I'm
delighted to announce that today we have a guest post from famous
author Kathleen Davenport, writer of the Agnes Merryweather
mysteries. Over to Kathleen.
My
Life Story
by
Kathleen
Davenport
For some unfathomable reason, my
publisher, Haphazard Manor Press, has asked me to write a brief story
of my writing life, for the benefit of my readers on this site. So,
without further ado, here goes...
I knew that I wanted to be a crime
writer from the moment I read my first Agatha Christie story, The
Body in the Library, at the age of fourteen. I fell in love with
both the genre and the writer. Mrs Christie was still alive back
then, and I wrote to her via her publisher and received a lovely
letter in return. A letter in which she encouraged me to follow my
dream, whilst pointing out that it would be hard work and that the
rewards, especially in the early years as I built up a body (ha!) of
work, would not be great. Is it any wonder I became a life-long fan
of that great lady?
I wrote my first crime story, Hacked
to Death, at the age of fifteen and, with all the exuberance and
arrogance of youth, sent it off directly to a publisher. To their
credit, along with my manuscript and the rejection slip they returned
to me some months later, they included a letter saying that, whilst I
had a good story and narrative voice, I should concentrate on my
craft and on improving my writing skills. With this encouragement, I put
the manuscript away in a drawer and forgot about it.
I married in my twenties, but it was
clear from the start that Geoffrey and I were unsuited to one
another. He loved hill walking and mountaineering, I got vertigo
standing on the front door step. I loved flower arranging, he was
allergic to pollen. He loved extreme sports but would never tackle
the extreme pile of ironing. An amicable divorce followed several years later.
Needing a means to support myself, I
took a job as a secretary and started writing again in my spare time.
Agnes Merryweather, the Church of England vicar who is my most
popular sleuth, arrived in my head after several disastrous attempts
to write romance. Given my own romantic history, it is hardly
surprising that I failed to interest agents or publishers in my tales
though, to this day, it still amazes me that I ever thought I could
write the next great love story. Thankfully, I won't ever have to try
that again. Agnes has been my route to the top of the Bestseller
charts, and my fans clamour for more.
Such has been the success of my little mysteries that, over recent years I have had to employ a personal assistant who also undertakes a lot of the research on my behalf. The first few were dismal — uneducated, barely literate young gals who thought 'Cyanide' was the name of a boy band — until, about to throw up my hands in despair at the current state of the English education system, Verity Long came to work for me. Intelligent outspoken, and far too inquisitive for her own good, Verity is an excellent researcher and fits in well with my, shall we say, idiosyncratic writing schedule.
Readers will, I hope, be pleased to
know that the twenty-fifth Agnes Merryweather book, Murder in
Plane Sight, about a death at the local aerodrome, will be
published this April.
Many
thanks to Mrs Davenport for taking time out from her busy schedule to
join us. I hope you enjoyed her post as much as I did.
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