmic Coupling, while the voyeuristic possibilities are endless in exploring what makes other relationships tick. Cosmic Coupling is a conversation starter for sure.

Self-identification/determination can be positive, yet not always. Is there a concern that typifying a kind of behaviour associated to a birth date could be counter-productive? Eg, I’m a Piscean, I just can’t help myself.

Our brand of astrology is necessarily plastic in its application to people, be they clients or a wider readership. Our astrology is pinioned on potential, optimizing gifts and opportunities while negotiating all negatives, by nature or nurture. We can "see" a client's specific story in their individual charts . While, on the full-populus level, too, the Sun placement presents us with overall themes, which run through the lives of people of one sign versus another. Our Sun placement is our identity—and people do tend to identify quite fiercely with their sign.

We can't tell anyone why astrology, in its myriad forms and applications, works so accurately. But there are a lot of things we can't explain. It would seem that, just as a rose blooms in June and a chrysanthemum in December, so too do people born at a certain time reflect, or literally personify, the energy of that time. One could say the Zodiac, like life, is hinged on paradox, the culmination being the last yin-yang sign of Pisces with its opposite facing fish. And yes, counting Christ and Blanche Dubois among their archetypal order, Pisces people are prone to temptation; but, for the Fish, that's always a two-way street.

Photo by Ric Ide

Let’s talk about examples. Here on your examination couch is a Capricorn female in her thirties. What can you tell us about her?

If this were a client coming to us, she would provide us her birth day, time and place. From that we generate a number of charts that reveal endless things about her, individually. What we have to tell all Capricorn women may be more sweeping, and in more umbrella terms, but it also, paradoxically, gets to the essence of what all Capricorn woman share. As any Capricorn woman, whose archetypes include Mary Poppins, will tell you: It's sensible to have an umbrella (under which any Capricorn woman's unique details still thematically fall).

To call herself a Capricorn means that her Sun placement is in Capricorn; but we don't know anything about the placement of her other planets. So we focus fully on the Sun placement and go deep into the archetype of the sign of Capricorn to increasingly extract fundamentals and every facet, really, of her character. We delve all the crannies of the Capricorn "estate"—its elaborate cosmology and symbology, all associative myths and godheads, the energetic make-up of the sign and its planetary rulership, numerology of the sign, on and on.

There is untold logic in the Zodiac. One might suspect that it is indeed an ancient system. Or as we like to call it: the original twelve-step program.

One element that surprised me is how certain star signs tend to share physical attributes. Just briefly, what would you expect to see in a Gemini man? And a Taurean woman?

It says in Sextrology, written in 2004, that Gemini man has small hands. (The current American president was born on June 14.) That aside, Gemini men tend toward the impish. They are animated, lit up. They typically fire off questions, often driving conversation. They are often slight and agile and retain a boyishness into old age. They are given to juvenile humor if not antics. There's something of the lad and au courant about them. They make endless attempts at jokes. You can often feel their need to be liked. Or that might be their artfully dodging way of charming you. Or manipulating you.

Taurus women prize themselves. Though an enviable quality, they can give off an air of innocent reluctance or reistance. They tend to boast childlike features and large, wide-set eyes. Given to softly colored and textured clothing and comfortable, quality trappings, Taurus likewise avoids brash or stressful environments or people. One of the femmier femmes on the astrological block, she tends to love her girly potions and notions. Taurus has a creamy look to her complexion and she often wears a center part, letting her hair flop curl or feather. Chances are she'll smell of quality, floral-note perfume.

Your Haute Astrology series of twelve books covers the entire year, week by week, for each sign. How did that come about?

Long before the books, we wrote columns and features for magazines, under our present astrological handles, if you will. Then, the books brought us more print and online work, culminating in a weekly column for The Daily Beast. An unlikely place for a horoscope. After, we decided to self-publish, weekly, on our website; and we did this for about five years before putting all the sign's horoscopes into their own yearly books under the same aegis as the original column: Haute Astrology.

Thanks so much for your time and Happy Valentine’s Day!

The pleasure is ours. Good to know that Valentine's Day falls into February, which is "Self-Love" Month.

Sextrology and Cosmic Coupling are available in paperback and ebook formats.

Writing Characters over a Series

Writing books in a series comes with its own highs and lows. Attracting readers along for the ride has to be one of the biggest joys, but that in itself comes with its own perils. Readers connect with characters, and with a series of books in particular, those characters are totally the main reason people will stick with the journey. Getting them right is a must. So, how does an author go about the task?

Here are three people who should know ....

JJ MARSH 

 

To develop characters over a series, you need to know them far better than the reader ever will.

You need to know all about their past, what shaped them, why they developed certain patterns of behaviour and how they reached this point. Crime writer Sheila Bugler and I developed a questionnaire to get this in-depth knowledge of our protagonists.

From the first book, I knew my MC had a shelf life. I planned six in The Beatrice Stubbs Series and no more. With that in mind, not only could I plan each novel in terms of plot, but also conceive a character arc spanning six individual stories.

Repetition is a delicate balance. If Beatrice follows the same psychological pattern in every book, it becomes tedious and predictable. DI Stubbs changes and matures and sometimes falters but most of all, she learns from her mistakes.

Regular readers want enough familiarity with her personal life and allusions to previous events to feel they recognise her world. But I don't stuff in too much back story for newcomers those who pick up one as a standalone and might feel excluded.

The surroundings need to change and adapt with her. Certain relationships will wither or flourish within each book; others thrive or die over the series. If a character returns from a previous book, changes must have occurred offstage.

Finally, readers form their own picture of this personality. Unless she behaves in character, my story must provide a very good reason why not. Or I’ll get angry emails. Thankfully the only feedback so far is “I’ll miss her”.

You know what? Me too.

GILLIAN E HAMER

To be honest, writing characters over the course of a single book - let alone a whole series - once terrified me. I was paranoid someone with blue eyes in chapter one, would have chocolate brown ones by the end of the novel. Without the eagle eyes of a proof reader, I doubt I would ever have had the confidence to publish my first book!

However, knowing The Gold Detectives was going to be a series from its conception, helped me organise from an early stage, how to deal with characters who were each going to go on their own individual journey through the course of the novels. In an effort to avoid repetition (one issue I have found with reading crime series from other authors) my plan was to have a central character - DI Amanda Gold - who would be a major player throughout the series, but then for each member of her team to take the lead protagonist role in each new book. And so far it's worked a treat.

