PAC Interview: Helen Salsbury

 

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: Helen Salsbury’s debut novel, Sometimes When I Sleep, was published in 2021. Her fiction has been published in anthologies, and shortlisted and longlisted for a number of prizes, including the Mslexia novel competition. She’s a trained community journalist and the founder of the environmental writing platform Pens of the Earth.

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Loree: We’ve known each other for a number of years now, and have exchanged feedback on our WIPs from time to time, but I don’t know a great deal about your journey as a fiction writer. When did you begin writing stories?

Helen: I have a box in the attic of the stories and stories-in-poem-form I scribbled down when I was in junior school. I created entire imaginary worlds in my head, far more than I was ever able to capture.

Loree: Your debut novel Sometimes When I Sleep is set in a brooding northern landscape which immediately attracted me to the story. There are scenes where I could almost smell the earth and the trees. And in one of the final scenes, my bones ached from the cold. What came first for you—the story or the setting? 

Helen: It was a mixture of the two. I always knew I wanted a university setting with a certain feel. Although I researched a number of places before settling on the Eden Valley. Once I had that, the other landscapes evolved along with the story. A pin in the map is a wonderful stimulus to the imagination, you attach a string to it and ask, ‘Where might my characters go from here?’

Loree: Oh! I like that idea a lot. I’ll have to try it.

Landscape and place are very important in my writing, too. The settings become characters in their own right, driving the narrative forward. How did you go about capturing these wild Cumbrian landscapes in your novel? Were they already familiar to you?

Helen: I was deeply rooted in them. My parents, my dad in particular, loved being out amongst mountains and wilderness. Holidays and weekends involved ascents to viewpoints and trekking across moors, building short-lived dams across rivers and trying to swim to the other side of lakes. The Yorkshire Peaks and Dales, the Scottish and Cumbrian mountains all felt like home to me.

I researched for Sometimes When I Sleep by spending weeks in each place: notebook in hand, ordinance survey map in backpack. What did being in this landscape feel like to Harriet and Iquis? What might they do here?

‘The trees sneak up on her, solitary sentinels that draw closer together until they surround her, the tops of their branches reaching out to each other far above her head. They eat the light.’

The woods and the river were my very first finds: nestled in the Eden Valley in the place where I’d decided you could fit a university. They are both real, as is so much of the landscape I wove my plot around.

Loree: Stunning! Sometimes When I Sleep is a contemporary gothic coming-of-age novel. It’s full of angst and moody rebellion, and we get a clear sense that Harriet is dealing with hidden trauma from the start—the source of which is later revealed. There are strong connections with classic gothic literature, here. Can you tell us something about the novel’s literary influences?

Helen: The influences are varied. However, the strongest influences were The Yellow Wallpaper and Frankenstein; both penned by women. There is so much to admire in both novels. The use of gothic tropes to explore psychological disturbance was at the heart of what I set out to do.

Wuthering Heights has always influenced my writing in the way it weaves the wild elemental nature of landscape into its narrative. That was something I wanted to riff on:

‘Iquis is silhouetted against the raging sky.’

Loree: Your writing really is quite stunning—at times it’s quite lyrical, and it’s full of sensual detail and finely crafted imagery. Writing like that takes time. How long did it take you to complete the first draft of your novel? And how long before the novel was ready to submit for publication?

Helen: I started writing this novel before I met my husband, fellow writer Richard Salsbury. We’ve been married for 16 years! So, the answer is ‘never give up!’

Loree: Yes! A similar experience to me, then. ‘Perseverance’ is my motto.

Helen: There’s a draft zero—which doesn’t even count as a manuscript. I’d been writing poetry, and the first scenes of this novel were short and packed with imagery. I went on my first Arvon writing course, with Patricia Dunker, who advised me to rip it up and start again; and to do some in-depth research into what ideas and themes I’d like to weave into it.

Following a period of research (which included Victorian gothic literature, the late 20^th Century Goth subculture, and of course landscape!) I wrote my first draft. It took six months and a sabbatical from my job.

I wrote it by hand, turning each page over once I’d written it and refusing to allow myself to read it. I knew from experience that once I looked back, I’d see what was wrong and get discouraged.

The business of shaping it took years. I’m grateful to the critiquing groups and creative writing tutors who helped me to improve as a writer, and to my wonderful husband who was there every step of the way.

It then went on a shelf for eight years while I worked on developing my second novel. And only when I came back to it did I truly have the distance to re-edit it and prepare it for publication.

Loree:  Some people in the Collective are self-published, and others are traditionally published. You’ve gone down a hybrid route with Matador. What was that like? Would you do it again?

Helen: Yes. I would do it again. It was a good, though tough experience. Matador provide the
quality of a traditional publisher, while allowing you the freedom to make far more choices. This is great, though overwhelming at times. I worked really hard to make sure that everything was as good as it possibly could be: book cover, blurb, promotional material, etc.

It’s very much a partnership. They provided the expertise, but I had the final say on every step of the publication process.

Loree: What was the most challenging part of the writing journey for you? Did you have any particular surprises along the way?

Helen: The hardest thing is the inner critic. It turns up most days, telling me what I’m doing wrong and that I’ll never be good enough, comparing me to other writers (many of them award winning!) and suggesting that I don’t even start.

I have all sorts of inspirational material on my wall to help overcome this. But ultimately, it’s practise and discipline which gets me writing, day after day, despite the fear, despite the negative voices.

Loree: I find that I frequently return to the same themes in my writing, not always intentionally. Are there particular themes or ideas that haunt your writing?

Helen: How landscape shapes us and our relationship with ourselves. The search for healing, redemption and meaning.

I also like to have fun. Creativity and self-expression in all their forms fascinate me, and I often explore this in some way: art, philosophical thought, literature, songs, poetry. They all have a place within my writing.

Loree: You’re the founder of Pens of the Earth, a website that publishes local writing on ecological themes. How did that come about?

Helen: I wanted to give something back to the local writing community. This was something I felt passionate about. I’d been covering some wonderful environmental initiatives as a reporter for Star & Crescent, and I felt that by combining these two things we could create something informative and empowering.

We publish articles, video clips, stories and poems; we also run workshops and provide spoken word performances for a variety of events.

Although we started off with local themes, and continue to work with local environmental experts, we’ve gradually widened our reach and accept work both nationally and perhaps one day internationally.

Loree: What advice would you give to people just starting out?

Helen: Have fun. Create space. Don’t take it too seriously. Write! The more you write the better you will get. Find other writers: for inspiration, companionship, encouragement, shared expertise, and feedback.

When it comes to feedback, finding the right people is essential. You need someone with a dispassionate, critical-but-kindly eye who can help you make your writing more what you want it to be. Joining well-established writing groups or attending creative writing workshops is a good place to start.

Check out Helen’s hints and tips for writers, HERE, on her website. 

Loree: Are you working on anything at the moment that you can tell us about?

Helen: Yes. My second novel. The Worry Bottles.

A stressed businesswoman acts out a coping mechanism by writing down the things which worry her and putting them into bottles which she throws into the Bristol Channel.

Matthew, a painter who has retreated from the world to live in isolation on Haffrey Island, finds them and they cause ripples in his existence. He starts to look out for the bottles.

Loree: Thank you so much for joining me, today, Helen. It’s been really encouraging to hear your story.  

Find Out More About Helen

Website: HelenSalsbury.com

Twitter: @HelenSalsbury

Facebook: Helen Salsbury - Writer

Matador: Sometimes When I Sleep

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Loree Westron is the author of Missing Words. She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, and is the founder of the Portsmouth Authors Collective.