Jane Rusbridge's Blog, page 8
September 12, 2012
3 Sussex Writers at Petworth Literary Weekend
Come and join the Three Sussex Writers at Petworth Literary Festival on Friday 16th November!
Authors Isabel Ashdown, Gabrielle Kimm and Jane Rusbridge all live in the Chichester area of West Sussex, and, at different stages, each has studied Creative Writing at the University of Chichester, where Jane also teaches. The trio now regularly teams up for readings, literary festivals and creative workshops across the country, often working with local organisations to support fundraising events.
You’ll be able to buy signed copies of our novels for the special event price of £6.00 each or £10.oo for 2
More details to follow…
September 11, 2012
ROOK at Bookmark Belles
I’m delighted that brand new book group, Bookmark Belles, has chosen Rook for their first read.
The Bookmark Belles are an offshoot of The Blake’s Belles ,a new generation social and craft group for Felpham and surrounding areas launched last year. ‘The Blake Belles’ is for ‘new generation’ women – ‘its not about age, just about attitude!’, they say, and the vision is to be a mix of arts and crafts, social events, education and adventure for women of all ages.
The Bookmark Belles will meet on the 3rd Wednesday of each month, and the first meeting is November 21st.
Venue: function room at The George Inn 102 Felpham Road, Felpham, PO22 7PL
Time: 7.30-9.30pm
Price: £2 per visit plus a drink and/or food if you want it.
For more info: contact kathryn@blakebelles.co.uk
Buy a copy of ROOK from Waterstone’s online (currently 30% off RRP)
Or order from your local bookshop: ROOK by Jane Rusbridge ( Bloomsbury Circus, 2012)
READ OPENING on Bloomsbury’s website
‘Rusbridge’s fine perceptions of the natural world, the way her writing is steeped in the landscape, history and culture of West Sussex, help define her as a talented new regional voice’
September 10, 2012
In Aid of the Sussex Snowdrop Trust: Cream Tea with Three Sussex Writers
Russell’s Garden Centre in Birdham are hosting Tea with Three Sussex Authors in aid of the Sussex Snowdrop Trust on Friday 14th December.
Come along and get in to the Christmassy mood as you enjoy a cream tea and chat to the authors in the relaxed ambience of the restaurant, where there’s a log burning fire with deep leather sofas and the decor is coastal- inspired. The popular Garden Centre also has a Christmas Grotto and plenty of gifts to inspire you with ideas for Christmas presents. Plus, our books will even be giftwrapped!
The Snowdrop Trust provides ‘Care at Home’ for local children who have a life-threatening illness or who may be terminally ill, allocating specialist paediatric nurses and the support team offers, practical, emotional and financial support for their families.
We donate £1 for every book sold to the Snowdrop Trust
Time: 3.00pm
Price: £5 (Tickets from Russell’s)
Venue: Russell’s Garden Centre
Main Rd
Birdham
Chichester
West Sussex
PO20 7BY
Map by Google Maps
Garden centre: 01243 512525 Restaurant: 01243 511156 Email : info@russellsgardencentre.com
Wheelchair Access
ROOK is Good Housekeeping’s ‘One to Watch’
They say: ‘Talented new author Liza Klaussmann is the great-great granddaughter of Herman Melville. Her debut Tigers in Red Weather is a Great-Gatsby-esque novel about a wealthy dysfunctional American family, where passion, betrayal and disappointment simmer just below the surface. Jane Rusbridge has written a mesmerizing read in Rook. When a filmmaker arrives in a small Sussex village, he uncovers long-buried secrets that unsettle everyone. Another book we loved is The Dinner by Herman Koch, which takes a controversial look at the lengths two sets of parents go to when their sons commit a horrific crime’
August 23, 2012
Gone Reading…
I can hardly believe it, but it’s four weeks today since ROOK was launched at a party in London on a steamy hot night, the eve of the Olympics, in the conservatory of Bloomsbury’s beautiful headquarters in Bedford Square.
It was wonderful to have so many people from different areas of my life – friends and work colleagues, workshop and writing friends, people I’ve chatted with on social networks but not met before, readers and reviewers, editors, agents – all there to help celebrate ROOK’s launch. Much wine was drunk and many copies of ROOK were sold. There’s a photo album, if you’d like a look to see who was there, on my Facebook author page .
The past two months have been a whirl-wind for me, and not just as an author. Six weeks ago my first grandchild was born; two weeks ago, my eldest daughter got married. There have been celebrations and preparations, a baby to cuddle and blog posts to write, author events to attend, interview questions to answer and many exciting reviews to be read.
