I was interviewed recently for WordMothers – a wonderful blog run by Australian writer Nicole Melanson. WordMothers is dedicated to showcasing women's work in the literary arts around the world. It features female author interviews and women in the book industry discussing what they're really passionate about.
Here's the link! Or you can read it in full below.
Click to read the interview on the WordMothers blog

WordMothers – Rosie Garland interviewed by Nicole Melanson
HOW DID YOU GET STARTED?
I was a reader. Even more fabulously, I was read to. Early on, I discovered the joy of being transported to other worlds via the magic of words. It wasn't long before I started telling my own tales. I have a cough-sweet tin filled with books I created for my dolls, and wrote my first novel aged nine - a thrilling adventure involving super-heroines, spaceships and sharks. With pictures.
In fact, on the (mercifully rare) occasions I meet someone who professes to be a writer and yet not have time to read, my chin taps the floor. As Stephen King said: "This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons."

WHAT IS YOUR LATEST BOOK OR CURRENT PROJECT?
I'm not happy unless I'm busy on a number of projects and am still learning the art of getting that number right...
My second novel 'Vixen' is out in paperback on February 12th and there's a busy book tour coming up. It's set in 1349, the year the Black Death arrived in England. This springs from my fascination with eras when the world was on the cusp of massive change.
I'm writing new poetry. In particular, a sequence of narrative poems inspired by the 2 years I worked as a teacher in Darfur, Sudan. Truly a stranger in a strange land. In addition, I'm getting on with my next novel for HarperCollins. It's at that stage where I hate it, and it is little more than a tangled heap of words.
I'm also treading the boards as Rosie Lugosi the Vampire Queen. If that wasn't enough, my band The March Violets are touring Europe and the USA in autumn 2015 with our new album, Made Glorious.
http://www.marchviolets.com/
Yes- busy. I love the interesting projects that come into my life! One I am particularly excited about is being invited to co-curate the John Rylands Library Literary Gothic exhibition in summer 2015.

WHAT IS YOUR WORK ENVIRONMENT LIKE?
I count myself as very, very lucky. I have a room of my own, to paraphrase Virginia Woolf. It's lined with bookcases and every square inch is stacked with bits and pieces picked up over the years (from Californian sand dollars to statues of Kali and all points in between).
I'm a writer who likes peace to scribble – which is the word I use to describe first-stage work. I love the physicality of handwriting at this stage. When I've got to the editing stage I move to the computer. I know a number of creatives who find music conducive to work – I guess I'm one of those who prefers quiet. I think it's to do with the fact that I love music – if I listen to music while I'm writing I end up singing along and writing goes up the spout.

WHEN DO YOU WORK? WHAT DOES A TYPICAL DAY LOOK LIKE?
I couldn't begin to say what a typical day is because I don't have them. What follows is a swift gallop around a 'writing day'.
I'm one of those 'morning people'. Morning, afternoon, middle of the night, I don't think it matters one iota as long as you find what works for you. However, I like to get started early. Part of it is because the world is not yet fully awake and that sense of possibility fires me up. Another reason is that I have a vicious internal critic who persists in telling me that everything I do is complete crap. She's a late riser, so I get up before she does and get started before the headtalk kicks in.
One of the things I wrestle with is the balance between writing and admin / social networking. A certain amount of the latter is unavoidable – it comes with the territory of writing being my job – but the knack is to refuse to let Twitter take over my life. I do admin in the afternoon. When I'm on a roll, I'll write into the evenings. It varies.
Also important is for me to take breaks. Not just to move the muscles, but to stay fresh. I take a leaf out of Julia Cameron's 'The Artists' Way' and go on an Artists' Date at least once a week: visit a museum, a gallery, or hang out with a creative friend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Artist%27s_Way

WHAT IS YOUR WORK PROCESS?
I use creative rituals to get me started in the morning.
I'm not alone in being terrified of the blank page and a routine with small steps helps get the creative juices flowing. My day begins with three pages of journaling. This is not so much creative writing as a place to dump 'what I did yesterday' and clear the mind.
My rituals change (damn right too), but right now I like the exercise of writing six images (eg - something I can see / hear / smell, or that struck me yesterday). Coming out of the six images I write a haiku. Then the classic morning pages: three pages of free writing (the magic of 'threes'!). With those warm-ups under my belt, I get cracking on a heftier task like editing a chapter. An athlete wouldn't run a marathon from cold. My take is that a novelist functions in much the same way.
I want to grow, so seek out feedback and input. That might be going on a writing course, a writing retreat, getting feedback from creative colleagues, agent or editor. I am hungry to learn. For me, writing is a life process and is never done. At the age of 90, Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice the cello. 'Because I think I'm making progress,' was his reply.

WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO?
There are times when I feel writing chose me. I write because I am made of stories. I write to work out and express how I think and feel. Writing as breathing out. Roald Dahl said - "A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it."

