Talking to author RACHEL HORE on “World Book Night” 23 April

23rd April 2021

TF: World Book Night: to mark the 10th Anniversary of World Book Night, Simon and Schuster have published a specially commissioned e-book “Stories To Make You Smile” (and gosh, given the last few months we certainly need some smiles in our lives). Can you tell us more about your contribution to this book?

RH: I sometimes find inspiration for short stories in advertising slogans,  because I like to explore their glib promises that your life will change if you buy the product.  My World Book Night story is called ‘A Relaxing Day of Retail Therapy’. I was stuck in a traffic jam and saw the phrase on the back of a bus advertising Park and Ride. I smiled as I usually find ‘Retail Therapy’ very stressful.  In my story, two friends’ day out shopping is not relaxing at all and almost ends in catastrophe!

TF: I note that you live and work in Norwich, which has recently been awarded the amazing status of UNESCO City of Literature. What impact do you feel that award has had on the city and how has the city translated this wonderful accolade into tangible elements for both residents and visitors, would you say?

RH: Norwich is very proud of having become the UK’s first UNESCO City of Literature in 2012, basing its application on the long tradition of literary activity in the city – Mother Julian, Sir Thomas Browne and Harriet Martineau have been just some of its writers – and its burgeoning contemporary literary scene that includes the University of East Anglia’s prestigious Creative Writing school, the Arts Council funded National Centre for Writing, the award winning Millennium Library, various literary festivals and several independent bookshops.  The award provides a focus of shared identity for Norwich enabling it to develop a number of projects such as the UNESCO Young Ambassador programme which encourages young people to share their love of reading, writing, books and ideas with their schools and wider community.  There are statistics to suggest that its literary credentials contribute to tourism and business in the city, too. In ‘normal’ times it is possible to attend a literary event most days of the week in Norwich!  We’ve been busy with online events during the pandemic and are looking forward to many of the usual real-life activities resuming when it’s safe.

TF: ‘With her second novel, Rachel Hore proves she does place and setting as well as romance and relationships (Daily Mirror)…. Wonderfully for us at TripFiction you often choose different settings for your novels. What draws you to a place in particular and how do you go about researching the historical elements of your novels?

RH: A sense of place is often an inspiration for my writing.  I have always been sensitive to atmosphere, so if I find myself in an old courtyard or street or in an ancient Norfolk church (of which there are many) I’ll quickly fall into a daydream about who might have lived in the area and what secrets of its past could be waiting to be uncovered.  Sometimes this feeling possesses me and then I know it’s a place to set a story.  The contemporary aspects of my books are drawn from the world around me and the kinds of conflicts that people experience in their lives.  Again, it’s simply what interests me that makes it into the books.  Apart from having explored the place in question, I will read everything that I can about it that seems relevant.  History books offer context, but diaries, memoirs, old postcards and pamphlets can supply the everyday details that a writer needs to dramatize a scene and build characters and dialogue.  Once I know what I’m doing in the novel and precisely what else I need the internet becomes valuable to search for pictures, old films etc.

TF: Which setting tempts you next and why?

RH: The next novel is set in North Norfolk and France during World War II. I know Norfolk well, of course, and I’ve written about France in this period before, and because we haven’t been able to travel it was a conscious decision to choose settings that I haven’t needed desperately to visit as part of my research.  They are both settings that I love and which offer me endless material so I have experienced no shortage of creative inspiration in writing about them.

TF: Travel has been off the agenda for some time now. How have you managed your wanderlust and lack of research trips? And where will you be heading once we are all a little freer?

RH: It’s a useful exercise to work with what I have at hand, without the need to go abroad.  We’re planning a holiday in Cornwall later in the year, and I do have an idea for a book to be set there – another of my favourite settings. Beyond that, who knows.

TF: How have you managed family commitments and your writing over the periods of lockdown – what worked for you, what didn’t work so well?

RH: My husband is a writer, too, so we’ve largely been hunkered down at home getting on with our respective projects, while trying to be useful to those around us where we can.  Our youngest son, a student, has been with us some of the time, which has been lovely for us, but not so much for him because he misses his university and his friends.  My other sons are in Oxford and London, but we facetime regularly. My mother and siblings live 120 miles away, so that’s been hard.  I have spoken to my mother most days, which has often been delightful because I know the little details of her lockdown life now and it’s easy to pick up the conversation from the day before.  I would say that a low-level sense of anxiety throughout has affected my ability to write. Sometimes it’s been a struggle to sit down at the appointed time and get on with it.  The acquisition of a puppy dog has been both a delight and a terrible distraction, but she’s made us take exercise, which is excellent.

TF: Which novels are you currently reading for pleasure? 

RH: I’m enjoying Nicola Cornick’s lovely The Last Daughter about the Wars of the Roses. I’ve nearly finished a big fat biography of the Brontës by Juliet Barker, which is totally absorbing, and is going to send me back to Jane Eyre and Villette.

World Book Night, the annual celebration of reading organised by The Reading Agency in partnership with Specsavers, takes place on Friday 23 April.

Catch Rachel on Twitter and Facebook and Insta and you can access Rachel’s books on THIS LINK

Author contributors to “Stories to Make you Smile”

And on this link you can discover “10 Reasons Norwich Is One Of The World’s Most Irresistible Holiday Destinations” via The Guardian

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