This summer has been joyous. It’s also involved some hard work, hours at the computer and one or two nerve-wracking moments - like standing on a chair to say Thank you to Bloomsbury and everybody at the launch! September and October are already looking busy with lots of author events. So, before the autumn, I’m going to take some time out on a hammock with a huge To Be Read pile of books. I plan to read and swim, and spend some lazy time drinking sol y sombra under the stars with close friends who have nothing to do with my writing world. Back in September!
August 16, 2012
Canada Water Library:private event for librarians
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I'm delighted to have been invited, as an old CHSG girl, to talk to the Independent Schools’ Librarians Group when they visit the impressive Canada Water Library. This new library, completed at the end of the last year, is designed by Piers Gough and stocked with 40,000 brand new books. I'm going to be leading a ‘fun’ informal session on the impact of memory on writing before we are given a formal tour of the Library.
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July 19, 2012
What do Fiction Editors do?
This is the ‘uncorrected proof’ of Rook, sent out a month or so ago by the team at Bloomsbury. Now I’m walking a knife-edge – there’s the hope people will love Rook and maybe respond with a word or two, and then there’s the fear no one will. Book cover ‘blurb’ from a well-known author will give a huge boost to a beginner like me. But imagine Rook on the bedside table of an author whose work I’ve read and admired for years? No. Best not to. Pretend it’s not happening. As Claire King has recently blogged, you can only hope people will be kind.
So far, I have found they are.
Page edits and last minute typos are still to be done before Rook is published in August; much ‘correcting’ – major and minor editing work, countless redrafts of scenes and sentences – has already been done, way too much to recount in detail here.
However, to follow on from Gerald Hornsby’s insightful post on editing a self-published novel , I’m going to outline the way the editing process proceeded for me, as an author published with Bloomsbury.
The beginning:
Late 2008: I’m a ‘myopic’ editor of my own work, changing a sentence as it emerges, fiddling endlessly with detail. As I wrote the first random scenes, I felt my way, word by word. In January 2009, I joined Kathy Page’s Workout for the Novel , an online course which gave me a kick-start, and more idea where the novel might be going. The course involved valuable input sessions as well as weekly online workshops. Feedback from Kathy and other writers raised questions and led to changes. And more editing.
Throughout 2009 there were monthly meetings, with an exchange of feedback with my long-term writing group of four, plus emails flying, in moments of crisis, to other writing friends, like Jackie Buxton. The novel progressed haphazardly. I’d imagined the final scene, but not how the characters would get there. Some of the characters were bit ‘muddy’. In March 2010, I joined Vicky Grut’s Novelists’ Club , travelling up to London once a month for productive day-long workshops on various aspects of novel writing such as dialogue, plot and structure. With Vicky’s editorial help I worked on a chapter outline. Joined up a few dots. Finally, in August 2010, the very first draft of Rook was sent to my editor at Bloomsbury.
The middle:
I had no confidence in that first draft. It was all over the place. There’d been no ‘perfect storm’ moment which Aminatta Forna so accurately describes. I’ve done plenty of line-by-line work, but there’s another aspect to editing a novel – a different skill – which involves being able to take an overview of the sprawling mass of words, to see how best to shape them. An experienced professional editor brings this invaluable skill into the mix. Having previously worked with Helen Garnons Williams on The Devil’s Music, I knew already how much creative energy can be sparked through the insight gained from working with a talented editor.
That first wobbly, raw-egg draft of Rook was read by two editors at Bloomsbury, Helen and Erica Jarnes. The feedback began: ‘this has the makings of a wonderful novel and your descriptive prose is glorious….’ . The praise. Then, that word: ‘But…’ – and there followed by 7 pages of notes which revealed Helen and Erica had seen straight through my chaos of stray plotlines to the story’s pulse. It’s such a relief to find that your editor ‘gets it’. Helen and Erica ‘got’ Rook before I did, or so it seemed at the time. After a week or two to mull things over, and with some suggestions of my own, I met Helen to bounce ideas around. Afterwards, throughout the autumn of 2010, I wrote with clearer vision and renewed energy. Some peripheral drama was cut; one central character was dumped. (I’d never liked him, which should have told me something.) This wasn’t tweaking, but a major rewrite, one which revealed to me the core of the emotional journey I wanted the reader to travel.
During the spring of 2011, plagued by insomnia, I wrestled with interwoven narratives, secrets and memories, three feisty women characters, warriors and battle scenes from 1066. I was, more often than not, at my desk by 4.30 a.m., prodded awake my ‘wild mind’, as Natalie Goldberg calls it. Finally, the narrative came together with the exhilarating synchronicity many writers speak of as essential to the creative process – it’s certainly part of the magic. I was buzzing with excitement when I sent off the second full draft, in June 2011.
