Chat with Jean Gill

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I recently fell in love with audio books and the 2nd one I listened to was Song at Dawn: 1150 in Provence (The Troubadours Quartet) by Welsh author Jean Gill. To say I was enthralled wouldn’t do it justice. Once I accustomed by ear to the narrator’s thick brogue (Scottish/Irish?) I was pulled into a world so totally foreign to me I hung on every word, wondering how much was history and how much was fiction. I still don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. I believed every word.

 

Jean— tell us a little about yourself

I’m a Welsh writer and photographer now living in the south of France with two scruffy dogs, a Nikon D750, a beehive called Endeavour and a man. We escaped the rain in 2003 when my husband retired and I took the chance to write full-time. My claim to fame is that I was the first woman to be a secondary headteacher in Wales and I loved my work. If only you could lead 10,000 lives! I’m also mother or stepmother to five children so life was very hectic.

Five? Wow—I had trouble keeping up with one. Now I have two grown steps and two grandkids, so there are times my house is overflowing.

What genre(s) do you write in? Is there one you’d like to try?

I started as a poet (traditionally published) then turned to prose when I was forty. I had an idea for a second-chance romantic novel and was determined to complete it. That same year I decided to give up sugar, which was harder than writing the novel. No Bed of Roses was not only completed but published by Gomer, which motivated me to continue writing novels.

Since then I’ve written historical fiction, a dog book, YA fiction, memoir, military history and a cookbook. I’ve also translated dog training books and a biography of Edith Piaf from French to English.

I love that you follow your heart.

Not to mention the time I won a place on a HTV course in writing for television and spent a couple of years writing scripts and submitting them to various theatres and television companies. I reached the second round for a job as an Eastenders scriptwriter. The British TV soap was the highest-paying job in script writing but thank goodness I didn’t get it – I’d have had to watch an episode