Ask the Author: Sally Emerson
Answered Questions (6)
Sally Emerson
Oh so many. When I was five I went on my tricycle to the sweet shop and when I came back home I told my cousin some boys had attacked me. I couldn't remember what exactly had happened, because I was so upset. But I knew one of the older boys, probably he was seven, who had done it and my cousin, brother and I left him a note warning him that the Black Hand Gang were out to get him unless he put a pound under a brick in a particular place, for us to pick up at a particular time. Naturally when we went to pick up the money, his parents were waiting for us and we were in real trouble. Subsequently I recalled that they had merely blocked my way, which in itself had been pretty mean, for a group of them to do that to a tiny child. Be interesting as a plot to chart the effect of this on all involved through their lifetimes. I never regretted our note, incidentally.
Sally Emerson
I get a strange sort of empty feeling and the only thing that makes me feel better again is writing. If I'm in the mood everything inspires me. But most of my novels have had a house at the centre, and the image of that house has inspired me. In 'Fire Child' it's a boarding house overlooking Highbury Fields, in 'Heat' a rambling house in Washington Dc where we lived for a while, and where two men had committed suicide. I loved it. I like a bad atmosphere.
Sally Emerson
Another novel. I hate to talk about them until they are finished. It is as though the magic goes. If I talk about them they are already in the world.
Sally Emerson
Write a diary. Learn to observe and record. Even if you never get published, your life will be enormously enhanced by having noticed it , in all its fine and remarkable detail.
Sally Emerson
Oooh, it's sitting in a darkened room summoning up visions such as cool young Tessa ruthlessly seducing men who patronise her, in 'Fire Child'.
I feel like a practiser of the dark arts, with my pen as my wand.
I feel like a practiser of the dark arts, with my pen as my wand.
Sally Emerson
I don't really have writer's block exactly. I can't write at all in the morning then gradually become sharper as the day goes by. By 2 am I at my best!.
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