Category: Crime and Thriller
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‘I began writing because I wanted to be heard’ The novelist, activist and founder of the Polari literary salon talks about finding a home inside the literary establishment, the mother who taught him resilience, championing queer writers and learning to live in the moment. When Paul Burston signed the Royal Society of Literature’s Roll Book…
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‘I still dream that I’m a copper and I’m late for shift’ The bestselling crime writer talks about learning his craft on The Bill, turning police memories into fiction, finding success with Heck and why even an established author can feel as though he is back at day one. Paul Finch left Greater Manchester Police…
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‘I wanted to find the book that only I could write’ The actor-turned-novelist drew on the class tensions, exhausting schedules and fiercely competitive atmosphere of drama school for her dark debut, Fellow Creatures. She talks about ambition, rejection, “word soup” and why every story must entertain. Emma Lowther has recently moved to Liverpool, where one…
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The debut novelist talks about finding menace in the Mediterranean sun, writing seven books before publication, and why success has not cured her dislike of editing By Jonathan Welford Rebecca Taylor McKay is getting over a virus when we speak, although it has done little to dampen her cheerfulness. Before the interview has properly begun,…
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Heide Goody and Iain Grant on Creating Beck Lewis The independently published Midlands duo have produced more than 50 books together. Now operating as what they cheerfully accept is a “crime writing factory”, they talk about creative conflict, weaponised spreadsheets and inventing Beck Lewis, the imaginary author through whom they explore a broken world. When…
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‘If you’re writing something you don’t love, it’s not going to work’ The bestselling crime writer talks about leaving the Bar, the fragility of an author’s life, learning to abandon a bad draft and the characters who refuse to stay in their own books. Helen Fields came to crime writing with what she calls “all…
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M W Craven: ‘Everything in my life seems to have happened by happy accident’ The bestselling crime writer talks about joining, and leaving, the army almost by chance, writing his way through trauma, the luck behind literary success and why Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw still have darker places to go. M W Craven would…
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‘I thought my mum and dad might buy a copy’: Simon McCleave on rejection, reinvention and selling 3.5m books By Jonathan Welford The bestselling crime writer talks to Caroline England, from The Late Late Book Show, about abandoning Hollywood, finding inspiration in the police cars of Peckham and creating an unexpectedly enduring detective in the…