Tag: Interview

Writer Interview, Writers Chat, Writers Read

Writers Chat 46: Amy Cronin on “Blinding Lies” (Poolbeg: Dublin, 2022)

Cover of Blinding Lies by Amy Cronin showing a woman in a darkened room looking through blinds on a window

Amy, You are very welcome to my WRITERS CHAT series. Congratulations on your debut novel, Blinding Lies (Poolbeg, 2022) which is a cracking read.

Let’s start with your journey to writing. It was something you always wanted to do but life happened – as it does – and it’s now that you’ve thrown yourself into the world of words. So why now? And why this genre?

AC: This genre is the one I read the most; crime and psychological thrillers are my go-to books. The escapism on offer, and the need to solve the mystery, is very appealing. When I was younger I loved mystery stories; the Nancy Drew series was a firm favourite. This has continued into adulthood, and as this is the type of book I love to read, it’s what I was drawn to write.

Why now? I think it had a lot to do with turning 40 during lockdown and the general sense of unease the pandemic brought, the feeling that life is for living, and if I truly want to give writing a shot, then I have to dedicate myself to finishing something and put myself out there. My favourite subject in school was English, but I didn’t study it in college. I focused on business, marketing and management, but I never stopped tinkering around with words. I’ve written stories my whole life, and during the pandemic I focused like I never have before on finishing my first book. It was cathartic, a great escape from the daily coverage on TV and radio. Writing Blinding Lies was addictive, something I looked forward to everyday. It finally felt like the timing was right.

SG: It’s great to hear that you continued with your passion – and the way you describe your writing process it sounds like it really was the right book and the right time. And how fantastic that as a writer you now get to give your readers the escapism that you so much enjoy.

There are several aspects to Blinding Lies that stood out for me. The first is the protagonist, Anna Clarke. She’s the underdog, working in the administrative section of the Garda Station and yet manages – perhaps because of her mathematical background – to see patterns that lead to complex crimes being solved. Tell me about the origins of Anna.

AC: I wrote a chapter featuring Anna many, many years ago. I had read so many books where the protagonist is a seasoned man, capable and experienced, and he invariably saves the day. I really wanted to read a similar book featuring a woman who could do the same. It wasn’t until I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I found a character who felt believable in that role. The only problem I had with Lisbeth Salander was that I couldn’t relate to her. I adore her character still, in the books and the movies, but she felt very far removed from anything I could connect with.

In creating Anna I wanted her to be really ordinary, like myself and most people I know. I wanted readers to be able to relate to her. I found a lot of resources online, writing.ie, inkwellwriters.ie, and had done some writing courses, so I knew my heroine needed to reach readers in a way that made them root for her. As I wrote, I found I was really rooting for her too!

When Anna Clarke was 16 her parents disappeared. Up until that point, she was living what could be considered a very normal life. After that, she and her older brother live with the continuing mystery, never moving closer to solving what happened. As a child Anna’s father taught them self-defence games and encouraged them into his passion, Tae-kwon Do. After his disappearance, focusing on this gave Anna a lifeline out of depression and worry, and as the book opens, she’s a black-belt, continuing her training, and teaching self-defence to young children. She’s drawn to logic, to numbers, studying mathematics and statistics in college, working for the Gardaí to compile statistical reports. Numbers offer the comfort of certainty, which appeals to her as a balm to the enduring uncertainty of what happened to her parents. Anna is a strong woman, yet vulnerable, leaning on her brother often, yet resenting his interfering ‘father-figure’ role. She’s flawed, not always making the right decisions, but her moral compass is set straight, and it’s her determination to help her friend Kate that propels the plot in Blinding Lies.

SG: And again, the idea of helping a childhood friend is something that we can all relate to. The themes of self-defence is key to both the narrative and also two of the main characters. Anna teaches and practices Taekwondo-Do and another interesting female character, Kate Crowley, is a kick-boxing champion. Was this a theme that interests you or did it come to you as you developed the characters?

