Eleanor Wasserberg is a graduate of the Creative Writing Programme at the University of East Anglia. Originally from Staffordshire, she now lives in Norwich. Her debut novel Foxlowe it out on 2nd June 2016, and here Eleanor answers a few questions about being an author.
What I’m reading: I’ve just started the The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge which is just as weirdly wonderful as I’d hoped (I loved Cuckoo Song.) I’m excited to read The Maker of Swans by Paraic O’Donnell, and I’m dipping into Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson.
What I’m listening to:
Regina Spektor is always on my ipod. Radio 4 is also my daily soundtrack.
What I’m watching:
Girls, The Walking Dead–Anything to kill the time until Game of Thrones comes back.
Favourite word(s):
luminous, bloom, voluptuous
Favourite song:
Carey.
Your hero – literary or otherwise:
Joni Mitchell.
The book you wish you’d written/The book that everyone should read:
The Handmaid’s Tale.
Writing ritual:
Kitchen table, big mug of tea, switch off internet! (The Freedom App should be in my Acknowledgements).
Best advice ever received:
Don’t be precious: they’re just words. You can always delete them and write new ones.
If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
Climate change is terrifying; I’d somehow stop it and reverse the damage already done.
Think of something beautiful – could we ask you to describe what you see?
Endless Norfolk skies over bleak, gorgeous Blakeney on the coast.
What’s the most memorable sentence you’ve ever read?
From The Lottery: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t rightâ€, Mrs Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her. If I’m allowed to cheat and have two: it’s a simple line but the moment in Persuasion when the lonely Anne looks around at Wentworth’s friends and thinks These would have been all my friends always breaks my heart a little.
What would you be doing if you weren’t writing?
Teaching.
Who would play your main character in a film adaptation of your book:
Saoirse Ronan or Mia Wasikowska would do the combination of vulnerable and frightening really well for older Green. Suranne Jones would be a brilliant Freya.
Where best do you write?
Anywhere quiet, internet free, with a good comfortable chair and access to tea and biscuits.
Foxlowe
Eleanor Wasserberg
Published 2nd June 2016
Hardback
9780008164089
4th Estate
RRP £14.99
If you’re a bookseller in the UK or Ireland and you’d like an advance reading copy of Foxlowe, please send your request, along with your name and bookshop address, to Olivia at independentthinking@harpercollins.co.uk.
