I’m thrilled to have saga and cosy crime author Glenda Young visit my blog today. I do hope you enjoy the interview.

Welcome, Glenda. Can you tell my readers something about your journey to writing your books?

I’ve always loved writing, ever since I was a child and I have always written. However, growing up in a working-class village on a council estate, there were no opportunities to become a writer. I may as well have told my parents I wanted to be an astronaut! I’m a huge fan of TV soap opera Coronation Street and that’s were my writing life began. I studied Journalism at Sunderland University as a (very) mature student in my mid-30s and was invited into the press office at Coronation Street to work there as part of my degree. I was running a fan website by then, and ITV knew me. I’ve since written and updated official TV tie-in books and the official website for the show, but I always wanted to create my own fiction with my own strong women as heroines.

I started writing short stories for women’s magazines and then The People’s Friend magazine, the world’s longest-running women’s magazine, asked me to write their first ever weekly soap opera, Riverside. I’ve been writing Riverside since 2016 and absolutely love it as it’s so much fun! It’s now available as an audio drama and the cast are all ex-soap stars!  After the success of Riverside, I was taken on by a leading literary agent in London, wrote my debut novel Belle of the Back Streets set at the end of WW1 and we had three publishers fighting over it. It still feels like a dream that this happened. I chose Headline as my publisher and have been with them ever since.

We are fortunate to share the same literary agent. How important do you feel it is for an author to have the right representation?

It’s imperative. Not only do good agents (and we have the best!) manage our complicated publishing contracts they negotiate with publishers on our behalf and offer robust advice too.  I feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful agent who I know is working hard for me as one of her authors.

Readers may not be aware you not only write historical sagas but also crime novels. Can you tell us more about this please?

During lockdown I couldn’t leave the house to research my historical sagas. While there is a huge amount of information online, I could access, I’m the sort of the writer who needs to touch stone walls, walk gravel paths, and smell coal-smoke in the air. It all helps my research and informs the story, plot, and characters. As I couldn’t do any of that in lockdown, I decided to write a crime novel instead and set in my happy place of Scarborough. It was a way of leaving the house, travelling somewhere I love, without leaving the sofa.  I didn’t want to write gory crime or police procedurals, so I chose cosy crime where the amateur sleuth is always one step ahead of the police. She’s called Helen Dexter and is a hotel landlady, recently widowed with a rescue greyhound called Suki, a formidable Yorkshire woman called Jean who does the cooking, and single mum Sally who’s the hotel cleaner. Headline asked for a series of the books and I’m very proud and honoured to say that they were shortlisted for Best New Crime Series in the Dead Good Reader Awards 2022 with Richard Osman and Val McDermid at Harrogate crime festival.

Your sagas have a very special setting that you know well. How did this come about?

My sagas are set in the northeast ex-coalmining and farming village of Ryhope where I grew up. It’s the perfect setting for drama, a village where gossip is currency, where everyone knows what other people are up to. It meant that I had to research my own history and heritage, which has turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the process.

Can you tell us something about your typical writing day?

When I’m writing I’m up early four days a week to write 2,000 words each day. I write until late morning, have lunch then go for a walk or a bike ride along the beach to clear my head. In the afternoon I deal with emails and admin.

What do you enjoy most about being an author?

Meeting my readers. I can’t express how much I love this and how important it is to receive feedback directly from people who love my books so much.

Which books can we expect from you next?

I’m currently working on a trilogy of sagas called The Toffee Factory Girls. They’re inspired by Horner’s toffee factory in the County Durham market town of Chester-le-Street.  However, that factory no longer exists and so I’ve been researching toffee making during WW1 in the Mackintosh archives at the University of York. The research has been AM-AZ-ING!  The first Toffee Factory Girls book is published by Headline in ebook and hardback and audiobook in February 2024 and in paperback in May 2024.

'Glenda Young brings a new freshness to the genre'
– My Weekly magazine

'Amazing novels' 
– Sharon Marshall, ITV This Morning presenter

'Such a good writer. She's fantastic!'
– Woman's Hour BBC Radio 4

Glenda Young’s sagas are set in a northeast mining village of Ryhope in 1919 and her cosy crimes are set in modern-day Scarborough.

The cosy crime series was shortlisted with Val McDermid and Richard Osman in the Dead Good Readers Awards for Best New Crime Series.

Glenda is published by Headline. She has also written TV tie-in books for ITV’s Coronation Street and is an award-winning short story writer.

She was one of six finalists in the coveted Clement & Le Frenais comedy award.

Glenda also has a unique claim to fame, she's the writer of Riverside, a weekly soap opera published in The People's Friend magazine since 2016.

Glenda is a finalist in the Wear Businesswomen Awards 2023 in the category of Inspiring Others.