AC: It was suggested to me by an early reader, when the book was in the first-draft stage, that Anna be a kick-boxer, to add plausibility to scenes where she’s under threat. By that point I had already decided she was studying and teaching Tae-Kwon Do, mainly because I did so myself and know how beneficial it is in general.

The kick-boxing idea grew though, and I used it as a point to confuse Anna and the reader, to input doubt over the character of Kate – I wanted her to be someone we aren’t sure is guilty or innocent. Anna is certain her childhood best friend is innocent of murder. But she learns that in the years they lost touch Kate learned kick-boxing to a high level, and with her own knowledge of self-defence, Anna then begins to doubt Kate – if she was capable of defending herself so skilfully, why shoot a man dead?

I studied Tae-Kwon Do when I was young, although not for as long as I would have liked! It has always appealed to me, and I planned it as a facet of Anna’s character to be the crutch she would lean on to recover from the disappearance of her parents. It offered an anchor, something to focus on. I know that the skills taught in self-defence go beyond the manoeuvres – I wanted Anna to have a calm mind, to have self-control when it mattered most. I know Tae-Kwon Do can cultivate this level of discipline, so it was always going to part of her story. The fact that it was her father’s passion was something I found very emotional to write. Anna trains as much to feel close to him as anything else.

SG: Yes, the link to her father came through very strongly and I thought that link between the body and mind in Tae-Kwon Do was really interesting and key to Anna’s character. At the heart of the Gallagher-Crowley dynamic is David’s abuse and coercive control of his wife, and his father’s control of his empire. Can you talk a little about this theme of control?

AC: Control, or attempting to restore it, is certainly a theme through Blinding Lies. Anna Clarke is the protagonist. In her training, in her job, in everything she does, she is measured, to counterbalance how out-of-control her life went when she was 16. In that respect, she and Tom Gallagher, the main antagonist, are very similar. Both are seeking to control the world around them to a high level.

For Tom Gallagher, we learn that everything he has built up, his criminal business, his respect and status, was borne of control. While his son David was abusive, what Tom lamented most about that was his loss of control, which ultimately led detectives to the family, and ended up with David dead. David’s loss of control is rippling into Tom’s existence and he can’t stand it. Everything he does in Blinding Lies is about regaining the control he feels slipping away from him.

It’s interesting that control is such a strong theme throughout Blinding Lies, as it was written at a time when the world felt completely out of control to me. The world around me was shutting down because of a new virus as I wrote, and as the main characters fought for control in their world, I was coming to realise I had very little in mine! I write with a vague ‘start-middle-end’ outline, and I didn’t realise until the book was finished how much the characters rely on and seek to gain control. But as I said, writing Blinding Lies was cathartic during the early stages of the pandemic!

SG: Isn’t it really interesting how what’s going on for the author becomes distilled in their writing? Parallel to this theme is the idea of people having two sides, and also of fighting for a better life. I felt this was captured well in the characterisation of Tobias.

“Tobias…had fought his way to this position in life. It had come to him the hard way. There were bodies stacked up behind him, in his past, people he’d had to move out of his way. Sometimes, at night, he dreamt of their faces, how their skin had sagged, and their muscles had twitched in the final moments between life and death. At night, he felt vulnerable, freaked out by the dead. By day he was in charge again, a man not to be crossed, nor to be defied.”

So many of the characters know what they want and will go to great lengths to get it. Can you comment on this?

AC: Such characters are great propellers of plot; decisive, driven, charismatic. For me, this book was my attempt to finally immerse myself in writing and go after what I really wanted. I guess that’s reflected in the characters too. Regardless of what they want – be it revenge, the truth, closure and peace – the characters are determined to get it. Anyone with ambition, for whatever that might be, can relate to that.

