As regular readers of my blog will know, my final post each month is a conversation with an author friend, talking about their creative process and other topics that I hope you will find of interest. This month, it’s perfect timing to welcome Linda Alvis to celebrate the launch of her latest travel memoir, the third volume in her series Hoovering Up the Holy Carpet.
Debbie: You’re best known as an artist rather than an author. Please can you tell us a little bit about your background and your achievements as an artist.
Linda: I have written little poems and stories since early childhood as well as painting and drawing. My first memory of drawing is at Bristol Museum when I was four years old. Later I had a small den in the roof of my home where I wrote stories and poems. I have only one poem from that time and it is very over romantic and rather ‘Wordsworthy or Byronesque’. It isn’t in my poetry book!
I have won an award for one of my paintings and two works have been exhibited at The Mall Galleries in London. One with The Pastel Society and the other with The Society of Women Artists at their Annual Open Exhibitions. Over the years I have had many commissions.
Debbie: What made you decide to start writing books?
Linda: I always loved writing essays at school but it wasn’t until I broke my right wrist very badly in 2007 that I started a ‘pamphlet’ for my art class, using the computer and my left hand. I couldn’t use my right hand for many months. I got so carried away with family history and my journey as an artist that, when I found I had written ten computer pages and was still in the 1940’s, I decided to carry on.
Debbie: This month, you’ve launched the third in your series of entertaining travel memoirs. How do those relate to your art?
Linda: From the age of 6 or 7 I was sent off to the Saturday mornings children’s cinema by my busy shopkeeping parents and loved the black and white films shown then. ‘Cowboys and Indians’, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy etc., as well as Heidi with Shirley Temple and other cultural offerings. I was especially hooked on anything relating to the indigenous peoples of North America. Having friends and relations in Australia, Canada and the USA I have been able to meet with many indigenous peoples who have been gracious enough to allow me to photograph them and paint their portraits.
Debbie: On just about every trip, you tap into local art and culture of the indigenous people. What are your most memorable encounters of this kind?
Linda: My meeting with Tanya Nungari in the Alice Springs area. She and her husband were just sitting in the shade under a tree near an aboriginal centre. Tanya was an aboriginal naive artist and I was able to purchase a painting that she was carrying. I wanted to talk more to her but very suddenly she and her husband Wesley just ambled off into the bush. However she had allowed me to photograph them for a future portrait.
My mother and I were privileged to visit Vietnam in 1993 as part of the first group, rather than single travellers, to enter since the American war. It was led by the late great Tony Soper. It was amazing, experiencing Vietnam on the cusp of change.
Another most memorable was with Aaron Lee, a Cree artist and leather/bead worker in Edmonton, Canada. He had an incredibly strong face and I just had to ask if I could take a photograph of him for a portrait and he replied ‘Do you want me to look dangerous?’ We both laughed. He used the eventual portrait on his website which was an honour.
My portraits of Ukrainian people are the most poignant, ’The Bandoura Player’ in Kiev, The Cossack boy and Ivan Petriovich, the retired hydroelectric power engineer in Zaporozhya, a Dancing girl in Novaya Kakhovka and the beautiful Lilya in Sevastopol.
Debbie: Your trilogy of travel memoirs has a surprising title: Hoovering Up the Holy Carpet. How did that come about?
Linda: I was in the RWA in Bristol, looking at various works of art when a voice boomed across the gallery:
Alvis, get to my art class. I would prefer a good Catholic, but you’ll do! We only do pastels as I have to hoover up the holy carpet!
Monday afternoons in the Roman Catholic Cathedral. I feeI I have been hoovering up the holy carpet, so to speak, ever since.
My trilogy is for those who love family sagas, art and travel and hopefully will inspire readers to be brave in their endeavours, travel to wonderful places or just accompany me on the journey.
Debbie: I was astonished at how many countries you’d visited. If there are any countries left that you’d still like to visit, which are they and why?
Linda: Once I had an opportunity to go to Papua New Guinea, always a dream, but it didn’t happen and that is a regret. I love ‘off the beaten track adventures’ and was most fortunate to go outback camping on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territories of Australia. It was quite rugged but marvellous. I have been to Guatemala in Central America for a wedding but would love to see more of South America.
Debbie: Although this month we’re celebrating the launch of your third travel memoir, you have other books to your name. Can you please tell us a little bit about these too.
Linda: I first wrote my children’s books, Worrall and Robin and Worrall, Robin and the Garden Visitor after a memory that had been buzzing around in my head for years. When first married I was planting some flowers in the garden when I unearthed a very large colony of huge earthworms. I was so shocked I had sit down with a cup of tea. So, in the story, the large chief worm Worrall looks after his community and especially the naughty Jimmy Wriggle who is always getting into trouble with the Robin. Mainly for approximately 4-9 year olds, they are garden dramas with humour and a cautionary tale, with some new characters in the second story.
After the ‘Worrall’ books I decided to do something with my largish collection of poems so Dawn Rising came about. A series of life poems each accompanied by one of my paintings. I was asked to be part of the Poetry Slam at the Hawkesbury Upton Literary Festival back in 2017 and was thrilled to come joint first!
Debbie: What would be your advice to anyone else thinking of writing travel memoirs, eg should you keep a daily journey on your travels? Is it best to allow time to process your experiences before you write them up?
Linda: Yes, I do make notes, especially when travelling in places like India as I would never remember all the names of towns and villages I passed through and events witnessed there but as photography has always been one of my first and great loves I take many photographs for reference and make brief notes in situ. It is best to strike while the iron’s hot so you don’t forget anything.
