A Conversation with Linda Huber

Linda Huber lives in Arbon, Switzerland where she works as a language teacher in the beautiful and inspirational setting of Arbon Castle, overlooking Lake Constance. Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, Linda left for Switzerland, aged 22, with the view to working and travelling for a year but remained there to raise her two children. 

Linda originally trained as a physiotherapist and worked in this field for many years before moving into teaching. Close contact with neurological patients and handicapped children has given her an insight into the different coping mechanisms people have when faced with difficult and stressful situations and this has helped her in her writing.

Linda has had the writing bug since she was very young and has seen over fifty of her short stories and articles published. She loves to read suspense and thrillers and writes in this genre.

Although Linda has been writing throughout her life she considered it a hobby until the publication of her first novel, The Paradise Trees, in September 2013. Just a year later, in August 2014, The Cold Cold Sea, was published and now, July 2015, her third novel, The Attic Room, has just been released.

The Attic Room: When Nina is bequeathed a substantial estate from a man she has never heard of her life is thrown into turmoil as she unpicks the threads of her past and that of her mysterious benefactor. Having travelled from her house on Arran to see the house she has inherited, Nina becomes embroiled in blackmail and lies as she uncovers dark family secrets. It is a novel full of suspense and intrigue and we wish Linda every success with it. A trailer of the novel can be viewed.

Tell us of your journey as a writer

I started as a seven-year-old, doing my Writer’s Badge in the Brownies and discovering that this was something I REALLY enjoyed. That was it; I haven’t stopped for longer than a few weeks ever since. As a youngster I wrote stories about children and these became novels for children. By the time I had my own boys I was also writing short stories for magazines, and when that was moderately successful I began my first adult novel, the book which became The Cold Cold Sea. I sent it to a few agents over the years but never really thought it would be published. But to my astonishment, in 2012 Legend Press picked up my second novel The Paradise Trees (thus turning it into my first published one) and I was a published writer!

How do you see your role as a writer and what do you like most about it?
I love writing – creating my paper people, shaping their world, their hopes and fears, their story. It’s the best feeling in the world when you write something and it works. I’m not sure I have a role as a writer because I write very selfishly, for myself first of all. And in a way it’s like having children – I love my book ‘babies’ and I’m gratified when others like them too, but I would still feel the same about them if no one else ever read them.

Have you ever created a character who you dislike but find yourself empathising with?
No. I’ve created a character who does awful things – the Stranger in The Paradise Trees – but although I see what made him the way he is, that isn’t truly empathy because I don’t understand how anyone could make such bad choices. Many people have similar childhoods without becoming Strangers. In The Cold Cold Sea I can empathise with Phillip, who does a truly terrible thing, but he’s such a nice guy, I just want to hug him!

If you could be transported instantly, anywhere in the world, where would you most like to spend your time writing?
Ooh, if instant transport was available I’d go to a different place every week and soak up inspiration. I’d start in Scotland, on one of the islands, then I’d go to Cornwall and Greece and to Hawaii and California and New York. It sounds amazing. Wish it was possible!

What is the one book you wish you had written?
A High Wind in Jamaica (by Richard Hughes).

What advice do you have for would be novelists?
When you’ve written your novel, you’re a novelist, and your job now is to make it the best novel it can become. For this you need outside help. (If I’m allowed to make recommendations here I’ll mention The Writers’ Workshop. I still work with the editor I met there in 2011.) Then you can choose if you want to look for an agent, a small indie publisher, or self publish. There’s never been as much choice as we have today.

What are you currently working on? What can we look forward to reading?
I’ve just self-published The Attic Room and hope to have another out this year or early next. Then I have a further completed and edited novel and at the moment I’m swithering about what to do with this one. My work-in-progress has a working title of The Death of Grandma Vee. It’s based on a lengthy subplot we edited out of The Attic Room because it was really a novel in itself. It’s fascinating using it now with different characters - the plot is developing in quite a different way.

You can follow Linda on Twitter:@LindaHuber19

A Conversation with Helen Barbour

Helen Barbour was born and brought up in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and now lives in North London. She began her working life as a journalist on the Express & Star evening newspaper in Wolverhampton, and has written for the lifestyle magazine, Complete Wellbeing, and for the mental health charities Mind and OCD Action. Raj Persaud, well known consultant psychiatrist, (and ex-member of Greenacre Writers) recently interviewed Helen about her OCD. 