In the early days, I kept a diary on each of my characters. I jotted down descriptions, fashions, hobbies, likes and dislikes, personality traits, emotional status. I kept detailed notes on their family history, religious beliefs, prior jobs, school and exam results - and a multitude of information I knew would never get into the books. But if I knew all this useless information about them, then I felt confident answering a question from their point of view, even if the reader never got to find out the background.

In the writing of book one - Crimson Shore - there was a lot of checking and cross-checking to make sure I kept the characters consistent. But I have to be honest and say that in books two and three, there has been less need. If I write something new about character, perhaps the name of an ex-lover or ex-boss, I will note it down in my diary for them.

But I also feel I now have a much closer bond with my characters, to the point that I feel about them much as I would a good friend. For example, I know my friend Zoe has a brother called Pete, husband called Mark and two children called Jacob and Joshua. Because I've spent so much time with my characters, I know pretty much all of the same information about them too, and I'm much more confident in my relationship with my characters than ever before. I know how they think, I know how they speak, I know how they would react and I understand their humour and sarcasm. I can find myself inside their heads responding as they would without even realising it.

For a writer, there's nothing better than a reader telling you how much they love one of your characters or how upset they were when such-and-such happened to a character they've bonded with over the course of your series. It makes the hard work getting the characters to that point all worthwhile!

JANE DIXON SMITH

I think the main emphasis on writing characters over a series is to have them grow, otherwise they become stagnant. They need to learn from past experience and use that knowledge in future books to strengthen their character and to evolve. None of this I found hugely difficult for the Overlord series as I've always had the advantage of time and major events which are recorded in history. The books span 30 years, so there's maturing in years as well as growth through experience to explore for my characters. 

Also, there's the actions and decisions recorded in history, such as Zenobia's ambition and decisions to go to war, to manipulate other characters and so on which have to be influenced by something. This was interesting to explore, because in order to come to a certain event and a character decision you have to investigate what historically might have driven those decisions and influenced certain emotions. 

Some might say Zenobia's growth is the most interesting, and it is, because she grows from strength to strength with each book, amassing power as the years go by and influencing and creating alliances, but she doesn't actually grow that much as a character. She doesn't learn, which is one of her flaws and certainly part of her character. For me Zabdas is the more intriguing, for he learns rapidly, both from emotions he feels, events which unfold, and his reflection on the decisions of others. He understands more as the years go by and doesn't so much amass strength and knowledge but finds it and nurtures it.


JJ Marsh, Gillian E Hamer and JJ Marsh are all members of the Triskele Books author collective.

Snapshots from... San Francisco

By JJ Marsh

In our regular series, international writers share some snapshots from their part of the world. This issue, Max Orkis shows us around San Francisco and the Bay Area. All images by Michael Filippoff.

What’s so great about San Francisco?


San Francisco’s easy to ditch. With surfing along the coast, cushy-green suburbia all around, national parks, skiing resorts, and wine country a short drive away, the perfect escape plan is ripe for the picking.

Getting the hell out is a moot freedom. The city’s a cultural supermarket. It rocks a number of important museums, a vibrant art scene, high-profile performances, and colorful musical traditions. This place caters to all kinds of lifestyles, gastronomic proclivities, erotic appetites, intellectual interests, wellness weaknesses, addictions and obsessions, spiritual pursuits, fitness needs, political bullshit, and other entertainment cravings.

Tell us a bit about the cultural life of the place.

San Francisco offers many more literary attractions than a Joe Schmo supporting his own writing habit in this prohibitively costly region should ever have time to enjoy. You’ve got your university programs, workshops, critique groups, and conferences. You’ve got your publishers, periodicals, and agents. You’ve got events like Litquake and other readings, signings, and poetry slams. You’ve got seductive libraries, bookshops such as City Lights, and bohemian cafés and bars. The floor in Vesuvio, a legendary beatnik hangout, is still sticky from the sex revolution (it really is).

Like any other, this swank old town is home to those who consider the lands beyond its limits provincial. Well, the San Francisco Bay Area is ten times more populous and pregnant with that much more promise. A metropolis, mother city, is hard to conceive of without the progeny she has come to depend on. In the past decades, tech, or the so-called Silicon Valley, overran and incorporated the quaint hipster capital. Think Roman conquest and enslavement of the Hellenic world, which ensured the preservation and continued spread of Greek civilization.

Many of us do tend to be accommodating, accepting, and open-minded, except when it comes to toponyms. Around here, folks refer to the municipality as San Francisco or the City and to the counties group-hugging it as the Bay Area. This protectiveness reminds me of the Judaic doting on G-d’s name.

What’s hot? What are people reading?

An annual series of events, One City One Book, has been going on under the auspices of the San Francisco Public Library for the past ten years. Eponymously, members of the community read the same work during a given period and discuss it in book clubs.

Here are the last few years’ selections: David Talbot’s Season of the Witch, Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother – all to do with, about, or set in San Francisco.

Can you recommend any books set in the city? 

Of the volumes of text about the San Francisco Bay Area, including screenplays, I have (maybe I should use a pen name?) added these novels to my reading list:

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon (set in Berkeley) – because I love The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and his other books

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett – I checked out excerpts in a writing course and remember being impressed by his style

San Francisco Stories by Jack London – I dug White Fang and his other prose as a kid

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (sounds interesting)

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (I’m actually reading it right now – it didn’t blow me away at the beginning, but his characterization is starting to grow on me, like pot on a plot)


Who are the best-known local writers?

Here’s a mostly off-the-top-of-my-head list of Bay Area writers, poets, and dramatists (I wonder what it says about me). Some are native, while others we proudly claim.

Mark Twain (adopted)

Robert Frost

John Steinbeck (Salinas)

Michael Chabon (Berkeley, adopted)

Jack London

Henry Miller (Big Sur, adopted)

Ken Kesey (Peninsula, South Bay, adopted)

Francis Ford Coppola (Napa, adopted)

Sofia Coppola

Maxine Hong Kingston (East Bay)

Dashiell Hammett (adopted)

Khaled Hosseini (San Jose, adopted)

George Lucas

Allen Ginsberg (adopted)

Jack Kerouac (adopted)

Ursula K. Le Guin (Berkeley)

This line-up illustrates how San Francisco is a body others gravitate towards, which makes it more than the sum of its parts.

