FOCUS ON: Nottingham Chapter

It isn't often we have the opportunity of welcoming an entirely new Chapter to the Blog but Clare Harvey and Katie Ellisdon have got together and will be holding their first meeting on 15th September. If you're local why not go along and support them. Clare tells us here how it all came about.

It’s really exciting that you’re starting a new RNA Chapter in Nottingham. Are you and Katie Ellisdon long-standing friends or is it just a lucky accident and what prompted you to take this step?

Katie and I have known each other for ages, although we only discovered we were both closet writers a couple of years ago.

We used to live opposite each other on Chetwynd Barracks in Nottingham back in 2007, when our

Katie Ellisdon and Clare Harvey

children were toddlers (Katie has two daughters, and I have a son and twin girls – all our children are now at secondary school). Those were manic days when both our soldier husbands were being sent all over the place (Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya, etc. etc.) as they were both technical engineering officers. Being de facto single parents, living opposite each other with kids the same age, we were in and out of each other’s houses all the time. Then my family were posted to Nepal, and hers to Northern Ireland, and we didn’t see each other for a few years, until we both ended up posted back to Chetwynd Barracks, and living on the same street yet again.

Neither of us realised that in the interim we had both been busily scribbling away, and dreaming of becoming authors.

I took an MA in creative writing at the University of Nottingham in 2011/12 and Katie was a huge help with after-school childcare on the afternoons when I couldn’t make it home from uni in time to meet the kids from school, but she was very secretive about her own writing, and didn’t tell me until I was lucky enough to get a publishing deal in 2014. I think my response was something along the lines of ‘I always knew there was a reason why I liked you so much, it’s because you’re a writer too!’ Katie is now a member of the New Writers Scheme.

Have you planned a regular meeting place yet and do you mean to have lunch, high tea or just morning coffee? We’d love to hear about where and how often you hope to meet.

Lady Jayne's Vintage Tea Room

Our group started as an excuse for Katie and I to get together (as neither of us live on the army camp any more, we hardly ever see each other), but we’ve also just discovered that the RNA’s lovely Imogen Howsen is local, too, so there’ll be three of us.

The meetings are on the third Friday of the month at 2pm at Lady Jayne’s vintage tea room at the Toton Lane tram stop in Nottingham. It’s a sweet little tea room where everything is homemade and yummy. From Nottingham city, you just need to hop on a tram and go to the end of the line at Toton Lane. From outside the city, it’s just off the A52 by the Bardill’s roundabout and follow signs to tram stop – there’s loads of free parking.

Do you anticipate your chapter will be open to non-members of the RNA?

To begin with the group is just for RNA members, but that could change, depending on what the group feels will work best.

Do you have any particular aims in mind?

The aim of the group is really just to meet up informally with other like-minded writers for a cuppa and a chat (and possibly a nice slice of homemade cake…).

Are you planning to have a Nottingham Chapter website or Twitter account, and can you please give our readers a link to your Facebook page.
I will add new members to a dedicated WhatsApp group, but have no plans to develop a website or social media presence at the moment, as we’re starting so small.

Who is the contact for new members?
Clare Harvey clareharvey13@aol.com or call me on 07751546954 or tweet/DM @ClareHarveyauth

And then there were three! Lovely that Immi is joining up. We all look forward to seeing how your group develops and wish you the very best of success with your new venture. Thanks so much for joining us.

About Natalie:

Natalie Kleinman writes contemporary and historical romantic novels. Her latest Escape to the Cotswolds, is set in the beautiful English countryside and was published by HarperCollins HQ Digital in June 2017.

If you would like to write for the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

SUMMER with the ROMANTIC NOVELISTS’ ASSOCIATION

 Our Fabulous Summer Party takes place in the Royal Over-Seas League in Park Place, London on

Thursday 18^th May. It begins around 6.30pm and continues until 9.30pm - when many repair elsewhere for supper with friends.

In addition to the chance of meeting up with distant, facebook or twitter friends, there’s the excitement generated by the announcement of the Joan Hessayon Award winner. Last year’s winner was Clare Harvey with her The Gunner Girl.

This year sees another bumper list of contenders whose books have come through the wonderful New Writers’ Scheme, but I don’t know who will receive the winner’s cheque and, like you, will have to wait until the night to find out.

For Party first-timers a few tips:

FROCKS there are a few and some of them are pretty, some of them are glam.

SHOES over the years, shoes have become a major interest for the photographers among us and some are very exciting indeed. 

FOOD AND DRINK A tipple is included in the price of your ticket together with some of the ROSL’s delectable canapés.

So, will we meet there? Tickets are £35 for members and £40 for non-members. They’re available from Eventbrite here https://goo.gl/dyvVyF

You’ll find all the details there except the shortlist. That’ll be coming along shortly…

While I’m here – were you one of the 90 + people who went home from the Awards’ night or the Winter Party with either or both your name badge and lanyard? I’d love to have them back, please.

