Event Preview: Interview with Mari Strachan

We liked Mari Strachan's debut novel, 'The Earth Hums in B Flat' so much that we've invited her to come and talk about it at Mr B's on 16th September (www.mrbsemporium.com/events.htm). We're so excited about her impending visit that we've asked her a few taster questions. Here's what she had to say.....

Mr B: One of the things I loved about the 'The Earth Hums in B Flat' were the smaller characters who made the small-town Welsh community come alive. Do you have a favourite of those non-central characters and if so would you describe him/her in a few words?

Mari: I loved writing all the ‘smaller’ characters: each one had a history, although it never appeared in the book, but I guess it informed the character and made that character into a real person. My favourite is the farm-wife at Penrhiw Farm, Bessie Williams, with her soft and scented bosom and her non-stop talking. She’s lived at the farm since she was married and she’s of the same generation as Gwenni’s grandmother. She’s bewildered by all the changes that are taking place and uncomfortable with them. The farm is a little way outside the town and she doesn’t see anybody for days on end sometimes so when she’s in company she can’t stop talking. I see her as the Greek chorus in the book; she has a little speech in each of the three parts where her comments on what’s happening are spot on. I loved writing her, I thought she was kind and caring, and, although her appearances are few, I felt that she played an important role in the book as a comic character and as a commentator.

Mr B: If you had Gwenni’s tendency to fly at night and you swept over a literary event and saw yourself giving a reading from 'The Earth Hums' and answering questions, what interesting question would you want to hear an audience-member ask you that you haven’t had up until now?

Mari: This is cheating a bit – but I’ve just had a question (one among many!) from an Italian magazine (EH is to be published in Italy in September) which no-one has asked before about an aspect of the book of which I was not particularly aware. And this is it:
‘Gwenn, Bethan, Mam, Nain, Elin Evans, Alwenna, Catrin and Angharad etc...... The central and most relevant actors of the novel are women. Women who act, take decisions, make mistakes, bring on the plot of the novel..... It sounds that men are mostly "spectators", they watch and suffer the consequences of women's acts (like Tada, for example). What can you say about that?’
Well, what can I say about that? It’s fascinating isn’t it? I’ll have thought hard about it and will have written the answer by the 16th September and, if you like, I’ll share it with you all then and see what you think!

Mr B: On your website (http://www.maristrachan.info/) you’ve got a page called “Reading: A Page for Bookworms” with a photograph of a stack of books. It’s got a real range of titles - from Obama to Watchmen. Are they your books? Was that a random selection or can we get a good overview of your reading tastes from that photo?

Mari: A bit of a work in progress, that website! The books in the stack are mine, pulled off the shelves and from under chair cushions especially for this photograph. They are fairly representative of my reading tastes, which is quite catholic as I tend to read whatever takes my fancy. There are some books there which were to hand because I had/was about to read at events with their authors and had just been re-reading them. Maybe my addiction to ‘crime’ novels is slightly under-represented! I usually have more poetry books around to dip into than the couple in this stack. Watchmen was a present from my youngest son. I struggle with the combination of words and pictures in graphic novels, and I can’t think why that is – I was very fond of my ‘comics’ as a child.

Mr B: Another one on reading if I may….I guarantee our audience will be interested in asking about your influences and your all-time favourites and I won’t spoil their fun. But perhaps you could tell me a couple of things that you’re read and been impressed by this year in between all the interviews and events you’ve been doing since the release of “The Earth Hums”?

Mari: The ones that stand out are Pat Barker’s Life Class: no-one does this period better than she does with her pared down style which makes everything so moving, and which I so admire; Kate Atkinson’s When Will there be Good News: I’ve loved her convoluted plots and her clever style since I read Behind the Scenes…; and Fred Vargas’s The Chalk Circle Man (this is the first written of the Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg crime novels, though not the first published in English): these novels are the epitome of Frenchness for moi (who knows little about France or the French), Adamsberg is delicious, and the plots completely wacky – fantastique!

Mr B: We sometimes try to playfully theme the nibbles that we serve with an event. What nibbles would your wonderful heroine Gwenni like to see at your event do you think?

