Sara Sheridan
Sara Sheridan
Sara Sheridanis a Scottish writer who works in a variety of genres, though predominately in historical fiction. She is the creator of the Mirabelle Bevan mysteries...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth7 June 1968
age dumped few historical jobs novelist science
As an historical novelist - there are few jobs more retrospective. I dumped science at an early age.
cocktail mysterious perhaps wandering writer
The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.
ambivalent birthday britain came deal developed dinner excited far female great margaret month mother political power prime relationship remember table though
I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 - a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I remember it, though - my mother excited at the dinner table because Britain had its first female prime minister.
came lucky quite throwing
I said: 'I'm throwing in my job, and I'm going to write a book.' Everyone thought: 'She's off her trolley,' and it was quite crazy, really. I'm just lucky that it came off.
author hugely people realized
I realized early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Because there are no pay grades and very little structure, people make interesting assumptions about the profession.
background books constantly event historical whether wondering
I once did an event with Ian Rankin where he said he didn't really need to do much background research because his books are set in the present, and I just thought: 'You lucky, lucky beast!' because as a historical novelist, I live constantly on the edge of wondering whether tissues had been invented.
ask people quite ten
How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow.
control corporate difficult digital enter extremely financial job publishers revolution value writer
The digital revolution has wrest a little control away from corporate publishers and white, male, middle-aged critics, but the financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.
sky black velvet
The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.
class scotland world
Scotland consistently produces world-class writers.
wall thinking scotland
Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrians Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.
scotland
Scotland just isn't terribly Tory.
law clubs want
The law don't like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.
criticism level-playing-field levels
The net has provided a level playing field for criticism and comment - anyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion - and that is one of its greatest strengths.