 

Is the location an inspiration or distraction for you?

This environment is psychoactive. The San Francisco skyline echoes the hills which mimic the ocean waves. Buildings stick out of the seedbeds along the booming and busting ridges, like notes in sheet music. Rows of toothy roofs underline the clouds. Much of the time, you sketch these images from memory, guess them into being from behind the fog.

I find no part of this ecosystem, not even its panem et circenses, distracting. Nothing can keep me from staring back at a blank page until it’s time to watch the next episode of HBO’s Silicon Valley or argue with someone online.

In all seriousness, though, some of my stories take place in the Bay Area, and many of my poems could never have happened elsewhere.

What are you writing?

I’m working on a feature screenplay (a comedy set in San Francisco) and brainstorming my first attempt on a novel.
My non-fiction and short stories: http://max-orkis.blogspot.com/


Sum up life in San Francisco in three words.

Fusion, diffusion, confusion


_______________

After about ten years in Western Europe, Max Orkis is back in the Bay Area, where he lives with his family. At parties, Max tells people he had to go away for a while. He used to proofread and teach English (actually, it may have been the other way around). Now he works as a writer/editor in a high-tech company. Max’s biography remains incomplete.


With grateful thanks to Michael Filippoff for all photographs

Snapshots from... Hong Kong

By JJ Marsh

In our regular series, international writers share some snapshots from their part of the world. This issue, Tim Gurung invites us to look around the island of Hong Kong.

What’s so great about Hong Kong?
Hong Kong is the one and only place in China where we have freedom of speech, press, rules of law and human rights. It is one of the most important financial centers of the world, the main gateway to China, and the freest economy in the world. It has a very clean and efficient government, the public transportation infrastructure is world class, and it is a paradise for the shoppers. You can find almost anything here according to your preference and budget; you will always find something to eat, buy or take a ride at anytime of the day and night; and moving around the city is really easy and convenient.

Tell us a bit about the cultural life of the place.

Although the city state’s population is predominately Chinese - according to government’s static almost 95% of the population - it is still a very modern, sophisticated and cosmopolitan city and both west and east traditions are equally mixed. Due to its colonizing past, English and Cantonese are still the two main official languages and both Western and Chinese traditions and festivals are still celebrated in earnest. It also has other minority groups of people from different background and nations, however their numbers are still too small to make any significant marks on the local calendar and it is mostly seen as a Chinese city. After the handover in 1997, it has became much more like a Chinese city, Mandarin is gradually replacing English as the other main language of the city, and the ongoing effort of decolonizing Hong Kong by sending more tourists from China is still in full throttle.

What’s hot? What are people reading?
Due to China’s overwhelming presence in Hong Kong, English has to take a backseat, and as of that, the standard of English has drastically gone down in Hong Kong. People are certainly reading fewer English books, we tend to read less here on this side of the hemisphere in the first place, and I am not sure what people are reading now to be honest. It will still be safe to say though, people always read the most popular ones from well-known writers, and Hong Kong should be no different. As the Chinese dominated society, they should be reading a lot of popular books in Chinese as well. But as I don’t read any Chinese books, I am certainly not qualified to say anything about it.

Can you recommend any books set in or around Hong Kong?
I don’t know that many books about Hong Kong, the one I remembered reading is NOBLE HOUSE by James Clavell, and WILD SWANS by Jung Chang is also from this area. It was also the reason why I wrote my 7th book OLD MEN DON’T CRY, I read somewhere in the paper that people were lamenting about the shortage of books about Hong Kong, and thought that why not I write one. It is about Hong Kong, Chinese traditions and a tearjerker. It is going to be published soon.

Who are the best local writers?
I am really sorry, there is none, or at least I knew one especially in English writing, and God willing, I might be one someday… Well, there is nothing wrong for dreaming, right?

Is the location an inspiration or distraction for you?
Of course, it is an inspirational place for me. Since I have spent all of my adult life here, whatever I have learned and experienced in life are mostly from here and writing would have been nothing but a compilation of meaningless words if it was not for experiences. Just like other writers, I write mostly through my own experiences and learning and most of those characters in our books are more or less related to people from our real world. For good or bad in life, we see things in our own way, and use our own different way to analyze them. And I am no exception. Hong Kong has given me many things in life, including some interesting subject matters of my story, and it will always remain an inspirational place for me.

What are you writing?
Since the publication of my books last Jan, 2015, I have been so busy and preoccupied with the marketing job that I simply have no time to continue writing and my 9th book which I have started by early 2015 has somehow stuck at the middle now. My 7th epic novel about Hong Kong and my 8th book about the celebration of simple women are both ready for publication now and the final date of release is still not confirmed yet. It will probably be by early 2016, I write only for my charity and in order to support my charity, I have planned to write at least 2 books on a yearly basis.

Sum up life in Hong Kong in three words.
Hectic, interesting, fulfilling!



About Tim Gurung



I am writer of conscience based in Hong Kong, I write for the people, society and especially for my own happiness. I on serious global and social issues, I write only for my charity, ISSLCARE, which in turn helps finance poor and needy families in Nepal, so they can send their children to school. I have 6 books published, 2 more coming soon, and have a plan of writing at least 2 books in a yearly basis to help support my charity.



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The Villainess

The villainess is femininity gone feral – Sue Turnbull

Sugar and spice and all things nice?
Or scary, psychotic and all your nightmares come true?

Femme fatale, wicked witch, bad girl, seductress, Eve, succubus, wizened crone, Medusa, naughty minx, ingénue, Cleopatra, lusty saucepot, not-really-bad-at-all once salvaged by a good man... stereotypical perspectives of women endure over centuries and seep into the cultural wallpaper. All part of the fun.

Then there is The Villainess.

Whether real or fictional, a truly bad woman is no fun at all.
Their names are synonymous with the shadows cast by barren trees, things under the bed and why a wardrobe door swings open just before you go to sleep.

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted of the murders of her parents, but the image of a woman committing a double axe murder in 1892 excited the public imagination and became legend.
Real-life lawless ladies like Bonnie Parker, Aileen Wuornos, Ruth Ellis, Ulrike Meinhof and Patty Hearst have enduring dramatic appeal on page, stage or screen.