Most of the characters in Blinding Lies are driven by love for their family, which is a very powerful force; Anna, for her parents and for her friend. Kate is driven by saving her sister and nieces; Tom Gallagher by love for his wife and son John, and by avenging his son David’s death. All things are a mix of light and darkness; in even the worst of characters, there is some redemption, and in the best of characters there are elements of shadow. Striving to rise above, being ambitious, are traits readers can understand, can get on board with. And they make memorable characters that turn the pages.

In the case of Tobias, he is a minor character but his actions have a big impact on the antagonist. Tobias does terrible things, and the “bodies stacked up behind him” allow the reader to gain a glimpse of his past. But there is an element of fear in him too – the people he killed freak him out at night, and in Blinding Lies, he cannot return to his employer empty handed, with his mission incomplete. I wasn’t trying to elicit sympathy for him, rather to show that like all people, his nature is multi-faceted.

SG: Yes, I think that’s why I found his character interesting -he’s more than what he seems. I also found that the workings of the various rankings in the Gardaí were well done – I especially loved the scene when Detective Sergeant William Ryan goes to one of the major crime scenes and “closed his eyes and inhaled, breathing the scene deep into his lungs. Anna’s voice played in his head as though he had recorded her testimony and was playing it back…He cut an unusual figure, standing in the middle of the room with his eyes closed and his arms by his sides, turning this way and that…” Can you talk about your research into investigative procedures and methods?

AC: The internet helped with this, as did absorbing information from the countless crime novels I have read. I also have a garda friend who happily answered questions, but I didn’t delve too deeply into detail. I tried hard to get the garda procedures right, but ultimately, Anna is a clerical officer, not a detective, and so I didn’t dwell too much on detailing procedures.

I love the character of William Ryan, but I really don’t know any detectives like him! He’s young, a little eccentric, a little off-putting to some colleagues, but ultimately very like Anna Clarke – his moral compass is set straight.

SG: It’s great to read a book set in a place that is familiar or that you know well. I loved how Cork was so real – street names, hotel names – and also fictionalised to a large extent, to fit the story. Tell me about that process of setting the scene – it felt like you’d researched the city in terms of traffic, weather, times it takes to get from place to place.

AC: I’ve lived in Cork all my life; well, except for some time spent living and working in the UK, when I was very homesick! I grew up in the countryside, then moved to the city to live for eight years, before moving back to the countryside again. Initially I was unsure about setting Blinding Lies in my home county, but as I wrote, I realised there was nowhere else it could be. It felt right to set the novel in familiar territory.

Some place names are real and some are fictional. The Garda station in Blinding Lies, for example, is called the Lee Street station. This doesn’t exist but is named after Cork’s River Lee. It felt right not to accurately name some places. But other places are steeped in memory for me – such as the fountain on the Grand Parade where Anna meets Myles, and it was lovely to include that.

SG: Finally, I found myself thinking about a question as I read Blinding Lies – how well can we ever know anyone, including our family? There’s a lot of intrigue, passion, and greed in the novel – it’s what drives many of the characters including the Gallaghers – and there’s Anna’s burning desire to find out why people do what they do, including disappear. Can you talk about this?

AC: This is certainly true; how well do we ever really know the people close to us? Often that’s not called into question until extreme events take place.

In Blinding Lies, Anna’s brother Alex is worried about reopening the search for their parents, because he was a lot older than Anna when they disappeared, and he remembers things that lead him to believe he didn’t really know who they were. This, of course, is unsettling for him. He’s an insomniac, constantly worried about keeping his sister safe, never able to relax. The questions that consume him are not just where their parents are, but who they were.

Of course, some people do know the inner nature of those close to them, and chose to turn away from that truth, as Mae Gallagher does for her husband, and as she did for her son David.

Anna is the opposite of that – she’s a deep thinker, and for ten years the need to understand her parents’ situation has burned inside her, and it has shaped how she looks at people and situations, I think. She should have walked away from Kate’s plight, but she needs to understand it, because she cannot understand the terrible events that shaped her life when she was 16.

Ultimately, for the characters, if they cannot understand the people around them and why events have taken place, the ground feels very shaky, and control is lost.