She blogs as The Reluctant Perfectionist about living with obsessive‑compulsive disorder, perfectionism and anxiety. Helen enjoys red wine, live stand-up comedy and adventurous travel and experiences, which have included trips to the Arctic, ballooning and a tandem skydive. Her life’s ambition is to figure out what ‘good enough’ means. 

Helen is a member of Greenacre Writers, whose Finish That Novel group helped her to fine-tune her debut novel, The A to Z of Normal, which has just been published. This week, Helen talks to us about why and how she wrote it.

What inspired you to write The A to Z of Normal?

Like many a writer – and, indeed, non-writer – I’d been saying I wanted to write a novel for years, but did nothing about it until one of my closest friends was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That made me reflect on what I would want to have achieved, if that were me, and provided the impetus for me to turn my dream into reality.

I was inspired to write about mental health issues by my own experience of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety. There is still a huge amount of stigma around mental health, and I wanted to raise awareness and understanding, but to do this in an accessible way.

Tell us a little bit about the book
It’s the story of a woman struggling to overcome her obsessive‑compulsive behaviour, so that she can marry the man she loves, while also dealing with some difficult family relationships.

My approach is similar to that of Mark Haddon, who wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother, in which the central character suffers a mental breakdown. I write in a similar vein: tackling serious topics, but with a light touch.

How long did it take to write?
It’s always hard to answer that question! I started it nearly 10 years ago, but when I say ‘started it’, I mean that I faffed about for the first 10 months, doing research, plotting and developing characters…until some friends on a writing forum pointed out that I had turned a necessary activity into a form of procrastination. It was certainly much more fun – and easier – to sit and make up characters than to put fingers to keyboard and actually write a book.

When I finally started, I set myself the target of producing 2,500 words a week, as the prospect of writing 100,000 words was too daunting to contemplate.

The first draft took a little over a year to write and I was pretty pleased with the end result. Just a bit of tinkering and editing and it’ll be done, I thought…until I read it again three months later. In fact, every sentence was badly overwritten, some chapters were utterly contrived and, worst of all, it was in the wrong tense.

The second draft largely consisted of converting the text from the past to the present tense, which wasn’t nearly as easy as it might sound.

And so began years of rewrites – if I’d known at the outset how many were to come, I might have thrown the whole thing on the fire at that point! In fact, I lost count of the number of so-called ‘final’ drafts, but none of that work was wasted. With every redraft, I learned more about my craft: from technical skills, such as how to use a semi‑colon correctly(!), to the subtler aspects of writing, like adding symbolism and developing sub-plots.

I also left the novel untouched for long periods, while I made submissions to agents and publishers.

What prompted you to self-publish?
In spite of getting a lot of great feedback, including two requests to see the whole manuscript, I didn’t receive any offers of representation; as most writers will know, it’s a tough time to be an unknown debut novelist.

Ultimately, I decided that it was more important to me for my book to be out in the world, being read, than to secure a traditional publishing deal. From the comments and reviews I’ve had so far, I know I made the right decision.


The A-Z of Normal (2015) is published by SilverWood Books
You can follow Helen on Twitter: @HelenTheWriter

A Hippopotamus at the Table

Anna Meryt is a member of Greenacre Writers 'Finish That Novel' group. She has published two collections of poetry, Dolly Mix: A Take Your Pick Poetry Collection poetry and Heartbroke described as a collection "...to inspire hope through experience and identification...Meryt does her motivation proud with titles like 'Hurling Bricks', 'A Shell Explodes' and 'Give Me A Break'." 

Anna has just published her memoir, A Hippopotamus at the Table, the story of a journey to a new life in Cape Town, South Africa in 1975.

Anna, with her husband and baby travelled to South Africa in 1975 at a time when apartheid was at its height. Their journey took them from a high rise apartment in Johannesburg, to a chicken farm and then a thousand miles across the Karoo to Cape Town. There they lived for over two years at a time of growing social unrest against the rigid strictures of the apartheid system. Her husband’s work as an actor took him touring from Cape Town to the townships and into major roles in innovative theatre. Anna's journey became a spiritual quest to make sense of the world in which she found herself, a world where black and white mingled but were kept apart.

