Books for grown ups
I’ve written two non-fiction books for adults and I’m interested in writing novels for adults, which is a lot harder to do if you are known for children’s books than the other way round. Roddy Doyle, Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood have all written children’s books before you get started on the “celebrity” kids’ book, but even award-winning children’s writers find it difficult to be accepted in the big grown-up world of adult fiction. (Or maybe there are loads, writing under pseudonyms? Perhaps Martin Amis is really Babette Cole?)
Anyway, I’ve written two full-length adult novels, neither of which has been published yet. The first one is called Christina on the Nursery Floor and is currently written by Amy Lovell. It’s not a murder mystery though there’s a murder in it and it is quite autobiographical, I suppose, drawing on my childhood roaming Clapham and Wandsworth Commons, unsupervised.
The second novel is quite different and was going to be written by Suzy Cavendish but when I’d finished it it didn’t feel as if it was by her so it’s currently written by Julia Campion. Still, Tuscany: the Novel hasn’t been submitted to an agent yet and I’m thinking of re-structurung the whole thing so maybe when I’ve finished doing that, it will turn out to have been written by Suzy after all.
Watch this space!