Editorial feedback was positive. All that was needed in terms of structure was some adjustment to the penultimate chapter where fresh preoccupations of mine had crowded in at the last moment – actually the beginnings of novel 3 stirring in the compost of my mind. Out that came!
The final stages happen quite quickly:
October 2011: The draft of Rook was sent to one of Bloomsbury’s copy editors, Audrey, whose meticulous mind had helped sort out stray inaccuracies in TDM. Emails flurried to and fro between us for a few days, ranging over a variety of issues such as tying historical dates in with characters’ ages, whether to use ‘Cnut’ or ‘Canute’, and whether rooks eat carrion. In November 2011, a fat envelope arrived containing Audrey’s copyedit manuscript for my approval, with fortnight deadline for any changes to be marked on the pages or listed by email. Just before Christmas, page proofs landed on my doorstep, with another deadline the middle of January 2012. While I read these page edits, another editor at Bloomsbury was checking them too. Whoever it was found an error I’d never have noticed: I’d used ‘Robinson’s’ instead of ‘Robertson’s’ when talking about jam!
Fiction editors are important. They play a key creative role in the growth of a novel, or so I have found. At Bloomsbury, over a period of 18 months, Rook-in-progress passed through the hands of four different editors, all of whom helped shape the novel that will hit the shelves in August. Editing is an art.
The View From Here literary magazine has interviewed Helen Garnons Williams, fiction editorial director at Bloomsbury
Part one: Introduction
Part two: Insights into working with authors and Helen’s advice and top three tips for debut authors.
Part Three: Helen discusses the ever changing publishing industry, working at Bloomsbury, and hopes for the future.
Three Sussex Writers at Arundel Literary Festival
Jane Rusbridge will be appearing at the Arundel Festival 2012 
with Isabel Ashdown and Gabrielle Kimm.
Tickets : £3.00
Time: 2 – 4.30pm
The three authors are known as the ‘Three Sussex Writers’, and regularly appear together at festivals, libraries, schools, universities, charity events, fetes and book groups across Sussex.
At the festival, Jane Rusbridge will read from ROOK, published by Bloomsbury Circus this summer and set in the historic town of Bosham. The three writers will chat about the writing process and answer questions on their novels.
At the end of the session, for anyone who wants to try their hand at writing or spark up their creative energy, there’ll be a chance to participate in some quick-fire and fun writing exercises.
Buy your ticket now while there’s still room to come along and join the conversation!
For more details and to buy tickets see Arundel Festival Programme of Events
Find out more about the THREE SUSSEX WRITERS and their novels here
July 18, 2012
Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival 2012
Jane Rusbridge is delighted to be returning to London’s biggest literary festival again this year.
She will be in conversation with writer and reviewer Isabel Costello when Isabel’s Literary Sofa goes live for the first time.
Tickets: £7
’Intense, atmospheric, and beautifully written’ Joanna Briscoe
Isabel Costello will talk to Jane Rusbridge about her new novel, ROOK. Set in the ancient Sussex village of Bosham, Rusbridge’s mesmerising story of family, legacy and turning back the tides, explores the mystery surrounding Harold II’s burial place, the hidden histories of the Bayeux Tapestry, and connections forged through three women’s secrets. ROOK beautifully evokes the shifting Sussex sands and the rich seam of history lying just beneath them and is part of an exciting new Bloomsbury imprint, Bloomsbury Circus.
Jane Rusbridge lives and works in West Sussex. Her first novel, The Devil’s Music, was nominated for the International IMPAC Literary Award in 2011; her second, Rook, is published by Bloomsbury’s exciting new literary imprint, Bloomsbury Circus. Jane has an MA in Creative Writing, and has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at Chichester for more than ten years.
Isabel Costello studied Modern Languages at Oxford. While working on her first novel, she has established herself as an in-depth online book reviewer. Her blog, On the Literary Sofa, also features listings, interviews and articles about fiction.
3 Days 60 Events 
80 Literary Minds
All @ Ivy House
‘The Ham and High Literary Festival – and I speak as a battle-scarred festival veteran – ranks high among my favourites. I feel as though I’m talking to family. And I like speaking where Anna Pavlova danced.’ Howard Jacobson
This year’s outstanding line-up of authors, journalists, politicians and writers includes; Howard Jacobson, Pam Ayres, Michael Palin, Rose Tremain, Gavin Esler, Alison Weir, Tom Holland, Lisa Jewell, David Lammy MP, Kathy Lette, S J Watson, Robert Goddard, Matthew Hancock MP, Harriet Lane, Michael Nicholson, John O Farrell and many many more.