The government of the time was clamping down, enforcing rigid censorship and the separation of people. It was the children of the townships who fermented the riots of 1976, rebelling against the oppressive rules of a hateful system. The murders of these children resulted in a huge outcry across the world. Censorship kept that largely hidden from many of the people who lived there.This is a story of a young family living in those times in South Africa.

The effects of apartheid crept up on them until two tragedies drove them to realise that continuing to live there had become untenable.

"Waiting at the reception desk to check in, I saw the toilet signs for the first time, in both Afrikaans and English – Blanke Dames (White Ladies), Nie Blanke Vrou (Non-White Females) … the first time I had to go, I stood outside, hesitating, feeling that by choosing one I was accepting their distinction."

You can see Anna being interviewed about the book via Arise News 

GW Book Club

This month's book choice is:

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2014) by Karen Joy Fowler

Karen Joy Fowler is the award-winning author of three short story collections and six novels, including her bestselling The Jane Austen Book Club (2004). She is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the nineteenth century, the lives of women, and alienation. Her latest novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a remarkable story of a seemingly ordinary American family, where behavioral science trumps love, where a chimp is a sister, and daughters are research subjects. Fowler serves up a heartrending tale of loss and despair with her signature wit and humor, challenging our definition of what it means to be family, what it means to be human, and what it means to be humane. From a family undone by ambition and grief, narrator Rosemary takes a surprise filled search for brother (Lowell) and sister (Fern) through a forgotten past that explores the mysterious workings of memory.

If you want to join in with the GW online book club email: greenacrewriters@gmail.com

We read the book by July 9th and discuss it online or at the next Writers Meet-Up (Second Wednesday of alternate months) for anyone interested in writing.

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015 Readings

Greenacre Book Club
Meral Mehmet:

It was great to be given a free ticket and my ‘one other’ also enjoyed the evening too.  The evening comprised of readings of sections from the books shortlisted for the Bailey’s prize.  All but Ann Tyler, who was unable to attend but had her friend Stanley Tucci, film star etc reading on her behalf, were there and read extracts. For my part, having been quite critical about the book we read – The Paying Guest – Sarah Waters read well and the voice of Frances was much more sympathetic than had come across on the page.

It is always exciting to put faces to the names of authors that most of us will have read and especially interesting to hear how they translate the voice of their characters and where they would put the accent on to a sentence etc which is more likely to give you a view of something you might not have picked up.  Both me and my friend were especially impressed with Ali Smith, someone we had both been meaning to read but not got round to – she was extremely effervescent and captivated the audience not just with her story but with her personality. The evening was chaired by and the individual authors were introduced by Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty who added to the air of feminist strength, intelligence and humor. Kate Mosse was also there at the beginning.

It was great to be in a crowd so evidently there to celebrate women’s writing and to hear the authors’ responses to questions asked – some of which were a bit incoherent – and to hear how they cope with aspects of their craft.

As you will all know by now Ali Smith did indeed win and my friend and I are now determined to read her book.  As if the evening wasn’t enough, we were all given a freebie in the form of a linen bag with the 2015 Bailey’s Prize for fiction, a book mark with the same logo and a miniature bottle of the beverage. What’s not to like?

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015 - Part Two

GW was selected as one of the 12 book clubs who are shadowing the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015. Our book is The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters and these are the final book reviews.

What is very interesting about these reviews is the honesty. As writers as well as readers, we are used to using our critical eye when reading creative work. From the reviews we think it unlikely The Paying Guests will win the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

Greenacre Writers Book Club Deborah Knight

Overall: I think Sarah Waters wrote this 'novel' with a TV screenplay in mind, not as a work of fiction. She has had a number of her novels televised and so the first 200 pages were all scene-setting. Very visual - well-written and well-researched, like she was dressing the stage, but no excitement or drama in the first third at all.

As a novel (or as a film, rather than a drawn-out TV drama): it needs a dramatic event early on, to draw the reader in. The claustrophobic decor (and neighbourhood) demands some blood or semen splashed around to give the reader an idea of the violence throbbing beneath the bourgeois surface. Likewise, with our introduction to her lesbian/Boho past life - we need to feel we are shunted from safe suburbia to unfamiliar surroundings, and getting out of it by the skin of our teeth ... breathless and a bit scared when we do so.

