Episode 20: Tracy Rees (Amy Snow; Florence Grace; The Hourglass; Darling Blue; The House At Silvermoor)

Released Monday, 10th August 2020

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Episode 20: Tracy Rees (Amy Snow; Florence Grace; The Hourglass; Darling Blue; The House At Silvermoor)

Monday, 10th August 2020

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Charlie and Tracy Rees (Amy Snow; Florence Grace; The Hourglass; Darling Blue; The House At Silvermoor) discuss Richard, Judy, Dickens, Austen, and Bronte - not all at once - coffee houses in Victorian times, landslides and hourglasses, changes to the Yorkshire mines in the late 1800s to early 1900s, and the inclusion of the average person in historical fiction.

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Question Index

00:58 Tell us about Richard and Judy
02:48 You had a background in non-fiction publishing…
04:32 Dickens’ influence, or Austen, Brontë?
05:51 Who are your favourite non-classical authors?
12:03 Who came first, Aurelia or Amy?
12:36 Was including the ‘average person’ in your books always part of the plan?
13:55 Did you ever get to researching how coffee culture was in the Victorian period?
14:44 So your library has expanded vastly since you became a writer?
15:01 Do we have any idea how many children were abandoned or how many women had trouble in that period?
17:32 What was behind the idea to use Florence’s name as the title (of Florence Grace)?
18:49 What was the inspiration for the Grace family?
19:46 Houses are important in this book – where did Heron’s Watch come from?
20:47 When did you conceive the idea of a landslide as like an hourglass?
22:13 What had you deciding to look at mother-daughter relationships?
24:37 Why did you choose to tell Darling Blue over the course of a year?
25:52 The Camberwells taking in working class Delphine – were there many families in the 1920s that would have done similar?
26:54 Was the concept of the letters based on anything you’d heard before?
27:47 Did you find out anything interesting in regards to women in the 1920s becoming reporters?
31:09 Did the mining strike coverage in Darling Blue inspire The House at Silvermoor?
32:26 The House at Silvermoor contains your first male narrative – was that interesting to do?
38:20 Were there good mine owners as there are in the book?
40:09 Does the thread of owners changing the mines for the better align with the reality?
41:17 What happened to the horses – were they ever able to leave the mines?
42:15 Will you go back to any of the periods you’ve already covered?
43:06 So was your agent meaning you when she was saying someone should write about mining?
43:23 What is your favourite period to write about?
44:11 Do you ever see yourself going back further in history?
45:10 What’s next?