Or come to one of three creative writing workshops to enhance your skills.
Full information and online booking is available now @ www.hamhighlitfest.com
‘Rook is a novel of layers and textures, patiently crafted, and beautifully finished’ Katie Ward Girl Reading Preorder
July 16, 2012
A Retreat You Can’t Beat
Exhausted by trying to stay positive in all this rain? Well, there’s this place I know, one which might help…
Retreating from our busy lives is not always easy. Usually, the sunshine and warmth of summer allows us many opportunities to eat our meals outside and to take time over them, to go for walks and lazy picnics, to spend a day reading on the beach – but not this year, not in Britain. Maybe because of the endless rain and cloud, many people are talking of a need to switch-off, or escape.
Fifteen years ago, we first went to the North coast of Crete on a package tour. One day, we hired a car and stopped at a petrol station to fill up. When the Greek guy on the pumps asked us where we were going, I held up our very basic tourist map, pointing to a beach on the south coast recommended by a guide at the hotel. He took the map from my hands, whipped a biro from behind his ear and drew a blue wiggle where the map was completely blank, just south of Spili.
‘Go here,’ he said, jabbing with his finger. ‘This is where the Greeks go.’
And so we discovered, by chance, a stretch of coast just south of Spili to which we have returned every year.
Why?
This why: we return because we fell in love with rugged mountains, olive trees clinging to rocky slopes which give way – here and there – to the gravelly scoop of an isolated beach; we fell in love with air which smells of sunbaked earth, aromatic with mountain herbs, and with night skies thick with stars. We fell in love with remote tavernas nestled at the end of dirt tracks, or tucked into the shelter of a craggy corner, perhaps built around an ancient carob storehouse or stone fisherman’s hut, buildings often owned by the same local family for generations. We fell in love with the place, and the people we met there.
This is Akoumia beach, to the east of the Triopetra rocks which provide a striking landmark on this stretch of coast. That first day, we were the only people on this beach; the only people at Apanemia taverna for lunch. The taverna had recently opened, a new venture for the Koumandakis family. Stelios and his mother fed us with delicious octopus in red wine sauce and rabbit stifado, brought us chocolate biscuit cake to taste, and gave us raki made from their own grapes. They welcomed us as if we were friends, and we were charmed.
Kindness and generosity are what Cretans in these mountain villages and tavernas give to strangers, always offering food or drink, pressing gifts of their own wine and homegrown produce into our hands. Even Rula, the lady who owns the supermarket where we often shop in Spili, about 25 minutes drive from the coast. Since that first drive down to the south coast, we’ve always headed straight to the south coast from Heraklion. We explore the dirt tracks and get lost.
Many magical places are close by, like Akoumia church, on the top of the mountain, and the narrow backstreets of Spili. Or, further afield, the Minoan Palace at Phaestos; the Roman cemetry at Matala, where hippies lived in the 60s. Over the years, more people have ‘discovered’ the joys of this area. As well as the Greeks who flock there in August, in the quieter months you might meet Belgian, French, German, Austrian and a few other British tourists. Many return, like us, year after year.
Think you might want a trip out there?
Here are my favourite places to use as a base for explorations:
Apanemia Taverna – number one on the list - run by Stelios and his fiancee Georgia. Here, you sleep to the sound of the sea, within a few steps of the beach . . .
Agia Fotini taverna with its turqouise shutters and tablesis so close to the sea that, on a windy day, your food is seasoned with salt spray. You can read a Guardian article with more details here
Ligres : with its lush river valley and terraced taverna looking down over a long, empty beach.
The tavernas at Apanemia, Ligres and Agia Fotini are all family-run and very friendly, serving delicious, traditional Greek food. All three have rooms.
If you fancy self-catering instead, there’s Agia Paraskevi , a village up in the mountains where you can rent a simple stone house which has been restored, and listen to goat bells on the wind.
We’ve stayed here, in Agyro’s House, more than once.
Between the village of Akoumia and the beach at Triopetra are Paterakis Studios , great if you like to self-cater and prefer a spacious room in a less remote spot. And here, there’s also a swimming pool.
A friend recently enjoyed 3 weeks holiday in this part of Crete, staying in Agia Fotini. She came home and announced on facebook: ‘Crete is good for the soul’. That pretty much sums it up.
With thanks to Nat Miller for all the best photos here. If you’d like to use any, please run it past us first, via the contact form on this website. Thank you!