The lodgers: I didn't believe that such a middle-class family - forced, as they were, by financial demands to take in lodgers - would have been so easy-going with them. Let us be frank and say over-familiar - especially as it was the first time for both Frances and her mother. All sorts of constraints would have risen up, and readers would have appreciated those being eased away in order for the friendship between F and L to develop. Also, memories of the dead brothers should have been used to emotionally decorate the house, thus setting up a foil to Leonard - and, later, his horrible brother Douglas.  

The main characters: I thought Francis was a bore, her mother a little less so (given her upbringing, more generous in her heart) and Lilian just a flibbertigibbet. I couldn't be invested emotionally in either Frances or Lilian. Leonard and his brother were boring. The boy on trial was pitiful, his mother more so, but they all felt like characters in a TV costume drama, ultimately. 

Details: Given our author's complete lack of squeamishness vis-a-vis lady parts in sexual activity, not to mention her love of grimy kitchen detail, why did it it take till page 157 for a chamber pot to appear? And then only in a case of dire emergency? Truly, they were a normal part of household life, especially when there was only one lavvy, in the back yard. (The use of, and discreet emptying of, chamber pots - and where they were emptied - could make a PhD subject.) 

Also, did working-class hoodlums chew gum in 1922? It struck a wrong chord when I read it - and much was made of it, like an instruction for a film director (?) I have always understood it became a feature of tough-guy behaviour 'over here' during and after the 2nd World War (movies, GIs). I may be wrong, but Google today told me that the first chewing gum ('spoggy') factory opened in Britain in 1927. 

Summary: I usually give novels 50 pages before I decide, 'Ey up, it's not worth it.' So I wouldn't have finished this one if I hadn't committed to do so for the group.

Greenacre Writers Book Club Carol Sampson
I am nearly finished. Am finding the second half more interesting than the first half. It started well, then slowed down and is now picking up speed. What I am finding though is that although I think the characters are believable in their roles I'm not particularly engaging with any of them. I thought by this stage I would feel more empathy or care about the outcome but I'm not feeling that. If France's or Lily were to hang i wouldn't be too bothered - if you know what I mean! Sounds heartless but I just havent any feelings for them either way. Their characters had promise but have not developed sufficiently. Despite this I am still quite enjoying it

Greenacre Writers Book Club Anna Meryt

The book is about a young woman and her mother, fallen on hard times since the end of the Great War. They decide that the only way to survive is to take in lodgers – a young couple ‘from the clerk class’. Frances, after a long build up, begins an intense secretive lesbian affair with Lilian the wife, at a time when homosexuality was not recognised or understood. Day by day the situation deteriorates into further chaos. With a clever police inspector sniffing around like a bloodhound, the tension builds from funeral to coroner’s inquest.

The pace of the book is slow and methodical for the first half. You know something bad is going to happen in the end but getting to some action felt like a plod. The drama of the ‘killing’ took me by surprise. The post-war world they are living in is so hedged in, rule bound and predictable – perhaps to counter the unpredictability of the terrible war. But after the murder/accident it began to take on a thriller like intensity which I actually began to enjoy. I became completely hooked in then, and read to the end. Would the police find the killer?  

It was a good read eventually with its themes of class snobbery, gradual loss of integrity , guilt and the consequences of not being able to be who you are in a world changed irrevocably by the war, trying to recover its equilibrium.

Having just checked the 'Which is your favourite book on the shortlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2015?' On Tuesday 2nd June at 4.30pm, this is how it looks:

Outline by Rachel Cusk 4.35%  

The Bees by Laline Paull 18.84%  

A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie 17.39%  

How to be Both by Ali Smith 15.94%  

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler 24.64%  

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters 18.84%  

Don't forget to vote. Have to rush now as some of us are going Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Readings this evening at the Southbank Centre.

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015

GW was selected as one of the 12 book clubs who will shadow the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015. Our book is The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

We met last week to discuss the book so far. Some members had finished the book and others were still reading it. 

Greenacre Writers Book Club Ruth Cohen

I've read nearlý all Sarah's books, except Affinity, and really liked her as a writer. The complexity of relationships, good plotting and excellent research into historical detail and sense of place. But this particular book seems very one dimensional and although she gets the 1920s to some extent, I am getting a bit bored with this concentration on one relationship. The good point I can see is the way she looms at the role of women and sniggering men.

Hasnt really gripped me though it's an easy read.

