Continuing our Reading Club interviews, this month we caught up with international bestselling author Marita Conlon-McKenna, most famous for Under the Hawthorn Tree, the first book of the Children of the Famine trilogy.
TPP: What inspired Fairy Hill?
MCM: The book was inspired by W B. Yeat’s poem ‘The Stolen Child’ which is so evocative and visual, and also by all the Irish legends that I grew up with: stories about the Children of Lir, Changelings and Fairies. I loved them all.
TPP: Have you always had an interest in fairies and Irish folklore?
MCM: Yes. I read so many books about them, but I still remember reading a fantastic illustrated book series about legends from all around the world that I borrowed from the library and longed to own.
TPP: Why did you decide to set Fairy Hill in Sligo?
MCM: I had visited Sligo and stayed in Rosses Point, where the Yeats family used to stay and just walking around and seeing Ben Bulben and places that inspired his poems, I knew that I just had to set the book there.
TPP: Which character did you create first?
MCM: Anna. She was the one going to have her word thrown into turmoil on a lot of levels.
TPP: Do you plan out your novels before you write them?
MCM: Yes. I get the idea of the story which is bit like a rough skeleton but then I have to put flesh, life, colour and action on to it.
TPP: What is the secret to having a long-term writing career?
MCM: The most important thing do is to keep going, to keep writing. I am very lucky as my head is always filled with stories.
TPP: Of all the novels you’ve written, do you have a favourite?
MCM: I love them all and loved writing them. They each took over my world when I was in them. It wouldn’t be fair to pick a favourite and besides my characters wouldn’t like it.
TPP: If you weren’t an author, what would you like to be?
MCM: I think maybe an Artist or a Screen Writer, or be involved making programmes about history. I would definitely want to work in something that is creative.
TPP: Which authors inspire you?
MCM: All the good ones that I read, I am a total bookworm and am always stuck in a book.
TPP: Do you have a writing routine?
MCM: I usually write best in the mornings or in the evenings. Afternoons I often am too tired. When I am finishing a book I forget time as I am so lost in the story and will often work until very late at night.
TPP: What has been the highlight of your career so far?
MCM: Writing a book and seeing it published, and then going on sale in a bookshop, sitting on a shelf in a library, in a school library or classroom, in a child’s hands with them engrossed reading it. There is no feeling like it! It has been an immense joy and privilege to see a child pick up and read one of my books.
TPP: What is the best thing about being an author?
MCM: Getting an idea and putting it down on the page and having a publisher want to publish it, then comes the best bit having readers want to read it. Also I love meeting kids and teachers in schools and attending Arts and Book Festivals and events in Ireland and all around the world, where I get to meet lots of lovely other authors too. It is a truly amazing world to work in.