WHO OR WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
The odd, the unusual, the folk who don't fit. I've always written about outsiders; whoever they might be. My fiction is about people who won't (or can't) squeeze into the one-size-fits-all templates on offer and the friction that occurs when they try.
I know this comes from having always been an outsider myself. My mother used to ask, 'why can't you write nice stories?' However, I don't explore dark themes as some kind of pose, or to be challenging for the sake of it. I write what I write because that's what comes knocking.
Sure, I can produce something that doesn't fire me up (I've tried), but my heart's not in it. There's the rub: I write where my passions reside. I've chased myself in circles trying to second-guess what a publisher 'might' want and it was a disaster. There's no point twisting yourself into shapes trying to please. That way lies madness, and not the interesting, creative sort. Maybe it's one of the reasons it took me so long for my novels to get published. But that's a different blog: http://booksbywomen.org/rosie-garland/

WHAT IS THE HARDEST PART OF WHAT YOU DO?
Keeping going.
As I mentioned above, I struggle with an internal critic who never says anything nice and never, ever stops. Simply put, this inner censor wants me to stop writing. It's been there since I was in my early teens, and shows no sign of going away. Sure, it's had to change its script a little over the past few years what with the launch of debut novel 'The Palace of Curiosities' and follow-up 'Vixen', but it has simply developed nasty new mantras. One example: when people say they like 'The Palace of Curiosities', they're only being nice.
I used to listen to and believe every word I heard. Result? I stopped writing. Call it writers' block if you will. An important part of my writing life has been improving how I deal with internalised put-downs.
The first step was to call the voice 'Mavis'. If you'd like to read my blog on Dealing with the Internal Critic – here it is.
http://www.rosiegarland.com/news-and-events/item/177-being-a-writer-dealing-with-the-internal-censor.html

WHAT IS YOUR VISION AS A WORD ARTIST OR BOOK INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL?
To communicate. To share. To get my stories out there and enable other word artists to do the same. To encourage - myself as well as others - to tell our stories. Especially when the mainstream world tells us those stories are uninteresting, dangerous, weird, off-kilter and just plain wrong. Especially when the mainstream world tells us that.

WHO ARE YOUR FAVOURITE FEMALE AUTHORS?
Oh goodness, how long have you got? I've been asked this question a gazillion times and I've yet to find a snappy answer. It's impossible! Which is good. I've read work by so many inspiring women that there simply isn't room to list them.

Authors Writing on Books

The Palace of Curiosities – reviewed by Max Scratchmann

Much as I want to like all of these books, there are, I'm afraid, a lot of fairly dull bodice-rippers and penny-dreadfuls lurking beneath the stunning cover art on the slew of mock-Victorian novels currently on the market, so it was with great joy that I discovered Rosie Garland's noir tale of life in a nineteenth-century freak show – The Palace of Curiosities.

Enticed by the gothic delicacy of cover art and then seduced by the Angela Carter comparison from Jenny Murray on the flyleaf, I delved into this novel with a mixture of anticipation and cautious scepticism – treating the alluring enticements to enter as nothing more than the world-weary siren call of an over zealous marketing man. But, miraculously, I was not disappointed this time, and though the wonderful Ms Garland, in fact, bears little resemblance to Angela Carter – she's far too original a voice to be a copy of anybody – The Palace of Curiosities is a dark and evocative exploration of the underbelly of Victorian society and a magic-realist journey through the fair grounds and freak shows that so fascinate this reviewer as a visual artist.

The novel follows the converging path of two outsiders, Eve the Lion Girl and Abel the Flayed Man – also known as Mr Lazarus – and takes us on an atmospheric journey that veers in and out of the (believable) supernatural and even manages a happy ending without ever once delving into sentimentality or sugary cliché. The writing is rich and verging on the poetic, and the characters are well-rounded and believable – Eve's story being particularly strong with a heady erotic undercurrent running throughout.

I very seldom resort to overblown kill-to-obtain-this-book soundbites, but this novel is a definite must-read. Highly recommended.

Max Scratchmann

Book: THE PALACE OF CURIOSITIES

Author: Rosie Garland

Publisher: HarperCollins

Click to go to Steve Savage's review site

My second novel, 'Vixen', is not out till 19th June 2014...

but the cover has just been released!

Beautiful design by Alex Allden at HarperCollins, from an amazing image created by artist Lindsey Carr.

Click to go to Lindsey Carr's website

Colour me excited.

Two new blog interviews / reviews about the launch of The Palace of Curiosities – and how long it's taken to get here.

‘What has always amazed me is that you have so many different aspects to your work. You write in your name Rosie Garland; you write and perform as your alter-ego Rosie Lugosi; you are the lead singer of The March Violets; you are a Goth icon; a legend in the world of burlesque; star of Woman’s Hour and women’s magazines; are there any other facets we don’t know about?’

Read the full interview here - click this link

• 'An assured and magical novel. Her poetic output provides the writing's lyricism and her involvement in cabaret and Goth gives her an eye for the strange.'