Greenacre Writers Book Club Katie Alford

This book intrigued me owing to its period setting but unfortunately, for me, it seemed to come apart at the seams in this regard. The setting, with regards to technology, description of the environment and lifestyle all fitted the period well. However, the human element felt a few decades further on. The main character particularly felt too modern, her voice and attitudes felt more like a women of a period a few decades later. While she is meant to be modern for her age, I just feel this was taken too far and stretched beyond what even a modern woman of that period would have been. The characters and the environment just seemed at loggerheads with each other and failed to fuse into one single coherent element, which resulted in a jarring feel throughout.

I was disappointed that more wasn’t made of the association with the suffragettes, this would have been a great aspect to explore and would have given a greater understanding of the main character’s past and personality. I also feel that the main character lacked emotion with regards to her brothers lost in the war. I feel that a person in that situation who has been robbed of two members of her family and left with no income would be angry either at the government in whose service they had died and yet have clearly just left any dependants in poverty or anger at the those who had initiated the war. While she clearly showed regret in their passing, the emotions felt muted in the terms of what a person would feel should war rob them of relatives and their livelihood in one strike.

I found the start of the novel unnecessarily slow and didn’t really find it that absorbing. If not for the fact I had agreed to read it as part of the book club I would not have read past page 30.

Greenacre Writers Book Club Meral Mehmet

I agree with Katie about the incongruity, I love the introduction because it sets a scene, paints a picture, outside privvi, but should there also be an inside loo?

Terms of setting the scene, thought the layout would be fundamental, mega meaning to the plot but it doesn't. Loved the historical she seemed more a woman of the 50s - Brighton Rock, it reminded me of that.

Interesting bit with Frances as a sufferagette, could have made more of that.

When the relationship developed, it was tedious, it lacked passion, excitement, I didn't believe in the characters.

Having finished the book, Fingersmith was full of twists and turns, this one I was just relieved to finish. Redeemed itself, with the court scene, the little vignette, and I liked Lillian's family. But essentialy, didn't find realistic the two main characters feelings about what had happened. 

Not suffient twists and turns.

Greenacre Writers Book Club Rosie Canning

This is the first Sarah Waters novel that I've read. I enjoyed being taken back in time and had no problem with the intensity of the relationship. I found the descriptions of paying guests arriving and living in the house and all that brings with it, like the loss of privacy very lifelike. It is almost as if Waters takes the traditional Lady and Servant roles and turns them up-side down. Lillian is the more bohemian, Frances scrubs floors without shame. I didn't enjoy the suspense of the murder trial, though I enjoyed the plot (if that makes sense). I did feel the author rather let the reader down by the ending, I really wanted to know what would have happened had the outcome been different. This could possibly have been a book for which there were two endings.

Greenacre Writers Book Club Mumpuni Murniati - Murni

Is the novel is about a lesbian relationship goes wrong or a crime of passion?
London in 1922 seems to be an intriguing setting; high unemployment and shortages of supply. And yet, does it justify the circumstances in which Frances Gray and Lilian Barber meet? My knowledge about 1920’s is limited, for little do I know the significance of the period towards their blooming relationship; of course apart from the fact that women lovers is a taboo, albeit not illegal like homosexuals. And therefore what happens between them can occur in any period of time, although the humiliation and the discrimination they’d have gone through had they been found out would be much greater than a century later.
Towards the end I realise the more I know about Frances and Lilian the more the contrast shown in their behaviour in Part I compared to Part III. As I finish the last paragraph I still cannot make up my mind who Lilian and Frances actually are.
In conclusion, the novel appeals little to me with its attempt to surpass crime/romance/gender role genre at the same time.

The Prize has published The Brilliant Woman’s Guide To A Very Modern Book Club to help you make the most of your book club and celebrate all the ways that novels can bring people together. With features from brilliant women writers including Kate Mosse, Grace Dent, Joanna Trollope and Helen Dunmore, and reading notes to the 2015 Baileys Prize shortlisted books this guide is for anyone who loves a good book. You can download it here free.

Which is your favourite book on the shortlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2015? The poll closes on 1 June and the reading group winner will be announced here and on social media. Please vote.

Join in with the conversation on Twitter with #ThisBookClub and #3WordReview of your favourite book written by a woman.

Twitter: @greenacrewriter