Anjana Neira Dev (AND): Every journey begins with an upheaval, a crisis or even a cataclysm that changes our life and the direction it has been taking. Would you share with us the beginning of your journey as a creative writer?
Sophie Hannah (SH): It’s hard for me to pinpoint a precise starting point because writing is something I’ve done for as long as I can remember; writing stories and poems was my hobby as a child and, because my mum was a writer, it always seemed a very natural and normal thing for me to be doing. Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven mysteries sparked my love for detective fiction, and then I moved on to Agatha Christie; later Ruth Rendell. It was one of my university tutors who first encouraged and inspired me to get my work published.
AND: How difficult was it to sit down and write the first page of your first novel Gripless? And how difficult was it to find a publisher?
SH: The starting-to-write part was easy. Getting the book into publishable shape was much harder though, and it was agony to have the book ripped apart by my agent, but all the pain was totally worthwhile because the novel did finally get published.