16/06/05 - Katie Fforde
A bumper crowd turned out to meet Katie Fforde at Sandhurst library on Thursday 16th June 2005. Katie, best-selling romantic novelist entertained us by talking about her life, her writing and her new book, ‘Flora’s Lot’.
Katie first started writing when her children were very small, grabbing a precious hour each day to write. A fan of romantic fiction, Katie’s first taste of commercial success was writing for ‘Mills and Boon’ (of which she had been a voracious reader herself). Subsequently work she sent to the ‘Romantic Novelists Association’ for feedback was passed to a newly-establishing agent, which led to Katie’s mainstream breakthrough.
Katie draws a lot on her own life experiences and of those around her when she writes. She explained how after a friend from her choir told her about the ‘snow-hole’ he had slept in in the mountains, she used the setting for a love-scene in her Scottish based novel, ‘Highland Fling’ (I did wonder where she came up with this idea!).
Whilst Katie read us an extract from ‘Flora’s Lot’, she had asked the audience to think of questions they would like to ask. A vibrant informal question and answer session followed where Katie was asked all sort of things including: ‘What are you currently reading?’, ‘How do you choose your characters names?’ and ‘How do you do you research?’
The chance to chat to Katie one-to-one and have a copy of her book signed rounded off a very enjoyable evening.
Jo Middleton
Fiction Librarian
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