Thursday, 19 March 2015
Another Rebecca by Tracey Scott-Townsend
Release Date: 21st March 2015 (available for pre-order)
Publisher: Inspired Quill
Publisher: Inspired Quill
Genres: Contemporary Fiction
Brook Cottage Books is thrilled to introduce Tracey Scott-Townsend to the blog. Tracey has written a great guest post for us. Thank you Tracey.
I’m
married to Phil now. We were at the same schools throughout our childhoods and
I remember asking for his views on family life when we were about ten. (He swore
he and his siblings didn’t fight, although his sister has since put me right on
this.) Phil also gave me a silver horseshoe with a horse’s head in it and I
wish I still had that.
My
favourite places (so far) are Ireland, the Outer Hebrides and Iceland – which I
have to go to in an aeroplane, of course. Future books will be set in all of
these places.
It was inspired by the
painting There is no Night
by Jack B. Yeats. I imagined the figure in the foreground coming to life
and whistling for his horse. I was studying for my Art degree at the time,
writing a lot as well as painting and drawing. I don’t even know where the rest
of the story came from. I used to work into the early hours of the morning and
I sat down one night and it poured itself onto the pages of my notebook. It was easy to develop it into a novel all
these years later. Young Rebecca is derived from my memories of being on the
cusp of adulthood. She lives in a caravan as I did at the same age, (my dad was
building a new family home). Like Rebecca, I also had a friend in the village
who owned horses. Rebecca later moves to Newtown Linford in Leicestershire, a
place I know well from a yearly camp I’ve been to since my children were small.
Short Stories:
Brook Cottage Books is thrilled to announce that Tracey will be touring with us in May so if you are interested in being a part of the tour for ANOTHER REBECCA then you can email me at brookbooks@hotmail.co.uk
Brook Cottage Books is thrilled to introduce Tracey Scott-Townsend to the blog. Tracey has written a great guest post for us. Thank you Tracey.
About me and Another Rebecca
I’m
lucky to have a private space in which to write. I was a single parent for ten
years and it was important to have somewhere, however tiny, for peace and
reflection. This is my third shed. I worked as a visual artist prior to 2010
and before that everything was covered in spatters of paint and glue.
I met him again 30 years after
leaving school. We moved in together pretty quickly and got married. It was a
year of immense upheavals for me. My sister died and later the same year my
father did too. But it was also around that time that I took up writing
seriously, starting with The Last Time We Saw Marion
(Inspired Quill 2014) initially written 20 years before. I was able to give my
youthful story the colour and shade of my real-life experiences. Like Jane in
the book, I was now the mother of four. I had lost a baby and my middle son
suffered the same condition as baby Caitlin in the book.
As
well as motherhood, travelling is a marvellous source of inspiration for
writing. My favourite way to travel is in the bus-with-a-woodstove with Phil
and our dog, Riley. We’re always on the look-out for a decent layby to settle
for the night in.
Another Rebecca, my
second novel with Inspired Quill, is derived from a story I wrote in my twenties.
It was inspired by the
painting There is no Night
by Jack B. Yeats. I imagined the figure in the foreground coming to life
and whistling for his horse. I was studying for my Art degree at the time,
writing a lot as well as painting and drawing. I don’t even know where the rest
of the story came from. I used to work into the early hours of the morning and
I sat down one night and it poured itself onto the pages of my notebook. It was easy to develop it into a novel all
these years later. Young Rebecca is derived from my memories of being on the
cusp of adulthood. She lives in a caravan as I did at the same age, (my dad was
building a new family home). Like Rebecca, I also had a friend in the village
who owned horses. Rebecca later moves to Newtown Linford in Leicestershire, a
place I know well from a yearly camp I’ve been to since my children were small.
Initially Another Rebecca was told exclusively
from the first person perspectives of Rebecca and Bex only. But then the reader
could only see and know what these two claustrophobically intertwined
characters were telling us and so I brought in Jack, Rebecca’s father, as the
third narrator. He steps back and gives us a wider view of Bex in the past as
well as adding a third voice to their present, giving us a fuller story. He
also shows us how Rebecca has been damaged by both her parents.
Seventeen-going-on-eighteen is an age I identify
with most when writing a character. Maybe it’s because I was that age when I
left home and I remember clearly how it felt to be stepping away from my family
at the same time as feeling parts of me were left behind. You are always
entangled in some way. Childhood is a powerful influence on the future and my characters
always struggle to shake off the shackles of theirs.
Published
work
Novels:
The Last Time We Saw
Marion (April
2014 Inspired Quill)
Another Rebecca (March 2015 Inspired
Quill)
[I have also written
a sequel to The Last Time We Saw Marion, as yet unpublished]
Jennifer’s Dream (Etherbooks 2014)
The Water is Wide (Etherbooks 2014)
The Man in the Sea (Etherbooks 2014)
Two Weeks in the Sun (Etherbooks 2014)
Surprised to Know (Full of Crow Fiction July 2013)
White Hope (Momaya Annual Review 2013)
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