In fiction, a true ‘bad guy’ female embodies the opposite of conventional perceptions of women. Hard, not soft. Cruel, not kind. An abuser of power. A killer. An avenger.
Writers have created many terrifying bogeywomen but few wield an axe. These ladies use a sharper tool – the mind.

Medea, Lady Macbeth, The White Witch, Mrs Danvers and even Annie Wilkes are all manipulators of power in circumstances where women have very little. To paraphrase Jack Crawford on my favourite bad guy Hannibal Lecter – you don’t want them inside your head.

Here’s my own personal dirty half a dozen of feminine villainesses in a roughly chronological order of awareness:


Cruella de Vil – 101 Dalmatians

Black-and-white animated evil with unspeakable urges. A would-be puppy killer. Her demonic pursuit of warm furry things to destroy for personal gratification against the anthropomorphic Disney creature-people makes her a Baddie in the blackest of hats. No matter what age you are, everyone cheers when she falls in the shit.

Why is she so scary? A predator on the cute and defenceless.

Tamora – Titus Andronicus

Queen of the Goths, Tamora shocked Elizabethan audiences. From another race and moral code, strong in warfare, politics and sexual allure, she turns her captor into a victim and wreaks the bloodiest revenge in Shakespearean history. One of her vilest crimes is encouraging her sons to rape and mutilate the innocent Lavinia.

Why is she so scary? Insatiable, cruel and without conscience.

Cathy Ames – East of Eden

A sexual manipulator with a calculating patience, Cathy’s physical beauty and intelligence are underpinned by a determination to use everyone for her own ends. She plays men and can only learn to feign emotion, as she feels no sympathy. Even in the face of generosity, she schemes to take advantage. A human hurricane, she destroys everything close to her, bringing nothing but pain and loss.

Why is she so scary? Innocent on the outside, pure poison within.

Nurse Ratched – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The immovable object against an unstoppable force. Her determination to retain control over her patients and McMurphy in particular is a battle only a bully can win. The extraordinary cold steel at the heart of Kesey’s creation evokes the same frustrations and loathing in the reader as she does the characters. And worst of all, her weapon of choice is medicine.

Why is she so scary? Ego supersedes empathy in authority.

Marquise de Merteuil – Les Liaisons Dangeureses

The devil makes work for idle hands. Using people as playthings, the Marquise plays a vicious theatrical game of lies and seduction, preying on the vulnerable and gambling on her nerve. The repercussions of her Machiavellian plotting with the Vicomte de Valmont ruin lives and leave scars. Ruthless, but not quite shameless, the vision of herself in others' eyes is her ultimate humiliation.

Why is she so scary? Arch manipulator with no loyalties.

Josephine Hurst – Mother, Mother

Not a misery memoir, but far more chilling fiction. The Hursts maintain a perfect facade, engineered by the matriarch. The psychological damage she inflicts on her family is haunting, especially when the escape routes seem worse. The author shifts perspectives, leaving the reader as lost and uncertain as the characters, until we gradually piece together the monstrous truth behind Zailckas’s creation.

Why is she so scary? Because she knows your head better than you do.


Bad guys come in all gals and guises, including that nice lady next door.
Hello, would you like a cookie?


By JJ Marsh 
Images courtesy of Creative Commons

Andrew Lownie talks about his agency’s initiative – Thistle Publishing

Interview by JJ Marsh, author of the Beatrice Stubbs series

Thistle Publishing was born out of a combination of frustration and opportunity. As an agent, I was finding publishers were increasingly cautious about commissioning books, even by established authors. Books which I thought very commercial , often with serial potential, were being turned down, sometimes because of concerns about the legal ramifications and sometimes because editors couldn’t obtain full in-house support.

It often seemed power had moved from the editorial departments to sales and legal. Editors were taking longer to make decisions and publishers to publish – books could take up to 18 months to come out after delivery – in what was becoming a very fickle and competitive market. There was also a remorseless drive down in terms of royalties and share of subsidiary rights income and increasing insistence on world rights.

This seemed crazy as, in my view, power had shifted from the publisher to the author. The digital revolution meant authors could easily self-publish and buy in any required services such as editorial and marketing. Amazon had created the largest bookshop in the world and were courting literary agencies offering attractive terms – such as 70% on e-book income compared to 25% from publishers, and licences which could be cancelled at any time – and help with digitisation and cover design. I was also impressed by Amazon’s professionalism, ‘can-do’ attitude and flexibility.

Many agencies were dipping their toes in the market pushing reverted backlist titles or filling territorial gaps where books had not sold such as in America. I decided to be more ambitious and was influenced by your very own writers’ conference in Zurich last October where it was clear changes in the industry were being driven by authors and agents who would be left behind if they didn’t embrace the revolution taking place.

Twenty years ago, I had self-published the complete short stories of John Buchan in three volumes, under the imprint Thistle Publishing, complete with a silk bookmark and handsomely printed by Clays. A thousand copy run of the first volume had sold out quickly so I rapidly printed another thousand copies of a boxed set of the three volumes and sold them through a few key bookshops, ads and mailings. I made more money from that piece of self-publishing than the five editions of my Buchan biography from major publishers and since then I have always been a great supporter of indie publishing, under certain circumstances.

The Thistle imprint was revived, a new company set up with my agency colleague David Haviland as an equal partner, the company registered for VAT, bank accounts set up, a website created and publicists interviewed. We began to scour the agency backlists for suitable titles for reissue and our current submissions for books in which we had a confidence that had hitherto not been shared by publishers. We would not take on books which were not up to our existing quality standards, and we would not be publishers – Amazon was the publisher and we took only our usual 15% agency commission – but we would lend our authority, contacts and expertise to the list.

Though many authors were self-publishing very successfully, it seemed to me that their books looked self-published – not least because it was clear they came from Amazon – and lacked marketing and publicity push. David and I decided we would spend time on cover design and pay for a two-day publicity campaign which could be topped up by the authors. The agency would also use its Twitter and Facebook accounts and the monthly newsletter to add further promotional support.