  • SG: I can’t leave our chat without mentioning the last line of the novel, “it was time to discover the truth”. Ae looking at a trilogy or a series?

AC: I’m very happy to say that Blinding Lies is the first book of a trilogy. I didn’t realise Anna’s story would span three books until I started to write. But it’s not just her story, it’s her parents’ and Tom Gallagher’s as well. I’ve always enjoyed reading a set of novels about the same character, and I hope readers will take Anna to their hearts and follow her journey.

SG: I have no doubt they will, Amy! And now for some fun questions:

  • Cork county or city? Cork county, because it’s home.
  • Mountains or sea? The sea, definitely.
  • Tea or Coffee? Coffee.
  • What are you reading now? Right now I’m reading The Widow by K.L. Slater.
  • What are you writing now? I’m currently finishing the third book in the trilogy.
Amy Cronin holding a copy of her debut novel Blinding Lies

Connect with Amy on Twitter: @AmyCroninAuthor

With thanks to Poolbeg and Peter O’Connell Media for the advance copy of Blinding Lies

Collaboration, Contemplation, Exhibitions, Writer Interview, Writing Life, Writing News

St. Brigid’s Day Celebrations

I’m delighted to discuss Mantles: Encountering Brigid with Meath Libraries Executive Librarian Mary Murphy as part of Meath Libraries and Meath County Council St Brigid’s Day Celebrations. See YouTube below to watch our discussion which will premiere on Feb 1st 2022 at 6pm.

On the evening of February 1st, I will be talking about my research on Brigid, and Creative Ireland (Kildare County Council) funded project Mantles, to members of ATGI Tour Guides of Ireland.

Many thanks to Meath County Council and ATGI for the invitations!

Image of Cover of Mantles: Encountering Brigid

As part of my celebrations of Imbolc, Brigit and St Brigid, I will also be attending events and exhibitions and furthering my reading:

Wishing everyone a much healing, health, and heart this St Brigid’s Day and Imbolc.

Past Writers Interviews, Writer Interview, Writers Chat, Writers Read

Writers Chat 45: Linda Lappin on “The Soul of Place” (Travelers’ Tales: Palo Alto, 2015)

Following on from our recent Writers Chat, much of which focused on place, Linda and I decided that we’d like to revisit our 2015 Writers Chat about The Soul of Place A Creative Writing Workbook: Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci.

Cover image of The Soul of Place

Linda, I was delighted to hear of a writing workbook dedicated to place. I feel it is something that the writing world needs – and place, which is so central to narrative, is often omitted from generic writing books. The ‘blurb’ describes the book as an “engaging creative writing workbook” in which you present “a series of insightful exercises to help writers of all genres—literary travel writing, memoir, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction—discover imagery and inspiration in the places they love.”

Having had the pleasure to read your latest publication I found it a fascinating and easy read – before I even tried out some of the exercises with my writing groups. It left me with a number of wonderful ideas of how I might update writing prompts and exercises I regularly use with groups as well as introducing me to new techniques, and, more than anything, new perspectives on writing about place. This is what stays with me, now that I have put into practice some of your suggestions – how The Soul of Place sets out intriguing and original perspectives on writing into place, about place and from place. (I’ll be writing about this again, later!)  

SG: So, a few thoughts, questions, and considerations for you, Linda. Firstly, am I correct in my understanding that your premise for this book stems from your own journey in writing and in place and the knowledge gained that to go deep into our creative selves we must reach into the soul – the soul of place?

LL: Yes, this book retraces various itineraries I have explored through many places as a writer, a reader, and teacher.  It grew from two seeds, so to speak, the first is my own strong response to archetypal places which stir my imagination – islands, gardens, old houses, ruins, all of which appear in my fiction, essays, and in my life. The second was  a travel writing course I designed on “place-based writing” for students visiting Italy, where I live,  for the first time. My idea was to send them to interesting places, a medieval village, an Etruscan site, a baroque sculpture garden, ancient houses and churches, street markets, cafes, neighborhood festivals, train stations, a pilgrim’s road in the woods, to discover their own reaction to these environments while developing greater physical and intellectual awareness of the places themselves and engaging with the stories happening around them. I think creativity begins with awareness – taking time to notice who we are and where we are and with finding a new relationship to the space we live in and its contents.