Anne Graham, Party Organiser

Clare Harvey: The English Agent

Elaine Everest interviews Clare Harvey about her latest book.

I was delighted to be able to interview Clare Harvey for the RNA blog. Being present earlier this year when Clare won the Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers, and having enjoyed her book The Gunner Girl, I was delighted to be able to read The English Agent. I can honestly say it is an excellent read that had me hooked from the first page.

 I asked Clare a few questions about her writing life.

Welcome Clare. Can you tell us something about your life and how you came to be a writer?

Hi, thank you for having me on the blog! I have three school-aged children - my son is 14 and the

girls (twins) are 11. One of the girls has cerebral palsy – brain damage that affects her balance and muscle control – but we’re fortunate in that it’s quite mild, so she’s able to go to the same school as the other two. We live in Nottingham, but we also have a houseboat in Buckinghamshire, which is my husband’s crash pad – he works in North London four days a week. My father-in-law has just moved into the annexe in the back garden, and we also have a German Shepherd dog, so it’s busy at home, but luckily there’s time to work during school hours (and sometimes at night, if deadlines are pressing…).

I came quite late to writing. Of course I loved reading and creative writing at school, but being an author always seemed terribly glamorous and out-of-reach, something that other people do, a bit like being a film star or a polar explorer. Then, after I’d been post-university travelling in the 90s, I picked up a job as a nanny to the author Betsy Tobin. She became a bit of a role model, because she was a mum, and she wrote, and she was a REAL (and also very nice) person. So I suppose my contact with her planted the seed that I could perhaps become an author one day myself.

I began writing my first novel when I was on maternity leave with my son in 2002. In between starting writing and getting published (in 2015), I had three children, moved house five times (two different towns in the UK, two different towns in Germany and also Kathmandu in Nepal – my husband was in the army so we were constantly being relocated with his job) and wrote four full-length novels, as well as starting a handful of others. I also took an MA in creative writing. Learning the craft of writing was a very long apprenticeship for me!

Your wonderful novel won the RNA’s Joan Hessayon Award earlier this year.  What gave you the idea for the story?

 The inspiration for The Gunner Girl was my mother-in-law, who served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) in WW2. I never met her, because sadly she passed away before I got together with my husband. My father-in-law also served in the army, and one day my husband said, “Of course the joke was, growing up, that Mum had seen more enemy action than Dad.” When I asked what he meant, he said his mother had been on the anti-aircraft guns in London during the war, but his father, who was a couple of years younger, hadn’t joined up until after the hostilities were over. I had no idea that women were on active service in wartime, and I wanted to find out more. However, my husband said there was nobody from his mother’s side of the family to ask. He said there were no grandparents, aunties, uncles or cousins from his mother’s side – or at least, he’d never met any.

So, I had this fascination with the idea of women soldiers in WW2, combined with the mystery of how someone could ‘lose’ their background like that. I wondered why a teenage girl would begin an entirely new life when she joined the army? Had she lost her family or chosen to leave them behind? What part had the war played in her circumstances and her choices? Those questions catalysed the creation of the main character in The Gunner Girl, and the rest of the book grew organically from that starting point .

Will you always write historical novels or do you yearn to write another genre?

I wouldn’t say I yearn to write another genre, but I’m certainly open to it. The Gunner Girl was actually the first historical novel I’d written (the other three unpublished books are contemporary stories about women soldiers). Although The English Agent (out now in hardback) and my third – as yet untitled – book are also based in WW2, I certainly wouldn’t rule out returning to something contemporary, or perhaps a time-slip story. I also quite fancy doing something like historical crime – but there are so many excellent crime writers out there, that I’m not quite sure I’m brave enough to give it a go until I’m a little more experienced.

Do you enjoy the research for your novels?

I love the research. I trawl Amazon for obscure wartime memoirs and biographies, and YouTube for old Pathe news clips. The Imperial War Museum has some great online sound archives, and there are wonderful WW2 images to be found just a Google-click away. Hurrah for the Internet! I’m also a big fan of ‘optical research’. The English Agent is set in Paris and London, so I had a few days wandering round Paris, scouting locations, and a very long day-trip to London, again just walking around, seeing where things were. Going to the places you’re writing about makes you realise the story in practical terms (how long would it take a character to walk across Hyde Park, for example, or whether your character would be able to see the horizon from her apartment window) – but also going to an actual place engages all five senses, and knowing how somewhere smells, or the sound your feet make on the floor there, can really help make a location feel real when you’re writing about it.

Do you have a few tips for our newer members?

I bet everyone says this, but DON’T GIVE UP. I went through the RNA’s New Writer’s Scheme three times before I wrote anything good enough to be published, and it took me thirteen years…I hang on to that Samuel Beckett quote: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

Please tell us more about your latest book.

The English Agent (Simon & Schuster) is out now in hardback. I felt that one of the characters in The Gunner Girl had a story that wasn’t quite finished. I decided to send her off to wartime France with the Secret Operations Executive (SOE) because I was fascinated by the real life stories of the very brave young women who took on such dangerous work behind enemy lines.