The aim would be to showcase and establish books for domestic and foreign publishers and film companies in the hope that media attention, reviews and sales might lead to fresh business. Many self-published books were being picked up by publishers and it seemed a strategy that could work even better for agency titles. The fact that Amazon and Thistle didn’t insist on a licence term meant that books could be sold on almost immediately if interest was shown. We also wanted to generate new revenue streams for authors and make all their books work for them whether it was exploiting out of print backlists or ‘plugging’ rights gaps.

The list launched at the beginning of the year. We've published 17 titles now, with another 20 completed and just awaiting publication, and 60 more books in the pipeline. We’ve already had a bestseller with David Haviland’s historical trivia book Why Was Queen Victoria Such a Prude?, which was top in all its categories on Amazon.

One of the advantages of the list is we can react to events quickly so, for example, our first book, Mary Hollingsworth’s account of a papal Conclave, was published the day after the Pope announced he was stepping down, and we were able to quickly turn around a biography of Amy Winehouse to tie-in with a serial in the Sun and the paperback publication of her father’s book. In June we have book on an undercover unit in Northern Ireland tied in to a Panorama programme and a Sunday newspaper serial.

Peter Daughtrey’s fascinating case for the lost city of Atlantis being on the Portuguese coast had a US publisher but not a UK one so we simply published it shortly after it came out in the US, whilst Darren Moore’s thematic study The Soldier had been published in the UK but not yet in the US.

Many books were critically well-received but now out of print and had never had e-book editions – and sometimes never even a paperback - such as Anthony Bruce’s book on the war in Palestine during the First World War: The Last Crusade, Mark Higgitt’s account of HMS Ardent during the Falklands War: Through Fire and Water, and David Stafford’s books of twentieth century history: Spies Beneath Berlin, Churchill & Secret Service, and Britain and European Resistance 1940-1945.

An area with great potential, not least because of translation and film opportunities, is fiction, and Thistle has already begun reissuing MJ Trow’s comic historical crime series based on Conan Doyle’s Inspector Lestrade, which was originally published by Constable. In June we will be bringing out thirteen novels by Guy Bellamy, most originally published by Penguin, whom Auberon Waugh described on first publication over thirty years ago as “a major new comic talent.” Another novelist of whom we have high hopes is Nicholas Best, whose Tennis and the Masai was described by the Sunday Times on first publication as “The funniest book I have read since David Lodge’s Small World.” Later in the year, Thistle will be reissuing some of Joyce Cary’s novels together with a new collection of his short stories – many hitherto unpublished.

Tom Pocock was a naval historian, whom I represented for almost twenty years until his death in 2007 and whose books should never have been allowed to go out of print; Thistle will be reissuing nineteen of them over the summer thereby providing focus and momentum. Similarly, we will be bundling titles under themes, such as a series on Prime Ministers to include James Chambers’s life of Palmerston and RJQ Adams’s books on Balfour and Bonar Law.

Many of the books have an obvious target market which can easily be reached, such as Rachel Woods’s guide for aspiring models, and a forthcoming diet title on the magic Konjac noodle, which is tied in to a promotion by a Konjac distributor. Others have an obvious peg so, for example, we are publishing Paul Merrill’s comic guide to fatherhood on Father’s Day.

Digital has allowed us to explore different formats and lengths and we will be experimenting with a range of Thistle Singles – journalistic, sometimes polemical essays of 10,000-30,000 words around particular events or themes. One of the first will be Katharine Quarmby’s quest to find her father, a visiting Iranian naval officer who was forced to give her up for adoption, and discover her heritage. The e-book will be published for Father’s Day and has been picked up by Amazon’s own publishing programme.

The future looks promising with three Thistle books being actively promoted by Amazon, and all selling well – Churchill & Secret Service is particularly strong, currently at #78 in the overall Kindle bestsellers chart. Though selling books to trade publishers remains difficult, the opportunities presented by digital and Amazon are very exciting for authors and agents.

You can find out more about Thistle Publishing here.

JJ Marsh – author, reader, Triskelite, journalist, Nuancer, reviewer and blogger. Likes: pugs, Werner Herzog and anchovies. Dislikes: meat, chocolate and institutionalised sexism.

Interview with Florence Thomas, translator

Why are you personally attracted to translating literature?

In two different languages, the same words can have a total different meaning. In order to "translate" an atmosphere, the translator sometimes needs to completely change the sentence.
It’s like cooking: the same recipe but the results are different, depending on the chef. Translating is like that. I can give my own emotions to someone else's book, if I am given the right to let my creativity flow.

What’s your process? Does it differ from work to work?
It only differs when the writer has special wishes. I first read the book, talk to the writer to get the feeling of what was behind the book (interestingly enough, not all writers are interested in sharing this with a translator), and also assess how free I am with the translation. I then make a first draft, word for word kind of. Then I write "my" book.

Some of my most-beloved books are translated works (Durrenmatt, Haas, Yoshimoto, Kundera). Why do you think translation is so important?
It is always better to read in the original language. However, no one will ever know all the languages but everybody has something to say. Translation is vital to get books known internationally. Books are words and words are thoughts, feelings, and more widely history, testimony. Without translation the word would be just a stain on paper to the outside world. When it is written, it is worth reading. Translation brings other cultures to your coffee table. How fantastic is that!

Do some works or even genres lend themselves more easily to translation?
In my opinion, everything can be translated, but every translator is not comfortable with every genre. I like literary translation because it is flowing, and because I am a writer. If I was a medical writer or a financial writer, maybe literary translations would not interest me.

When I watch movies with subtitles, it is always interesting for me to compare the two versions and also fascinating to hear the people laugh. Depending on whether they are listening or reading, the laughs take place at different times, but they all cry at the same parts. My opinion on this is that humour and jokes are harder to translate because they are linked to culture.

Obviously a translator must be familiar with two languages, but how much does knowledge of culture play a part?
If you know two languages, you can translate, words are words. This would be fine for technical writing. More than the culture, you need to be a specialist of the subject. In literary translation, you need to understand what is behind the words.

An example: I once translated a book by a Chinese writer. The paragraph depicted a young girl looking at the falling snow through the window.

When you "see" the picture in your mind, with a Western mindset, this is a romantic scene. The girl looks at the snow and she is transported by memories from childhood, making snowmen and endless snowball fights ... scarves and mittens and hot chocolate.

