Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Write What You Know

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Debbie Young

In my column for the April issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, I wrote about this old adage for writers.

Common advice to authors is that when writing fiction, it’s best to write what you know. This is to add authenticity and to avoid errors. The only trouble with that advice comes when an author’s friends and relations assume that certain characters are based on themselves.

That’s why smart fiction publishers always print a disclaimer (“any semblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental”), although the author’s friends and relations may easily retort “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

So I’d like to take this opportunity to assure you all that no-one in Wendlebury Barrow, the fictitious village in which my new novel Best Murder in Show is set, is based on any real person, living or dead, in Hawkesbury Upton (or elsewhere, for that matter).

And although the two villages have plenty of features in common – annual show, shop, pub, school, drama group, writers’ group, WI – only one of them has a resident murderer.

Fortunately, that’s Wendlebury Barrow, not Hawkesbury Upton. Phew.

Best Murder in Show is now available from Amazon as an ebook and a paperback, although its official launch will be at the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival on Saturday 22^nd April at 10am in the Bethesda Chapel, to which you are all invited.

After that, copies will also be available from the Hawkesbury Stores. That is, if the staff still want to stock it after they’ve read Chapter 4 about the eccentric village shopkeeper…

The special Festival price for the paperback is £4.99, rising to the RRP of £7.99 from 1st May – so get in quick to save yourself £3!
Also available to order from Amazon.
From 1st May, you will also be able to order the book via your local bookshop at the usual RRP from 1st May by quoting ISBN 978-1911223139.

Events, Writing

A Place in the Rain

Posted on February 22, 2017February 21, 2017 by Debbie Young

My column for this month’s Hawkesbury Parish News

clare-gma-and-david-penny — David Penny chatting up my mum at the Hawkesbury Show on the Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest stand

My friend David Penny, who writes historical novels set in Spain, has just been accepted to appear on A Place in the Sun. This television programme helps weather-weary would-be expats find a new home in the foreign country of their choice.

Authors make great candidates for the programme because as people who spend their days imagining themselves in different places, they’re good at walking into a house and picturing what it might be like to live there. Relocating to the place that’s the setting for their books must feel like a dream come true.

Cover of Best Murder in Show by Debbie Young — Due to launch 22nd April at Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest

Tempting though it is to pitch for a spot myself, not least because the show’s guests get a free week’s holiday out of it, it wouldn’t work for me, because the novels I’m writing now are set in a small fictitious Cotswold village called Wendlebury Barrow, inspired by Hawkesbury Upton.

All characters and incidents are entirely fictitious, not only because I don’t want to be sued. It’s also because events in Hawkesbury are often so funny/bizarre/surprising that you couldn’t make them up if you tried.

And that’s another reason I’m glad to be living here. At this time of year especially, it may be cold, wet and grey, but life in Hawkesbury Upton is certainly never dull.

Cover of The Incubus by David Penny — Reviewed on my book blog

If you’d like to know more about David Penny’s books, check out my review of his latest novel, The Incubus, over on my book blog.

Writing

Straight from the Lexicographer’s Mouth: An Enjoyable Talk about the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Debbie Young

A report about a fascinating talk about the Oxford English Dictionary by Edmund Weiner

Cover of OED — The paperback edition is just the tip of the iceberg with a mere 120K words and 1k pages

Anyone who loves words would have been as rapt as we were at the Oxford Authors’ Alliance last night, when Edmund Weiner, Deputy Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, came to talk to us about his work preparing version 2.0 of the OED. This mammoth task employs sixty people, and though it began in 1993, they’re still only 30% of the way through the task. They are effectively detectives, examining everything ever written in English to come up with comprehensive definitions of how every word has been used through the ages. Continue reading “Straight from the Lexicographer’s Mouth: An Enjoyable Talk about the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)” →

Events, Reading

How to Live a Thousand Lives

Posted on April 13, 2015July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

My column for the April edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News

“The reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R R Martin

While we may not be able to dictate the course of our own lives, we can control the other 999 simply by selecting the best books.

I tend to choose the kind with happy endings: light-hearted novels featuring characters I’d like to spend time with, in settings that I’d like to visit. But I also like a bit of variety, to avoid Groundhog Day syndrome. After all, what’s the point of living a thousand lives if all of them are pretty much the same?

So I often step outside my comfort zone. This year, between pleasant novels, I’ve enjoyed a history of anaesthesia, the biography of a famous author, an anthology of poems about the sea, and the collected letters of a British comedian. By the time I reached the end of each book, I saw the world in a slightly different way. We are all forever changed, at least a little, by every book we ever read. Even in the age of the internet, the humble book still has almost magical powers.

Surely that’s got to be worth celebrating? If you agree, come and help me do just that, in the company of around 20 authors, poets, and illustrators, on World Book Night, Thursday 23^rd April, at the new free Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival. (See separate page for details) But, in the meantime, I’m off to read a good book…

If you’re after a good book to read, you could do worse than choose one of mine! Quick Change is an upbeat read for spring, packed with 20 very short stories – 22 if you buy the paperback, with its two extra bonus stories! Now available from all the usual online stores, and can also be ordered from your neighbourhood high street bookshop.