SG: I agree with you about awareness, Linda. This is something that Julia Cameron and other artists talk about. Now you define the genius loci as “a form of intelligence operating within the environment in synergy with human beings.” Can you tell us a little more about how it affects our creativity, our writing, especially in relation to where we are writing (the physical place – e.g. an office, a school, a prison, a writers’ retreat etc)

LL: Architects and city planners, and before them geomancers and shamans have always known that architectural space and landscapes can be manipulated to produce certain feelings or induce certain behavior in human beings—to diverse ends.  Places, like people or planets, have emanations which may be the combined product of various forces –cosmic, terrestrial, conscious, unconscious, individual, collective, natural, artificial, historical, cultural. For me your question touches on two related but different issues.  The first and most obvious is, how can we obtain beneficial influence from our environment. I think it is possible to create  – or find — environments where our creativity and general well-being are enhanced, and discovering where those places are  can be a passionate, lifelong adventure for anyone, not just a writer or artist.   That doesn’t mean that your writing place has to be one with a stupendous view, but rather one where you are able to commune with yourself and summon your memory and imagination – and this can be anywhere, from an office to a prison cell to a picnic table at the park. It is a subjective thing, however. You have to find a place that feels right for you.  Very often we don’t really know how the places WHERE  we live affect us. Another issue this question raises concerns the type of influence which might come from the Soul of Place.  In some cases, it might not be a happy, or beneficial one, but a withering and painful one.  Some places may transmit to us violence and fear. Still in such places writers may find stories they feel compelled to tell, and an incredible energy may be available to help them at their task. Lastly, to reply to your mention of writing retreats: whenever we have the opportunity to write in a different setting and place, it helps refresh our senses, find new perspectives. I think that’s very useful.

SG: Sorry for such a loaded question, Linda, but I’m glad you mentioned perspectives – as your book is full of interesting insights about this. I was particularly taken with the section on Deep Maps – and blown away by the story you tell of Heat-Moon literally walking on the US Geographical Survey Maps covering Chase County, and then walking across the County section by section, and the fact that it took 8 years of research and 6 years of writing to complete PrairyEarth. It really epitomises what you are proposing in your book – that we pay (literal) attention to the ground we walk on, and with all our senses. Could you comment on that?

LL: What Least Heat-Moon discovered about his environment – its multilayered structure with deep roots resonating within  his own psyche, is something we can all find in the places where we are living now and where we have lived or only transited in the past if we take the time to investigate them with our senses, feelings, and curiosity.

SG: Curiosity is something that I sometimes think we are letting slip away – with so much information at our (literal) fingertips. Where is the meaning? And the discovery?

LL: I think you are right, we  are so bombarded by information, images, news, ideas, it is impossible to take it all in. That’s one reason, I think, that being centered in a physical place, even if only for a brief time, is so important.

SG: I like the way the workbook is structured – you discuss concepts, invite the reader to a selection of further reading, and illustrate the practice of these concepts or ideas using examples from literature and your own novels, and then present us with some exercises. Are there any readings or exercises you wish you could have included in the book?

LL: At one point this book was a third longer than it is now, with specific poetry exercises, journaling, fiction exercises that made it unwieldy, and so in my final version I scrapped some of them. I did have a section on recreating environments in historical fiction, something which really interests me, in fact all my novels are set in the 1920s and one, Katherine’s Wish, focuses on the historical character of Katherine Mansfield.  I decided not to include this material in the book, but to leave it for a later time. Another thing I didn’t include was a special exercise on masks, related to Carnival time, in Italy, and I hope to do something with that, too sooner or later!

SG: Oh that would be interesting – please keep me posted on new ventures; you might even have a second book on place and objects?