In northern China, looking at the snow would not bring the same feelings. The snow falling means cold, freezing weather, cold houses and apartments with very little (if any) heating. Cloudy sky for months and months. It is a sad atmosphere.

I translated this by having her look at the rain falling in strings on the sinister roads. It rendered the atmosphere.

Another example is young adult fiction. Somehow French translators think that YA speak is arrogant and impolite. So they translate the stories (books or movies) with an awful lot of slang and words taken from the familiar language, when actually in the original version, the language is rather moderate. This always puzzles me.

I imagine there are many different ways of working with an author. Do you have a preference?
Most of the authors now are email addresses and websites to me. I am a 21st century translator. I can get on board with anything. Some writers give a lot of freedom, some others are very strict with their work and want an exact translation with no flowers and butterflies. I don't have a preference.

But I do not enjoy translating my own books. I find this a very tough exercise, because I constantly "rewrite" the book. This is exhausting.

Which translators do you most admire?
I admired my university professor, Mr. Andre Levy. I have no idea what he does now or if he is still alive, but he was so prolific through his career. He translated encyclopediae and ancient literature dictionaries etc... Being in his presence, studying with his guidance was always humbling for me.

I read Charles Baudelaire's translation of Edgar Poe when I was a teenager and I had no idea that Mr. Poe wrote in English. To me, he wrote in French.

What is the hardest thing you’ve had to translate?
The hardest thing to translate is as always in human interactions, words I do not agree with, or words (and by word, I mean the large meaning of word: idea, concept, opinion) that are wrong (in my opinion) or conflicting with my beliefs..

Once I accept a translation, I go on with it. However, I find it extremely difficult to write words that do not make sense to me. This is a struggle.
An example is an American writer whose books I translated in the past. The writer was obviously deranged (not dangerous), and I often discussed this with the other translators (Spanish, Hebrew etc) because at times, it was troublesome to continue working on his texts.
Translation is a lonely job most of the times, but when I have colleagues I can talk to, it is comforting.

How do you cope with idioms? ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’, to give an English example. How would you tackle something like that?
Just like the lawyers do in court cases, they look for a precedent. I always go for the accepted translation of an idiom, they have all been translated. Sometimes, there are several meanings, according to the context, so I chose what makes sense to me. We have Internet groups where you can submit questions and get feedback from colleagues. Translation is not an exact science. I see so many translations that miss the spot.

An example (not from the literary translation world, but still interesting). An interview from Michael Jackson. The journalist asked "Are you homosexual?", MJ answered "Hmm. I have sex at home." Subtitle: "Yes, I am."
More than idioms, humour is difficult to translate, because sometimes, it does not make sense at all in another language, unless you have all the clues to go with it.

If you had the choice, which work would you most like to translate?
Biographies, love stories, and young adult books. I find love stories and YA lit casual and natural to translate.

Earlier this year, Burton Pike said, ‘A creeping homogenization is developing in prose fiction, a kind of generic international content and style that transcends national borders.’ Do you see an erosion of the border between literary and everyday language, and is that necessarily a bad thing?

Burton Pike is a translator of literature. he called it "creepy" so I guess he does not like the development he mentions. I am not worried about anything going global, I am actually very happy with the internationalisation of books, concepts, ideas, ways of life, experiences... We do not exist in a bubble.

However, I like these differences, the various levels of languages. In the written language it is important, in my opinion, to know the different levels, to accept them and to use them accordingly.

There are ways to preserve traditions, in life as in literature. Translators like Mr. Pike are working on that. As far as French is concerned, there are still several levels of languages, and I believe it will always be so. School still teaches those different levels. High standards literature was never written for the common people, so this is a reality, which also waters down to translations.

I was fortunate to study French classical literature in the university and the possibilities to read a text with different angles are infinite. in our modern literature, there are experimental writers, who are judged either phenomenal or useless by one reader or another. Literature should cater for everyone.

As far as English is concerned, it is maybe different. English is a communication language, hence prone to alteration, above all when foreign authors write in English.

As a translator, one needs to always wonder if it makes sense in his/her culture to translate the book exactly as is, or if the writer would accept a transformation of the book so that it fits in more with local expectations.

I am an experimental writer, I like to change points of view, and rewrite the same story to see where it takes me, change the style of writing and let my pen carry my words somewhere unexpected. It is the same when I translate.

JJ Marsh – author, reader, Triskelite, journalist, Nuancer, reviewer and blogger. Likes: pugs, Werner Herzog and anchovies. Dislikes: meat, chocolate and institutionalised sexism.

60-seconds with Polly Courtney

Interview by JJ Marsh, author of the Beatrice Stubbs series

Polly Courtney is the author of six published novels. She started out as an investment banker and wrote her first book, Golden Handcuffs, because she wanted to expose the reality of life in the Square Mile. Having discovered her passion, she went on to write Poles Apart, a light-hearted novel based on her Polish migrant friend’s experiences in England. Subsequent novels have covered sexism, racism, fame culture and the summer riots.

In late 2011, Polly famously walked out on her publisher, HarperCollins, for the ‘girly’ titles and covers assigned to her books – most notably, It’s a Man’s World, the hard-hitting take on the lads’ mag industry and its impact on society.

She plays football for her local side, Acton Ladies, and is a firm supporter of the women’s game in the UK. Polly also plays violin in the semi-professional string quartet, No Strings Attached, which provided the inspiration for her third novel, The Fame Factor.

http://pollycourtney.com/

Which book most influenced you when growing up?
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Full of stinging injustice.

Describe your writing space – what’s in it and why?
It’s pretty functional: desk, laptop, random notes and character sketches pinned to the wall and my cat, Peppa, purring like a motorbike in the background.

Who or what had the biggest impact on your writing life?
The sense of freedom, creativity and entrepreneurship instilled in me from a very young age. I think seeing my dad build his own business from scratch gave me the drive to take the leap from banking to writing.

What made you choose to expose City culture when you did?
It was a combination of my own personal misery as an investment banker and the growing sense of disgust and distrust towards the City in general. It felt as though a storm was brewing and I was desperate to get my story out before someone else did.

Do you have a word or phrase that you most overuse?
“The truth is…”

You tackle tough contemporary subjects such as machismo, immigration and disaffected youth. Does it ever get you down?
It’s actually therapeutic. By getting under the skin of the issues and turning them inside-out, it feels as though maybe, in a small way, I might change things.

