AMA: association of midland artists

Sheila Graham, potter and writer, chats to her husband, Alan, about his newly-published book, Who is Amy Carpenter?

SHEILA: I know you’ve written lots of books while working for the Open University but this is very different, isn’t it?
ALAN: Yes, It’s my first novel. For many years I’ve written teaching materials in mathematics and maths education. I’ve also published quite a few textbooks, including two in the Teach Yourself series, but writing fiction has been a bit of a departure, as you know!

SHEILA: It seemed to me that you enjoyed writing it. Did you?
ALAN: Yes! With my previous writing I was always working to an agenda where the overall structure was given. But creating my own story was very liberating!

SHEILA: Can you describe the story in one sentence?
ALAN: I’d say … a love story with lashings of French ‘ooh-la-la’ and adventure thrown in.

SHEILA: Yes, that’s how I’d describe it as well. Was it your love of France that was your starting point?
ALAN: Not really. One day, while working on creating a website, I had a sudden memory of a fleeting incident that had happened at work many years before but had never gone anywhere. I found myself wondering…well, what if it had? Just for fun, I wrote a couple of pages and on rereading them I was faced with yet more of these ‘what if’ questions. One thing led to another and 200 pages later I hope I’ve satisfactorily answered some of them.

SHEILA: Tell us a bit about the storyline.
ALAN: At the heart of the story is a shy secretary, Amy, who gets together with a university lecturer—the narrator, Pete. They embark on solving a mystery connected to Amy’s past. Their investigation takes them to Normandy, in France.

SHEILA: So, does the reader get an answer to this question, Who is Amy Carpenter?
ALAN: Yes! The book is about Amy’s quest as she tries to chase down a mystery surrounding her childhood, her mother and her connections with Normandy. It could have been called ‘French Connection’ but it turned out this title had already been bagged!

SHEILA: And inevitably she discovers something about herself—her inner self.
ALAN: Yes. As the mystery unravels, Amy discovers that she’s a young woman with hidden talents and courage that she never knew she possessed.

SHEILA: And do Amy and Pete fall in love?
ALAN: Mais oui! We all love a love story!

SHEILA: Looking back, how do you feel now about the act of writing the book?
ALAN: The freedom to choose my own content was at times exhilarating but it also created certain problems. Occasionally I found myself going down a cul-de-sac and it took a bit of courage to decide to stop, go into reverse and choose a different path! Also, with my first draft I had a tendency to race on with the story—‘and then, and then …’! But with a little criticism …sorry, a little encouragement …from you, being an actress and a published writer of fiction yourself, I gradually learned to slow down and work more on developing the characters—‘who are these people and why might they behave as they do?’

SHEILA: Yes, to me the characters and the relationships between them are the plot—as in life. But finally on to the fun bit. How did you choose the cover of the book?
ALAN: Well, I was looking for a cover image that said ‘rural France’. I had my own photographs, of course but then I remembered putting this painting up on the Gallery page of the Association of Midland Artists website. It’s a little beauty by Dee Luntley called ‘French Window’ and I just thought, that’s the one!