August's Publication is...

"Introducing England's most eccentric family . . .

It is the early Sixties, and thirteen-year old Cassandra Fitzpatrick is growing up in a household full of waifs and strays and general misfits. Despite her unorthodox home life, however, she is generally content – until something happens to her that turns her life upside-down.
Cass’s unhappiness deepens when she wins a scholarship to boarding school and is torn away from all she knows and loves – especially her adored, if wildly unconventional, mother. In time, Cass begins to settle down, but accustomed though she is to her mother's eccentricities, even she is not prepared for the announcement Mrs Fitzpatrick is about to make.
Years later, as her beloved mother lies dying from cancer, the adult Cass is reassessing the experiences, good and bad, that have made her who she is. The Bird, the Bees and Other Secrets is the story of how one woman comes to terms with her extraordinary past and eventually finds happiness. It is a novel about the brevity of childhood and the responsibilities of adults, and a reminder that love can be found in the most unexpected places."

About the Author

Frances Garrood's main career was in nursing, and she published many short stories in the odd moments between working and bringing up her four children. She was also a Relate counsellor for many years, and now counsels clients privately at home. She lives with her husband in Wiltshire. Dead Ernest is her first novel.

Hi, Frances, tell us a little about your novel, The Birds, the Bees and Other Secrets:
"The novel initially grew out of a short story I wrote some years ago about a woman sitting with her dying mother and thinking back over her childhood. Of course, there is much more to it than that, but it did give me something to work from and some kind of structure (and I need structure, especially as I don't plan ahead).While the novel is not autobiograpical, the idea was inspired by my own mother, who was very eccentric but also funny, creative and brave. Her life – like the life of the mother in the book – was fraught with difficulties and suffering, and yet she managed to maintain an amazing spirit. It is this spirit which I hope to put across. The novel means a lot to me, not because it is good (I'm not in a position to judge) but because I have put so much of myself into it. The experiences of love, joy, sadness and bereavement have all been mine, in one way or another, and they make the book very personal to me."

The Birds, the Bees and Other Secrets is your second book published by Macmillan New Writing. How has your life changed since they published Dead Ernest in 2007?
"Apart from the yacht and the Porsche, you mean? I think the key word is confidence. The imprimatur of MNW was a tremendous boost, for as we all know, writing can be a lonely business, and to know that someone believed in my book enough to publish it was fantastic. I think I've been on a sort of high ever since that first letter from Mike Barnard, and while many MNW writers' novels have done better than Dead Ernest (so far, although it is now in the early stages of development into a TV film, so you never know...) I still feel excited to be a published author. I haven't yet gone so far as to call myself a 'novelist', but I'm getting there. Also, at my age (I think I'm probably the second oldest MNW writer, after Brian Martin, and my youngest son is the same age as Faye!) it's good to know that it's possible to succeed at something new."

What is your typical writing day?
"I don't have one. I so envy the rigid routine of the 'Get up at 6am, 2 cups of strong coffee, write for 2 hours. 8.15am more coffee and a muesli bar, walk the dog, two more hours' writing etc'brigade, but I simply don't have the self-discipline. I write when I feel like it, which could be any time. Sometimes I write quite a lot; at others, just a few words. But I have set myself a deadline for the WIP (although I'm not telling anyone when it is)."

Four not-so random facts:-

Do you have a writing mantra?
"I think mine is probably 'Keep going, because eventually it'll start writing itself, as it always does (but I get impatient, as I always do...).' Or is that too long? Not very snappy!"

By pen or by keyboard, and why?
"Keyboard every time. I'm far too lazy to write things out more than once (although I have a kind of typing dyslexia, and tend to write letters in the wrong order, so the spell ckeck is in constant use). "

Greatest influences on your writing
"I don't think I'm influenced by other writers, but I read widely. I love many of the 19th century novelists, especially Trollope, Jane Austen (of course) and Mrs. Gaskell. I especially admire writers like Barbara Pym and Anne Tyler, who can write with great delicacy about simple every-day subjects."

Most ludicrous moment in your life
"There have been so many, but none stands out especially. Being pulled fully-clothed into a swimming pool by my grandson at a wedding - will that do?"

Thanks, Frances, and best of luck with The Bird, the Bees and Other Secrets which is published 1st August 2008 and is available at all good booksellers.

You can read an extract of The Bird, the Bees and Other Secrets by clicking here, or for more information please visit the Macmillan New Writing site here.