Read the full interview here - click this link

Discovering a Comet - Leaf Books 2008

Includes my flash fiction "Sadie Jones Took Me Line Dancing"

http://leafbooks.co.uk/leafs-books/books/products/view/5/8.html

The Big Comfy Bookshop

Part of Coventry's FIRST Pride!

Time: 3-4pm
Saturday 27th June

Tickets: free! Turn up on the day.
Venue: The Big Comfy Bookshop
UNIT 2F, FARGO VILLAGE
FAR GOSFORD STREET
COVENTRY CV1 5EA

Join us for an afternoon with Rosie Garland!
She will be reading from Vixen and The Palace of Curiosities, talking about writing and answering questions. Taking place at the lovely Big Comfy Bookshop at Fargo Creative Village in Coventry.

Click to go to Fargo Village website

ebb and flo bookshop
12 Gillibrand St,
Chorley
PR7 2EJ
Tickets available from the bookshop or Eventbrite (link below)
£5 (glass of wine included and £2 redeemable against the book).

Rosie Garland – reading from Vixen, talking about writing and answering questions!
Arrive from 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Click link to buy tickets from Eventbrite

 For Books' Sake, Halloween Witchfest

The Proud Archivist
2-10 Hertford Rd,
London N1 5SH

Tickets - £8 advance, £10 on the door
Doors 6pm, event starts at 7pm
For Books' Sake are very excited to have two ghoulishly glorious grrrls giving you the full on Hallowe'en treatment!
Obviously with Hallowe'en being a Friday we've allowed you the dressing up and drinking time for the weekend but thought we wouldn't be For Books' Sake if we didn't offer you something ghastly.
Rosie and Wanda will be reading from their respective books and then discussion the demonisation of women in history and historical fiction, followed by a Q&A.
After the readings and discussion there will be Hallowe'en party games open to all. Can you pin that broomstick on the witch?
Rosie Garland has sang in post-punk gothic band The March Violets, toured with the Subversive Stitch exhibition and performed as Rosie Lugosi the Lesbian Vampire Queen, cabaret chanteuse and mistress of ceremonies.
Having published five solo collections of poetry, Rosie is also winner of the DaDa Award for Performance Artist of the Year and a Poetry Award from the People's Café, New York and won the Mslexia Novel competition in 2012. Rosie's debut novel 'The Palace of Curiosities' was published in March 2013 by HarperCollins. Her second novel, 'Vixen', is out on hardback, ebook and audio (July 2014) with paperback coming in February 2015.
Dr Wanda Wyporska
Wanda recieved her PhD in researching witches and subsequently published 'Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500 - 1800' - A groundbreaking work that looks at the many reasons why individuals used witchcraft, accused each other and admitted to carrying out witchcraft. It goes behind the trials to discover narratives of abuse, power struggles, and the relationships between men and women in the early modern period.
All tickets come with a complementary blood curdling cocktail!
Click to go to For Books' Sake page
Click to go to Facebook event page
Click to buy advance tickets

Announcing the Manchester launch of Rosie Garland's second novel, Vixen.
The Portico Library is hosting this PRE-publication day launch event. Bookshop provided by the lovely folk at Chorlton Bookshop – copies available a day before publication!

Contact the Portico Library for tickets 0161 236 6785
www.theportico.org.uk
Price tbc

The Novel:

It is 1349.

In Brauntone, where seagulls screech across the fields and the wind has a mind to change, Father Thomas arrives as the new priest. Determined to impress his congregation, he quells fears of the coming pestilence with promises of protection.

For Anne, the priest's arrival is an opportunity. Convinced a grand fate awaits, she moves in as Thomas's housekeeper, though hopeful of more. But his home is a place without love or kindness.

Meanwhile, a strange mute Maid is dancing with Death through the forest. She is discovered, washed up in the marshes, and taken in by Anne. Their friendship is to give Anne the chance of a happiness she thought she'd never know.

But soon the plague strikes Brauntone, spreading panic. And as the villagers' fear turns to anger, Thomas must sacrifice anything to restore their faith in him.

Praise for Rosie Garland's debut novel, The Palace of Curiosities

'Garland's lush prose is always a pleasure' Guardian
'An alternately brutal and beautiful story about love and belonging' Metro

'Bewitching' Good Housekeeping

'A jewel-box of a novel ... Garland is a real literary talent' Sarah Waters

'Reminds me of Angela Carter' Jenni Murray

'Fabulously strange historical debut... sheer, demented fun' Suzi Feay

Click link to go to The Portico Library events page

Holland Park Press author reading

Free entry

7pm – 10pm

Rosie Garland reads her award-winning fiction & poetry, alongside fellow Holland Park Press author, Arnold Jansen op de Haar.

The gallery in the Great Western Studios, 65 Alfred Road W2 5EU, is our spectacular venue. It's only 5 minutes walk from Royal Oak & Westbourne Park tube station and buses 18 & 36 stop nearby. Here is a handy map.

It's all free but to make sure we cater for all of you, please let us know if you're coming by emailing or phoning us: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

07792611929.

Click to go to Holland Park Press website