Debbie: What are you working on at the moment?
Linda: Recovering from launching Volume Three of Hoovering Up The Holy Carpet but I now have ideas for a novel.
Debbie:A novel – that’s exciting! Keep me posted! Now, final question: you often host or take part in art events in your home city of Bristol. Are there any coming events that you’d like to tell us about today?
Linda: My partner and I always hold our own summer exhibition of art and, weather permitting, open up the gardens for visitors to sit awhile and enjoy the peace and colour. We are also always involved in the West Bristol Art Trail which is a huge event each mid-October and is extremely popular with visitors. My books are alway available at these events. Recently I was a guest speaker with two other authors at a lively and well-attended event at Clifton Library. Hopefully more opportunities like that in the future.
Linda has kindly allowed me to whet your appetite for her latest volume of travel memoirs with these two short extracts.
Cruising along the Rhine and reaching Melk in Austria
I had read about Melk in the cruise information pack but could have no idea of the true magnificence of this Abbey. We arrived at our mooring in the early morning and, as usual, I was up at the crack o’ dawn to have a short sprint around the deck when I was stopped by staff at the foyer desk.
‘Have a walk through the forest to see Melk. You can do it and be back for breakfast.’
Ooh, yes, I was definitely keen to do that and off I set. I found a path through the forest and passing a man jogging and lady walking her dog, neither over friendly, pressed on wondering if I was doing the sensible thing. It seemed a very long way to go. Eventually, with some relief, I saw daylight through the woods and as I arrived at a river in welcoming daylight I was stopped in my tracks. I gasped in absolute amazement as there above me, and appearing to fill the sky, was this immense and most spectacular Baroque abbey, perched above the town and gleaming gold against a clear blue sky. It quite took my breath away. Walking over a bridge into the town I passed a pure white heron searching for breakfast. I would soon have to return to the boat for my own breakfast but, walking through the quiet streets, the town was beginning to wake up. Men walked to work and
ladies with baskets headed for the market as the shutters of a small hotel were being opened as I passed by. I decided to have a quick coffee before the trek back to the boat and sit a while to take in the loveliness of that pure morning.
I approached the hotel desk and hoping my rusty school German would suffice asked … ‘Eine kleine kaffee bitte, mit melk.’ Praise be, I was understood. Sitting outside under an umbrella for shade, I was served a delicious coffee, beautifully presented on a silver tray and with a glass of water. I relished this heavenly moment before speeding back to the boat in time for breakfast. I would never forget the loveliness of that morning.
Arriving in Guatemala for a wedding
After changing flights in very pleasant Dallas airport, I arrived at night, in sprawling Guatemala City, a forest of lights as we descended. Slightly overtired by this time, but trusting, I hoped the arranged transfer to Antigua would arrive. It did and, with four other guests from the USA, we travelled for an hour to our destination, the Hotel Porta. Slightly discombobulated by this time and longing for bed, I followed a porter to my lovely garden room. On the bed was a ‘welcome’ package’ containing Guatemalan liqueur, sweets and toiletries from Megan and Sergio. What a delightful touch. By that time it was midnight and I was so tired I had to get to bed. I decided I would catch up with the Harveys the next morning. I quickly fell fast asleep but was suddenly woken by the bed heaving backwards and forwards.
What was this? Had I been given the honeymoon suite? Dazed, my whole body jerked up and down and then, just as suddenly, it stopped and off to sleep I went again, thinking I would have a lie-in the next morning.
At much too early an hour, I was woken by loud squawkings from a family of macaws just outside my bedroom window. How strange, I thought, I expected to wake up much later but never mind, I’ll get off to breakfast and meet up with my friends. Outside my room was a shady corridor filled with exotic flowering plants, including a magnificent Strelitzia, and some species I had never seen before. The macaws had settled down by then and I walked across leafy grounds by a swimming pool to the semi-open dining room. Kelly and Rodger, parents of the bride, were already there and we hugged each other quite emotionally. How lovely to see them again and on such an occasion.
‘How did you cope with the earthquake?’ Kelly asked.
I told her about the bed at midnight.
‘No, the big earthquake this morning. Well over 5 on the Richter scale!’
Goodness, I had slept through it. No wonder the macaws were disturbed.
For more information about Linda’s work, and to view her beautiful artwork, visit her website: www.alvisfineart.co.uk.
All Linda’s books are available from Amazon.
Click here to view the Amazon page for her travel memoir trilogy, Hoovering Up the Holy Carpet.
View Linda’s gallery of art, including many pieces inspired by her travels, here.
View Linda’s completed commissions here.
IN OTHER NEWS
As you can tell from Félice Hardy’s photo of me in action, I had great fun last week as a guest speaker for the Frome Writers’ Collective, talking about different paths to publication. Tickets sold out in advance, and when I arrived at the venue – the gorgeous and historic Archangel Hotel in Frome – I was slightly startled to see posters just about everywhere advertising my appearance!
The room was jam-packed with enthusiastic writers at all stages of their careers, many of whom had great questions at the end.
Huge thanks to Félice for inviting me. I first met Félice when she offered to speak at my Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival about quite a different kind of memoir to Linda’s – a family history called The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis. The book is as compelling as that extraordinary title suggests, and if you’ve not yet read it, I highly recommend it.
Now, after a short break visiting my daughter in Aberystwyth, I’ll be glued to my desk for the rest of the month, completing my next book Death at the Village Christmas Bazaar (working title), due to launch on 4th September 2025 – you can already pre-order it here.