Launch

If anyone is free and in London on August 7th I would love to see you at the launch for The Birds, The Bees and Other Secrets (6.30 - 8.30pm at Goldsboro Books). I hesitate to ask as I have so far been unable to get to anyone else's launch, living as I do in deepest Wiltshire, but it would be great to see anyone who might be able to make it.

Shameless blog stealing

I've decided that from now on I'm going to lift the blog post about each month's new MNW release and copy it onto my own blog. I used to belong to an American cyber circuit for authors and each month every member would blog about that month's author and her book. It seems like a good thing to do.

Matt's interviews and the authors' responses are interesting and illuminating.

So I've pinched Tim Stretton's interview for this month's release. (What are your syndication fees like, Matt, and do you accept payment in alcohol--assuming we ever get to meet?)

Nik Perring created a meme in which you have to take photos of some of your bookshelves and post them, so I thought I'd join in. Needless to say, I couldn't fit all my books into a handful of pics, so just consider this a taster!


Bookshelf - the aren't-I-clever-and-highbrow section. Oscar and Edgar are guarding their respective Complete Works, which you can't see because the blog layout cut them out of the picture.


Some more fiction (including my own copy of Cover the Mirrors, which is hiding in there somewhere!). On the second shelf nearest the camera, there's a pewter Gollum sitting in the boat with Bilbo Bagginses; an interpretation of the Riddles in the Dark chapter in The Hobbit. Gollum makes Tolkein's work for me - he's awesome.


I call this Heretic's Corner, but there's a variety of non-fiction stuff here, as you can see from the copies of Eats, Shoots and Leaves and Watching the English. You might also recognise the Flying Spaghetti Monster - I made Him out of wool. His pasta is French knitted and His meatballs are pompoms.


A small selection of my history non-fiction collection. The little guy in the hat is Victor the Victorian (from Deepings Dolls), the orange things in the top left are the feet of an Animal Muppet cuddly toy, and the dangly white thing is a sock monkey's tail.

Further to the Previous Post

As long as we're on the topic of the back flap, has anyone noticed that MNW has stopped putting author photos with the bio? The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, The Sleepwalker's Introduction to Flight, and The Dog of the North are all sans pictures.

Brian's Gallows Lane seems to be the last published with an author photo, but I don't think we can attribute this policy change to Brian's mug shot--it's the same one they used for Borderlands.

Now, writers aren't generally a photogenic lot, and I can well imagine that keeping our images off the product might improve sales. But if this is the case, why wasn't it thought of earlier, so we could all have benefitted from those expanded sales?

In any case, this opens up the possibilities in the bionotes. We can now claim different racial backgrounds, or can add lines such as, "He lives above the fire station in Tooting Bec, and makes his living as a male fashion model," or "She came to writing after a successful career in women's boxing, with 15 TKOs on her record."

Things you should or shouldn’t put on your author bio

Over on Tomorrowville I confessed to being struck by lightening twice, something David suggested I should put on my next author bio. And it got me thinking (the bio that is, not being struck by lightening which is something you can’t really avoid if you like being outdoors). My current author bio for Macmillan is this:

“M.F.W. Curran was born in Essex, in 1974. From an early age he was brought up on a diet of fantasy and science-fiction and has been writing stories since he was ten years old. In a past life he worked in the banking industry, for the Government, as a music journalist, and a lyric-writer. The Secret War is his first novel. He lives in Sheffield with his wife, Sarah.”

Now, after The Secret War was published someone “mean” remarked on Grumpy Old Bookman’s blog that my bio was unbelievable and that if I’d done all those things then it made their life look positively dull. Well, I have done all these things, but it’s not as grand as it sounds (well, not to me anyway) and in retrospect putting a faux resume on an author bio might have been fun at the beginning, but now it’s quite tired and I’m looking to change it, maybe not in time for the hardback release of The Horde of Mhorrer in January 2009, but maybe – and let me add, hopefully – when my third book is published. I certainly will post a new author bio on my website this year.

So what is in an author bio? Should it be humorous for a serious book? Should it be serious for a humorous book? Do you buy a book by the author bio? Should it be long, short, or not at all? And should it include ludicrous moments, like being struck by lightening - twice?

enough already

If I'd known that my lame comment, posted below, was going to stay at the top of the heap for so long, I wouldn't have posted it. Anybody got anything less boring to say?

drw

July 4

As nice as you Brits have been, what with publishing my first novel and all, I kind of feel like I should apologize for all that independence stuff we stirred up 232 years ago. Nothing personal. Really.

drw