Well, I suppose it depends on the response to this book, but my own research has continued since I completed The Soul of Place. I’d like to something more with writing rooms and writers’s rooms for example, and my publisher had a great idea for a short video or two based on the ideas in the book.

SG: I am interested in arrivals and departures and how these movements connect to and disconnect from place and, because of this, form our emotional attachments (or detachments) to places and landscapes. You bring this notion a step further when you invite the reader to study every day places such as parks, gardens, markets but also to deeply explore sacred places and spaces, and labyrinths.

LL: Living in a place like Italy, you are literally immersed in layers of history – also religious history,  in places where Christian churches incorporated pagan sites where Neolithic people worshiped in even earlier times or in places where Renaissance artists rediscovering the humanism of the antique world  fused pagan and Christian symbols – The secret languages of myth, symbol, and the sacred are stamped on so many places here – gardens, towers, palaces, churches, grottoes, roads, you are constantly transiting from the bustle of contemporary life to these other zones which appeal to another part of our nature which is less concerned with the quotidian and hungry for feelings and sensations that make us feel part of a greater world. Most cultures do have special places, religious or natural sanctuaries, “set aside” to restore us from the frazzle of daily activities.  It can be very rewarding for writers to explore these different settings and their effect on our creativity.  

SG: It is clear that place – and placing cities, landscapes, exterior and interior to the forefront of your writing – is important to you. I know you discuss talismans in the book so can you tell us if there are any mementos that you carry with you? I, for example, have some Mexican milagros that go everywhere with me when I’m writing. I feel they connect me to place, and now that I have a name for it, thanks to your book, they connect me to the genius loci.

LL: Nowadays I tend to travel lighter than I once did.  As far as talismans go, I keep a ticket from the Paris metro in my wallet –hoping it will somehow anticipate my next visit to a place I love. The old house where my husband and I go on week ends sometimes is a talisman in itself. Full of curious objects accumulated in various ways, it definitely has a personality of its own.  Rather than taking things with me when I travel, there are certain things I love to bring back, like dried herbs, honey, or seeds. I  always bring back sea salt from Greece, Sardinia or France. People think I am crazy to bring back a kilo of salt from a Greek or French supermarket –but I just love the idea of adding a little touch of the Aegean or the Atlantic when I cook.

SG: Oh goodness, this has put a smile on my face – when I go to the west coast of France (which is pretty much every year), I always bring back large bags of sea salt. There’s nothing like it! The other day I made a wonderful salty caramel using it. Moving on from this, can you describe the place where you wrote this workbook?

LL: Different places: A sunny room in Rome with a balcony over a very noisy street, with jasmine and plumbago vines and a nest built by a pair of blackbirds that then never occupied it.  A darker room in an old house in a village outside Rome, with  a red brick floor and thick chestnut beams, with a view of the canyon, and a woodstove with a glass door through which I can watch the flames.  A courtyard in that same village, with lush Virginia creeper clinging to old stone walls and flowering hydrangeas concealing a fountain.

SG: I can just picture them – all so inspirational, magical and, of course, so full of vibrant colour. Tell me, where will you spend the summer months – and what will you be working on?

LL: I will be visiting relatives in the US and then hopefully,  will return for a short visit to Greece, where I am hoping to organize a five day Soul of Place Writing Workshop with a writing center on the island Andros next summer. I am trying to finish a memoir about a house sit in Tuscany, called Postcards from a Tuscan Interior, and also have a couple of novels on the fire, as well. Thanks so much for your interest in my book. Your questions have been quite challenging.

SG: Thank you for engaging so fully with the questions, Linda, and I wish you every success with your book which I will continue to use as part of my teaching and which I recommend – highly!

Photograph of Linda Lappin (Courtesy of the author)

Connect with Linda and Purchase The Soul of Place–A Creative Writing Workbook: Ideas and Exercises for Counjuring the Genius Loci (Travelers’ Tales: Palo Alto, 2015)