Is there a book you were supposed to love but didn’t? Or one you expected to hate and fell for?
The Help by Kathryn Stockett – I thought it was so over-hyped I’d hate it, but it was amazing: a real flavour of 1960s Mississippi life, with a satisfying helping of prejudice and vindication.

What’s your view on the rapid changes in publishing?
It’s so exciting! Authors are finally getting to take control of their destiny and readers are getting a better deal. The two most important players in the game have been sidelined for way too long.

Do you have a guilty reading pleasure?
All of Ben Elton’s books. I lap them up.

Would you write a book set in another country?
I wouldn’t rule it out. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in the world and I feel as though I’ve only scratched the surface. That said, there’s so much to say about what’s going on in our own back yard. Feral Youth was borne out of the frustrations brewing just down the road, in south London, and I’m not sure I’m done there yet…

Which book has impressed you most this year?
A little-known book that hasn’t yet hit Amazon called Seeing is Deceiving by A D Whittenbury, which is the true story of a blind woman and her search for a missing cat. Truly inspirational.

If you had the choice, what would the cover for It’s a Man’s World look like?
It would be called Harmless Banter, not It’s a Man’s World, and would be a bold, two-tone style like Feral Youth, with an iconic image to represent lads’ mag culture in a smart way. As for the image… ah, so many options!

You are truly a Renaissance woman: literary, musical and sporting prowess. Who’s your string supremo and footie ace?
Vanessa Mae was my childhood idol and Kelly Smith (ex England captain) has always been my inspiration on the pitch.

JJ Marsh – author, reader, Triskelite, journalist, Nuancer, reviewer and blogger. Likes: pugs, Werner Herzog and anchovies. Dislikes: meat, chocolate and institutionalised sexism.

Tea & Cake with JK Rowling - Need we say more?

[First published in the June 2011 issue of WWJ]

Declaration of interest: I met Jo Rowling in 1991. Warm, witty and intelligent, she had a filthy sense of humour and a laugh like Sid James. She became one of my closest friends.Twenty years later, much has changed, but our friendship endures. I admire her enormously, not only as a writer, but as an astute, courageous and passionate person. She also makes bloody good cakes. - JJMarsh


What was your favourite childhood book, or books?
The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge.  The tone is perfect; a seamless mix of the fairy-tale and the real.  It also has a plain heroine, which delighted me beyond words as a child, because I was a very plain little girl and I hadn’t met many literary heroines who weren’t breathtakingly pretty.  The opening paragraphs of The Little White Horse have stayed with me all my life.  Goudge says that there are three kinds of people in this world: those who find consolation in food, those who find consolation in literature, and those who find consolation in personal adornment.

I know I read Little Women when I was eight, because we moved house shortly afterwards, when I was nine.  Naturally, I whole-heartedly identified with Jo March, she of the burning literary ambition and short temper.  My mother had everything Georgette Heyer ever wrote, so I whipped through those, too, when I was a pre-teen, and I FINALLY found a plain heroine there, too (Phoebe, in ‘Sylvester’, who also – hooray! - happened to be a writer).

Basically, I lived for books, and was sustained by literary characters with whom I could identify – I was your basic, common-or-garden bookworm, complete with freckles and National Health spectacles.

Writers always bemoan a lack of time. Amid family responsibilities, charity work and publicity demands, how do you carve out creative space?

You have to be highly disciplined.  In her stunning biography of Colette, Secrets of the Flesh, Judith Thurman wrote that mothering and writing ‘are, at times, conflicting vocations’ - very true.  My children come before my work, but when I’m in the thick of a novel, writing comes before answering emails and letters, returning telephone calls, doing mundane jobs around the house – virtually everything.  By this you may deduce that I’ve got exceptionally patient friends (as you well know) and an amazing, tolerant husband.

Ebooks – Nemesis or Genesis?
Genesis.  There’s no point trying to hold back progress, but print will never die; there’s no substitute for the feel of an actual book. I adore physically turning pages, and being able to underline passages and not worrying about dropping them in the bath or running out of power.  I also find print books objects of beauty, and I don’t speak as a precious, first-edition-mustn’t-crack-the-spine-type collector, but as somebody who loves a shiny new paperback, and the smell of second-hand books. 

However, there are times when e-books are a Godsend.  We forgot to pack my youngest a bedtime book when we were away last year, and I truly appreciated the magic of being able to download one in seconds!  This summer will be the first time that I take away fifty e-books to read while we’re on holiday, rather than filling up my suitcase with print books.

Is there a book that changed your life? If so, how?

Well, setting aside the obvious answer (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) I’d have to go for Jessica Mitford’s Hons and Rebels.  My great aunt thought that Jessica Mitford was a simply deplorable character (Mitford ran away from her upper class family to become a Communist and join the war against Franco in the 1930s), and I overheard her telling my mother all about her, when I was fourteen. I showed interest, so Auntie Ivy gave me an old copy of Mitford’s autobiography, glad, no doubt, to get it off her respectable bookshelves.  It was a most dangerous book to give to a dissatisfied, left-leaning teenager; Jessica Mitford immediately became my heroine. I read everything she’d ever written and ended up naming my eldest daughter after her.

Would you describe your writing room and its points of interest?

I share a study with my husband, so there are two computers back-to -back on an enormous partner’s desk, but I have the room to myself during the day.  My side of the desk is a health hazard.  Around me as I type this are: a long bit of dried-out orange peel, an empty plastic carton that held blueberries, half a bag of salted pretzels (two weeks old), an empty box that contained Optrex Eye Drops, a ton of reference books, a telephone buried out of sight under sundry bits of paper, a couple of old newspapers, a lot of pens (mostly defunct), a pair of broken sunglasses and a single earring.  The rest of the room is pretty untidy, too, though not as bad as my side of the desk. I’d love to blame some of it on Neil, but it’s really me.  I am much better at organizing ideas than stacks of paper.

I should add that I can, and do, write all over my house, and many other places besides.  I love writing in bed, and I’ve got a favourite chair in our sitting room, where I sometimes go with my laptop if I fancy a change of scene.  My fondness for cafés is also well-known.

What cheers and/or depresses you about the world of publishing today?