I wrote The English Agent in a wild combination of panic and excitement, because I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to write a book in less than a year, but also thrilled to be able to throw myself into an enthralling new storyline. In retrospect my panic-excitement was probably the perfect state of mind for a novel about undercover agents in Occupied Paris!

What comes next for author, Clare Harvey?

I’m extremely fortunate that Simon & Schuster has signed me up for another two-book deal, so I’m working on my third novel at the moment. I do realise how lucky I am to get paid for doing a job I love, so I don’t have any grand plans, I just want to be able to keep on writing books for as long as I can.

Links:

Amazon author page

Facebook: clareharvey13

Twitter: @ClareHarveyauth

Website

                                                        The English Agent

How far will two women go to survive a war?

Having suffered a traumatic experience in the Blitz, Edie feels utterly disillusioned with life in wartime London. The chance to work with the Secret Operations Executive (SOE) helping the resistance in Paris offers a fresh start. Codenamed ‘Yvette’, she’s parachuted into France and met by the two other members of her SOE cell. Who can she trust?

Back in London, Vera desperately needs to be made a UK citizen to erase the secrets of her past. Working at the foreign office in charge of agents presents an opportunity for blackmail. But when she loses contact with one agent in the field, codenamed Yvette, her loyalties are torn.

Thank you Clare. We look forward to your next book.

If you would like to be interviewed for the RNA blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

 

Jan Ellis visits the RNA Summer Party 2016

We welcome Jan Ellis to the blog to tell us about her trip to London for the Romantic Novelists' Association Summer Party.

'Looking at the brightly lit entrance of the Royal Over-Seas League in London's smart St James's, her knees almost buckled with nerves. Clutching her ticket to her bosom she took a deep breath and stepped inside . . . '

Yes, dear reader, that was me one year ago at my first RNA Summer Party. Taking that initial step

was pretty daunting: would I recognise anybody? Would anyone talk to me or would I end up weeping quietly behind a pillar? Most important of all: would there be any food?

As it turned out, I needn't have worried. I was amazed by how many people I already 'knew', having met and chatted to them on social media. Those kind people – in particular Karen Aldous and Samantha Tonge – then introduced me to their friends and I was off! And yes, there was excellent food, including mini fish and chips and perfect scones with jam and cream, which were definitely worth getting fat for.

Emboldened by the success of party number one, I decided to give number two a whirl and had a great time yet again at the winter event in November. Last week I attended my second Summer Party. This year I was also able to attend the AGM, which gave me a better sense of how hard working and professional members of the RNA committee are. Chairwoman Eileen Ramsey took us through the highlights of the previous twelve months, including the ROMNA Awards. Treasurer Gill Stewart presented the accounts and was pleased to note that the organisation is in excellent financial health.

After the short meeting, a number of us helped Elaine Everest and the team to put out the names badges until we were herded out of the room by paparazzi keen to get shots of the nominees for the big award of the evening. As there was a gap then until the party began, I wandered down to the elegant terrace bar and joined Wendy Clarke, Susan Griffin and Merryn Allingham for a pre-party drink. Duly refreshed, we then headed up to the splendid Hall of India and Pakistan where 180 RNA members were gathering in their best frocks and fabulous shoes. The men may be few in number, but they all scrub up well and join in gamely with the gals.

The main event of the evening was the presentation of the Joan Hessayon Award, which went to

Clare Harvey for her wartime novel The Gunner Girl (Simon & Schuster UK). In her heart-felt acceptance speech, Clare said she wished to share the prize with her anonymous RNA reader to whom she owed so much.

Once the presentations had been made, everyone got on with the serious business of eating canapes and chatting. I was delighted to catch up with some of the great people I've met thanks to the RNA including Anita Chapman, Carol Cooper, Carrie Elks, John Jackson, Alison Knight, Holly Martin, Annie Peters (Annie Lyons), Julie Vince and others too numerous to mention.

If there are RNA members out there wondering whether it's worth attending one of the parties, my advice is do it! You'll discover a whole bunch of clever, supportive writers just waiting to be your friends.

Finally, I'd like to thank party-organiser extraordinaire Tracy Hartshorn (Sally Quilford) who was sadly unable to attend the event. She was much missed and we all look forward to seeing her again in the future.

About Jan:

Jan Ellis began writing fiction by accident in 2013. Until then, she had led a blameless life as a publisher, editor and historian of early modern Spain. She fell into fiction when a digital publisher approached her to write a history book, then made the mistake of mentioning women’s fiction, which sounded much more fun. She is proud to be a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

Links:

Twitter @JanEllis_writer

Website

Amazon page

Thank you for covering the event so splendidly for the RNA blog, Jan. We are in awe of anyone who can juggle a notepad and pen as well as a glass of wine!

If you would like to cover an event for the RNA blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com