DECEMBER 2010 3.60www.redmagazine.co.uk

Miranda Dickinson

Welcome to my WORLD

INTERVIEW

WELCOME

TO MY WORLD A WRITER

A DREAMERA hopelessly ROMANTIC,

eternal optimist...

And she isn’t bad at singing,

either.

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iranda Dickinson has always had a head full of stories. Coming from a creative family where stories and songs were always present, it was perhaps inevitable that she would end up adoring wordsA songwriter for over 15 years,

Miranda has successfully penned over thirty songs, delivering both live and recorded performances in a range of venues across the UK and Europe.

RED Magazine: Your publishing journey is a remarkable one. Tell me a little about itMiranda Dickinson: I uploaded a novel I had written (then called Coffee At Kowalski’s) onto Authonomy.com, HarperCollins’ site for unpublished writers, just to seewhat other people thought about it. It never occurred to me that anyone would want to publish it, so whenI received an email from an editor at Avon (Harper Collins)asking to read the full manuscript, I was flabbergasted! I sent the whole thing off, never thinking I’d hearfrom them again, but two weeks later they emailed backthis time asking me to call. I did and - to my utter surprise - they offered me a three-book deal! My debut novel wasrenamed Fairytale of New York and was published in November last year.

RM: And then Fairytale of New York, sold and sold and soldIn your words, it went stratospheric. What do you thinkwas its appeal?MD: I really don’t know, to be completely honest with you!Since Fairytale was published I’ve had fab letters from people who said they loved the story and cared aboutthe characters - and that’s wonderful because it means I’ve written something that entertains people, which is all Iever want to do. I think the New York setting attractedpeople, too. I’m completely in love with the city(from afar still) so I poured years of reading about, hearingabout and watching films set there into the book.I wanted it to be a love song to New York, with people youwant to get to know. Hopefully I did that!

RM: Having read the book, I can’t believe you haven’t beento New York. When are you planning on going?MD: The plan is to try to get there next year - so fingers crossed! The main reason it hasn’t happened yet isthat I haven’t had time! I work three days a week and

‘when I heard I’d made the shortlist it was like adream come true’

when I’m not working I’m writing, so free time is a bithard to come by. But what’s been amazing is thatso many people who have been to New York felt thatFairytale was a really accurate representation of the Big Apple. That means that all the hours of researchand grilling people who’ve been there paid off!

RM: You write and produce music (do you sing as well?). How does this differ from writing a book?MD: I do sing as well! I would say that writingmusic is quicker, except that I’ve been working on myalbum for four years!! I think the main difference is thatin songwriting you need to get an idea or an emotionover very succinctly, so you haven’t got the luxury ofexpanding on something too much. But that really helps when I’m writing a novel because it stops mewaffling too much - and it also encourages me to comeup with different ways of expressing love, fear, regret, etc.

RM: How did it feel to be shortlisted for the RomanticNovelists’ Association Novel of the Year?MD: It was awesome and a real surprise! I was chuffed that I made the longlist, so when I heard I’d madethe shortlist it was like a dream come true. I lovedthe whole thing and getting to go to my first awardsceremony with my first book was an absolute honour. It meant the world to me to be recognised by the RNAwho do so much fantastic work to promote romantic fiction in all its forms.

RM: You’ve just signed another deal with Harper Collins (Avon) tell me about it.MD: That was a massive surprise! I’ve signed for another three books, which means that I’ll be releasing a book ayear to 2014. It’s amazing and I have lots of ideas tokeep my books a bit different from others in my genre.I really want to keep surprising the lovely people whopick my book up from the shelves.

RM: What are you working on now? (Welcome to my World and a bit about it?)MD: I’ve just finished the editing process for my second novel, Welcome to My World and it’s being typesetas we speak! It’s the story of Harri Langton, a travelagent in a Black Country village, who knows everything about the world but hasn’t been able to travel to seeany of them for herself (not unlike me with New York!).She’s happy with her boyfriend Rob, even though he hasn’t proposed yet after seven years and only likes to holiday in the UK. Then she meets Alex, who has been

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travelling the world for ten years and returns to Stone Yardley to open a coffee lounge. They become great friendsand he shares his travel stories with Harri, in returnfor her relationship advice for his nightmare love life. Then Alex’s mum (and Harri’s friend) Viv suggests herBig Idea - to nominate Alex for a my single friend- type col-umn in a glossy magazine - and all hell breaks loose!It all leads to Harri fleeing to the Ladies’ loos at StoneYardley Village Hall and locking herself in the middle cubicle, , after it all kicks off at a party. So for most of the book, Harri is locked in the loo, reflecting on the eventsthat led to what has become officially The Worst Night of Her Life!

