Joan Hessayon Award contender 2016: Deirdre Palmer

Welcome to Deirdre Palmer, another of the talented contenders for this year's Joan Hessayon Award and graduate of the RNA New Writers' Scheme. Thank you for answering our questions, Deirdre.

How long have you been writing? Is this your first published piece?

I’ve always written in one form or another but only began seriously around six years ago when I wrote my first novel, a rom-com called ‘Falling to Earth’. It received a positive critique from the NWS but didn’t find a publisher so I self-published it on Amazon and it sold really well. ‘Remarkable Things’ is my first traditionally published work.

How many years were you a member of the NWS and did you submit a manuscript each year?

I was a member for about six years but didn’t always manage a whole book every year because I was then working full-time and only wrote for a couple of hours each week. Some years I submitted partials, which I found a useful thing to do as it gave me direction in finishing the book.

What came first, agent or publisher?

I don’t have an agent. Originally I submitted ‘Remarkable Things’ to a few agents and got some ‘near misses’ in the process. When the book found a publisher – Crooked Cat – I was very happy to go with them.

How did you find your publisher?

I had heard of Crooked Cat through other writers and via the internet, and thought they’d be a good fit for me. At the time I was ready to submit they were closed to submissions so I kept them on my list and submitted as soon as they opened.  Meanwhile, I’d been submitting elsewhere – a lot of times! – and eventually found myself with two offers, one from Crooked Cat and the other from The Wild Rose Press. Crooked Cat just beat Wild Rose in getting the contract out and I’m glad it worked out that way.

Do you have a contract for one book or more?

I had a single contract for ‘Remarkable Things’ and then Crooked Cat accepted my next book, ‘Dirty Weekend’, set in the 1960s, few months later, and published it in August 2015.

When was your book published?

‘Remarkable Things’ was published in May 2015.

Tell us something about your book

The main theme of the book is motherhood and family relationships. It’s also a later-life romance. My main character, fifty-year-old widower Gus Albourne, is drawn into a search for the truth about his family background when he inherits a cottage and discovers mementoes supposedly left for him by his birth mother. When he meets divorcee Millie Hope, who is searching for her missing daughter, the two are instantly attracted to one another. They become close friends, but love is firmly off the agenda while they are embroiled in their respective searches.

What are you currently working on?

I’ve just finished writing ‘Never Coming Back’ which is a romance with themes of bereavement and entrapment. It will be ready for submission soon. I’ve also started on the sequel to ‘Dirty Weekend’, which is great fun to write as I know the characters so well.

What piece of advice would you give current members of the NWS?

It’s a cliché, I know, but not giving up is the key. Make multiple submissions – nobody minds that now, or if they do, they shouldn’t. But don’t be in a rush to submit. If you can bear to put the book aside for a month or two, you’ll come back to it with fresh eyes and see all kinds of ways to make it even better.

Links:
Amazon:

Website:

Facebook:

Blog:

Thank you, Deidre, we hope you have a fabulous evening at the RNA Summer Party and good luck with your writing career.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

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

Deirdre Palmer: Remarkable Things!

W are pleased to welcome Deirdre to the blog to tell us about her journey to be published.

It was a happy day when I received that magic email from Crooked Cat Publishers telling me that

they’d like to publish ‘Remarkable Things’. It had been a long wait, during which I darkened the doors of the NWS more times than is decent, but we won’t go into that! The wait had its advantages, though, because it gave me time to learn something about the industry, and I soon realised that it wasn’t enough to write the book to the best it could be. I needed to connect with world of writing so that I could show to a prospective agent or publisher that I was deadly serious and was intent on performing more than the proverbial one trick.

I went to some writing workshops, and although some had limited usefulness, they were fun and I learned how to write to order, and fast, something I’ve never found easy. Then I took a part-time creative writing course at the University of Brighton, where I worked, and learned how to write outside my comfort zone and how far the writing possibilities could stretch. I also made my first writer friends, one of whom became a trusted beta reader. You do need writer friends, whether they read for you or not; it’s a lonely business otherwise.

I tried entering competitions. My first attempt resulted in a ‘Highly Commended’ from Writing Magazine, and I won a small prize for flash fiction, but the most exciting success was being placed fourth – twice - in the Mail on Sunday Novel Competition, which had over 1000 entries each time. The six winners had lunch in London with the judges, including such literary stars as Fay Weldon and Deborah Moggach. I say ‘stars’ but we winners were the stars because they treated us as such, and I came away not only with more tips than I could write down on the train journey home but feeling like a proper validated writer. The MoS comp no longer runs, unfortunately, but the organiser, from the Society of Authors, is hoping to get another competition off the ground before long.

When I had the chance to join a blog group called The Write Romantics, there was another experience within my grasp. Not only did I find a brilliant bunch of friends to share this crazy world of writing, I had another ‘string’ to add to the CV. There’s a growing trend among agents and publishers to request a CV and if you can boost a submission with experiences like competitions, courses and blogging, all to the good. You don’t have to win a competition to mention it – a shortlisting or near miss will do just as well.

Like the proverbial buses, a second contract from Crooked Cat Publishing came hot on the heels of the first, and I’m pleased to say that my second book, ‘Dirty Weekend’, will be released later in the summer.

 

‘Remarkable Things’ is published by Crooked Cat Publishing, initially as a Kindle ebook.

 About Deirdre:

Deirdre lives in Brighton, on the south coast.  Most of her working life has been spent in administration, mainly in the public sector, and most recently at the University of Brighton.  She ‘graduated’ from the NWS to full RNA membership last September when she received her first publishing contract from Crooked Cat Publishing.  Before that, she successfully self-published a romcom, set in Brighton, called ‘Falling to Earth’. She belongs to a thriving blog group called ‘The Write Romantics’ and contributed to their anthology, ‘Winter Tales’, published last November.

 

Links:

http://deirdrepalmer.com/

https://www.facebook.com/deirdre.palmer.735

https://twitter.com/DLPalmer_Writer

http://thewriteromantics.com/
 

Thank you for visiting the blog today, Deirdre and good luck with your writing.

The RNA blog is brought to you by,

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to be featured on the blog please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com