I feel as though I am slightly out of the loop on this one, not having published for a few years.  My agent says that it is a difficult time for an unknown to be published, but I still believe that if you’ve got the goods, you will triumph eventually. 

Are there any books you re-read?

Lots and lots.  When I’m working, I find it incredibly difficult to read new books (although when I’m between my own novels, I devour other people’s).  So if I’m writing, I re-read.  I’ve re-read all of Jane Austen so often I can actually visualize the type on the page; I love Colette, Katherine Mansfield, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, E. F. Benson and P. G. Wodehouse, all of whom are always beside my bed.  I read a lot of diaries and biographies, too; Chips Channon’s also a fixture on the bedside bookshelves, as is the afore-mentioned Secrets of the Flesh, and everything by Frances Donaldson is eminently re-readable.  

Which word or phrase do you overuse – in writing or in life?

 I’m not proud to say that it’s probably swearwords in every day life.  Writing the Harry Potter books, I got sick to death of the words ‘passage’, ‘corridor’ and all others relating to my heroes’ endless movement around Hogwarts castle.

A.S. Byatt ruffled feathers when she pronounced the Orange Prize sexist. Do you think women need a separate platform for recognition?

Well, there’s no doubt that female writers have been under-represented when it comes to winning the big literary prizes (in contrast with awards for children’s literature, which are very egalitarian).  Clearly, there are two possible conclusions to be drawn from largely male shortlists and prize winners: either female writers aren’t as talented as their male counterparts, or the world of big literary prizes echoes the under-representation of women in other areas of society.  I subscribe to the second view, so I would say that the Orange Prize does a useful job in giving the best female writers of the day the kind of exposure that they might not otherwise receive.  

Confess your guilty reading pleasure

Whodunnits, especially of the Golden Age – Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh.  Although, if I’m honest, I don’t feel guilty about them.  Reading trashy magazines makes me feel most ashamed of myself.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997. Since then, how have you changed as a writer?

I hope I’ve got better.  I think I have.

The perennial literature debate flowered recently. How distinct is literary fiction from genre fiction, in your view?

There has always been an overlap.  The late J. G. Ballard being the modern example that springs to mind; an outstanding writer who ‘transcended’ the science fiction genre.   I am pretty indifferent to the distinction between ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ fiction myself, and I hop pretty freely between the two as a reader without feeling remotely as though I am ‘slumming it’.  So-called ‘genre’ fiction has given us deathless characters like Sherlock Holmes, Ford Prefect and James Bond, who have forever influenced our culture and language; what is there to be snobbish about?

Tell us your secret talent(s) – apart from the cakes

I was going to say the cakes, so that’s put me right off my stride.  I like doing killer Sudokus - does that count as a talent?  I also have prehensile toes, though I suppose that might be classified as deformity.  Nobody has ever enjoyed watching me write with my feet.

J K (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling was born in the summer of 1965 at Yate General Hospital in England and grew up in Chepstow, Gwent where she went to Wyedean Comprehensive. 

Jo left Chepstow for Exeter University, where she earned a French and Classics degree, and where her course included one year in Paris. As a postgraduate she moved to London to work at Amnesty International, doing research into human rights abuses in Francophone Africa.  She started writing the Harry Potter series during a Manchester to London King’s Cross train journey, and during the next five years, outlined the plots for each book and began writing the first novel. 

Jo then moved to northern Portugal, where she taught English as a foreign language.  She married in October 1992 and gave birth to her daughter Jessica in 1993.  When her marriage ended, she returned to the UK to live in Edinburgh, where she trained as a teacher, and where Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone was eventually completed.  In 1996 she received an offer of publication and the book was first published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books in June 1997, under the name JK Rowling.

Jo married Dr. Neil Murray in 2001, and a brother for Jessica, David, was born in 2003. A second sister, Mackenzie, followed in January 2005.

J K Rowling has received the following honours and awards: Order of the British Empire (OBE), 2001 • Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, Spain, 2003  • The Edinburgh Award, 2008 • Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur: France, 2009• Honorary Degrees from the University of Exeter,  University of St Andrews, Napier University, University of Edinburgh, Dartmouth College, USA, Harvard University, USA, University of Aberdeen • Commencement speaker, Harvard University, USA, 2008 • James Joyce Award, University College Dublin, 2008 • Author of the Year, British Book Awards, 1999 • Booksellers Association Author of the Year, 1998 and 1999 • W H Smith Fiction Award, 2004 • Blue Peter Gold Badge, awarded 2007 • Outstanding Achievement Award, South Bank Show Awards, 2008 • Lifetime Achievement Award, British Book Awards 2008

J K Rowling supports a wide number of charities and causes.

She set up the Volant Charitable Trust, which supports a wide number of causes related to social deprivation and associated problems, particularly as they affect women and children.  The Trust has funded a variety of projects in the UK and abroad.  It also supports research into the causes and treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.

For seven years she was an Ambassador of One Parent Families, now called Gingerbread, a charity working with lone parents and their children. In 2007 she took an honorary position as President for the charity.

Since 1999 J K Rowling has been a supporter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, for nine of those years as its Patron.  Having lost her mother to MS at the age of 45, this is one of the causes closest to Jo’s heart and her support has included planning and hosting fundraising events, directly lobbying politicians, writing articles and giving interviews to raise awareness of this very Scottish disease, and contributing significant funds for research in Scotland, including research establishments in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.  She has recently stepped down as Patron of the charity but continues to fund MS research directly.

In 2005 J K Rowling co-founded the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG) with Emma Nicholson MEP, inspired by a press report she read about children in caged beds in institutions in the Czech Republic.  This charity aims to make life better for young people in care, in Eastern Europe and ultimately all over the world.  In 2007 J K Rowling auctioned for CHLG a copy of one of the seven special editions of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which raised £1.95 million. In December 2008 the book was widely published in aid of the charity and became the fastest-selling book of that year.  In February 2010 the UK-based arm of the charity became Lumos.

Jo has supported a wide range of other causes and charities, including Comic Relief, for which she has written two short books; The Maggie’s Centres for Cancer Care, of which she was a Patron for several years, and Medecins sans Frontieres, in aid of which she performed in an event with Stephen King and John Irving in New York in 2006.

Images copyright JP Masclet