Words on a Page

Portsmouth and its environs have inspired an impressive number of well-known writers over the years, and the area continues to be a hub of creative activity for writers of every persuasion.  The Portsmouth Authors Collective  was created to promote the work of the city’s current crop of authors, and this series of interviews offers a glimpse into what they're doing. Author Bio:  Chris Blackwater is an engineer-turned-writer from Leeds, who now lives in Fareham. His first novel, Emergency Drill , set on a North Sea oil rig, was shortlisted for the 2020 CWA Debut Dagger Award and was published by Dark Edge Press in 2022. ~ Loree: So, Chris, welcome to the interview. I’m looking forward to getting to know you a bit better. You’ve said you began writing stories to pass the time when working away from home. Was working on oil rigs really that boring? Chris: Working offshore can be quite tough: it’s a 12-hour shift for 14 days with no time off. However, I was only going ou...

  After my interview with Fairlight Books author, Douglas Bruton , discussing his latest publication, Blue Postcards , and his approach to writing, he turned the tables on me and posed some questions of his own. Here, we continue our discussing about reading, writing, and my literary novella, MissingWords , which will be published on 5 th August. ~ Douglas:   I tried writing in my teens and then again at university – nothing I wrote was worth the ink. It was not until I got a computer (aged thirty) that I found a way to write that worked. When did you know you could write and that it was something you wanted to do? Loree:   I remember dreaming up stories a lot when I was a kid. I’m an only child, and spent a lot of time entertaining myself. I know that I wanted to be a writer long before I ever wrote anything down on paper. In that way, I think I was very typical of a lot of the students I’ve worked with who want to write, but don’t yet have the tools to do so. I...

  In the third of this series of interviews with Fairlight authors, I have the pleasure of talking to Debbi Voisey. Debbi’s novella Only About Love will be published on 5 th August, the same day as my own, in the Fairlight Moderns list of literary novellas. ~ Loree:   I’m really looking forward to reading Only About Love when it comes out in August. I believe it’s described as a ‘novella in flash’ – which sounds really intriguing. I wonder if you could say something about your involvement with flash fiction, and what it is about the form that attracts you. Debbi:   Thanks, and I am so chuffed we are sharing a publication day. I can’t wait to read Missing Words . I started writing flash fiction when I was trying to avoid working on a novel! I love it for its immediacy. It allows you to get your thoughts out, and for people to read them, far more quickly than when writing a novel. It also really helps you to be economic with words and to tighten your prose. O...

In the second of my interviews with authors from this year’s Fairlight Moderns list of literary novellas, I speak to JT Torres . JT is an American author and academic, originally from Florida, who now teaches English at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. His novella, Taking Flight , will be published by Fairlight Books on 8 th July. ~ Loree: You’ve got a very impressive CV, with a surprisingly long list of academic publications for one who is still so young! It’s clear you’ve been extremely busy over the past few years. Completing a PhD nearly killed me, but you seem to be thriving in the academic world. As well as your novella Taking Flight , you have four peer reviewed papers coming out this summer. My first question, then, has to be: how do you do it? How do you balance such a full academic life with your creative life? Do your academic research and your teaching responsibilities impinge upon your ability to write fiction, or do they help in some way? JT:   The PhD n...

Fairlight Books will be publishing the latest four titles in its Fairlight Moderns list of literary novellas over the summer – mine, included – and during the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of getting acquainted with the other three authors. In the first of my series of interviews, I speak to Douglas Bruton , whose novella Blue Postcards will be published on 8th July.   ~ Loree:   I’m always interested in where writers get their ideas. For me, I often start with a nugget of information from a newspaper or a book. Just something that intrigues me and starts me asking questions. And before I know it, a story starts to build in my head. Your novella  Blue Postcards is set in Paris in the 1950s, right? Why Paris? Why the 1950s? How did the story come about? Douglas:   As part of the research I did for another piece of writing (a short story) I came across Yves Klein’s ‘A Leap into the Void’. I thought it was such a fabulous lie. That led me to IKB (In...