RM: Have you always enjoyed writing? What made you turn to writing novels?MD: I started writing stories when I was little and it’salways been there in my life, but I didn’t realise thatI was a writer until about eight years ago whenI started to write a story which grew and grew. It wasonly when I realised I’d written 60,000 words that it occurred to me that I was writing a novel! I reallyenjoyed being able to expand on a story idea (havingmainly written short stories previously) and I found that writing novel-length stories gave me more scope to investigate my characters’ lives.

RM: You are the main example held up when people talkabout Authonomy as a way to “beat the slush”. In light of your own experiences, do you think that the viewof Authonomy as some sort of short cut to publicationis an accurate one?MD: I’m not sure that the view of Authonomy as a ‘short-cut to publication’ is accurate - it’s certainly not what the team behind Authonomy would say it is. What Authonomy is, however, is a brilliant place to showcase the wealth of amazing writing out there. Itgives unpublished authors the chance to show their writing - and compared to the slush pile, the site alsogives editors and agents (not just from HarperCollins)the chance to search new writing more specifically, working on the tags that each Authonomy author chooses for their own work.

‘Being nominatedfor the RNA Romantic

Novel of the Year Award was a

tremendous honour’RM: What is your proudest moment to date?MD: There have been so many! Walking into my favourite bookshop in Birmingham and seeing my book on the shelves was probably the best one, because for years I’ddriven my boyfriend mad by saying ‘one day my bookwill be in here’ every time we walked in! Being nominatedfor the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award was atremendous honour and although I never thought I’d win, itwas such a great feeling to know that my peers hadrecognised my work like that. Also, becoming a Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller was pretty cool - completelycrazy, of course, but thrilling. But what gives me themost pride is when I receive emails from people who haveread my book and loved it. That’s all I ever want to do:write stories that entertain people.

RM: You’re a very creative person! Does your experiencewriting music influence your novels, and vice versa?MD: Yes, I think it does. My third novel is actually based around a wedding band (not unlike the one I sing with now) and will bring together all my gigstories and experiences of singing with various bandsover the years. I think that if you are creative, then youcan utilise several different avenues for your creativ-ity. I’ve always been involved in music in one way or another and have been writing songs seriously since I was 19. I just love the buzz you get from creating something out of nothing - whether that’s a song, a story or a film. I think songwriting is great

There’s no doubt that without Authonomy, it would be very unlikelythat I would be a published authortoday. I’d always intended to submitmy work to agents at some point - but I always talked myself out of it.Because of this - and because ofthe fact that the book which was

discovered was one I never thought anyone else would bebothered about - I do feel somewhat of an ‘accidental novelist’: I still feel shell-shocked that I’m now writingfor a living and I feel like the luckiest person alive.

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for influencing story writingbecause you have to get acrossyour theme/emotions/story in relatively few words. You also have to delve deeperinto your feelings to be ableto express them through music.I like songwriting, singing and performing music because by and large I get to do themwith other people, whereasmy novel writing is an almostwholly solo pursuit. That suitsboth sides of my character:the gregarious side and the more introspective.

RM: What is your ultimate goalin the writing world?MD: To keep writing booksthat surprise people. I’m veryfortunate to now be able to writesix books in total for Avon, soI want each one to be better thanhe one before. I’d like to write

different genre novels, too, atsome stage in the future - I’ve two comedy novels waiting inthe wings (more in the ilk of Jasper Fforde and Sir Terry Pratchett) that I would dearlylove to see published one day.Most of all, I don’t ever wanto think I’ve got writingsussed. I want to continue tochallenge myself and grow asa writer - and hopefully have some readers come along for the ride!

RM: And finally, if you had tosum up a key piece of advicefor aspiring writers in one sen-tence, what would it be?MD: Keep writing, keep creating and NEVER, EVER stop believing!

‘Keep writing, keep creating and NEVER, EVER stop believing!’

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Close your eyes and imagine the world is your oyster…And now imagine never seeing it. Welcome to Harriet Langton’s world. All her life she’s dreamt of travelling the globe - fate

always got in the way.Working as a travel agent, the closest Harri comes to her dream destination of Venice is booking the trip for someone else. But everything changes when travel fanatic Alex drops in.With her boyfriend Rob tied up with work, Harri is persuaded to help Alex in his quest for love. But in her attempts to help, Harri soon

discovers that she’s alienating those

around her. Desperate to leave her life behind, will her dreams finally come true? Or will Harri’s leap of faith be her biggest mistake yet?A gorgeous love story for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Jill Mansell.