Mari: Gwenni has such a sweet tooth, doesn’t she? I think she’d love a big chocolate cake with lashings of buttercream (my mouth is watering) or maybe biscuits like Mrs Sergeant Jones’s famous vanilla biscuits. If that is just overly sickly for an evening do with a glass of wine, then I’m sure she’d be quite happy with something made with red cheese. But absolutely NO minced mouse sandwiches, thank you.
I’m very much looking forward to my visit to Mr B’s Emporium and to meeting you all and answering any questions you may have.

Event Preview: Interview with Sophie Hannah

In anticipation of the fabulously multi-talented Sophie Hannah's upcoming visit to Mr B's (www.mrbsemporium.com/events.htm) we asked the poet and short story/thriller writer a few warm-up questions...

Mr B: You’ve written many different genres including poetry, short story collections and of course thrillers such as “The Other Half Lives”. Does your writing process differ greatly from genre to genre?

Sophie: In some ways, I think writing poetry and writing crime fiction are very similar processes, because, in both cases, structure is paramount. In a poem, if one word isn't right, or if one line has a dodgy rhythm, it can bring down the whole construct. In a crime novel, if you want to have a big moment of revelation in chapter thirty, you have to lay the groundwork (ie plant the relevant information) in chapter three. Whatever form I'm writing in, I'm quite obsessed with structure, with the skeleton behind the story or poem, as it were. I think that's true of my short stories as well. I like the things I write to have proper shapes. In terms of the process, writing a novel is a full-time job - when I'm writing the first draft of one of my thrillers, I'm at my desk for at least seven hours a day, typing away. When I write poetry or short stories, because they're shorter, there's less of a stretch of hard labour involved. I might sit at my desk in front of the computer for eight hours a day, but perhaps only for one or two days instead of a hundred and fifty days!

Mr B: In a novel as complex as ‘The Other Half Lives’ with regards to plot and character development, how on earth do you go about mapping and structuring the writing process? Is it necessary to have a very firm idea of the ultimate plot destination?

Sophie: I like to have a firm idea of the plot and character development before I start, because I don't want to invest any time in writing a novel that I might have to give up half way through. So I like to check before I start that the plot is feasible and will work from start to finish - that's why I tend to plan it all out. The plot of 'The Other Half Lives' is very intricate, but I don't remember working it out as such. One minute all I had was the opening mystery - why would anyone confess to the murder of someone who isn't dead? - and then, about six months later, an entire plot, complete with fully fleshed out characters, simply appeared in my head to go with that opening idea. My ideas/plots often arrive like that - as if by magic. The hard part is then making the idea that I've been 'given' into as good a book as I possibly can.

Mr B: Perusing your website (http://www.sophiehannah.com/) we also noticed that you have written the English versions of some of the classic Tove Jansson Moomin comic books. How did that come about? Do you have any Finnish heritage?!

Sophie: No, I'm not at all Finnish. My verse versions of Tove Jansson's Moomin books were based on literal translations of the original. I was chosen because the originals had a jaunty rhyme and rhythm, and I'm known to be the sort of poet who doesn't baulk at being asked to write jauntily and metrically. Originally the publishers asked another poet to do it, but she couldn't promise that her version would rhyme - she suggested me to the publisher, as most of my poetry rhymes, and for me it's easy to write in rhyming verse.

Mr B: If we ask you nicely will you also read us a poem during your event?

Sophie: Yes - I often start and end my fiction events with poems, so that will be no problem at all!

Twitter and Shelfari and Leah

Embarassing lack of blogs recently on this so-called blog of bloggy delights. Blog of not much going on more like. 

Well we've got an excuse or two:

Here's the main one. That's Leah B, now 2 months old and already finished 4 of the 6 Jane Austen novels of course. Although she found them a bit fussy and intends to try something 

Another one is that we've been playing a bit on twitter. If you're not already following our twitrevues and other musings and chat with author types on twitter then get in amongst it now by going to www.twitter.com/mrbsemporium. 

Another thing we just came across was www.shelfari.com which lets you put up piccies of your books and reviews and what not. We're going to add stuff we read or want to read on that too. There's a widget to our first few shelfari books on the side bar of our blog...see it?....go down a bit...there you go. Just a few recent great reads so far.