Caroline Smailes was born in Newcastle in 1973. She moved to the North West to study English Literature at Liverpool University, before going on to specialise in Linguistics. A chance remark on a daytime chat show caused Caroline to reconsider her life and enrol on an MA in Creative Writing. Her debut novel is In Search of Adam.

Mark Thwaite: What gave you the idea for In Search of Adam?

Caroline Smailes: I wrote my first thousand words after a miscarriage and this section is still within the novel. After this I began to consider a street and to plan back stories, from there the story unfolded and formed in a direction of its own. I made a decision early within the planning and plot development, that I would carry integrity within my writing. I haven’t sensationalized or used experiences to gain reaction. In Search of Adam became a researched and honest exploration of one path that twisted from an abuse that was never voiced.

MT: How long did it take you to write it?

CS: About 18 months, I think. I had 6 months of writing snippets, creating back stories and not really committing, then I enrolled as a fulltime student on an MA in Creative Writing. From that moment the story, the drafts and the pulling of it all together happened within a year.

MT: Your novel sold out within ten days -- were you surprised by the success?

CS: Very surprised! I think that I had underestimated the power of the blogs. Word of mouth and blogging exposure led to an unforeseen interest. I feel privileged to have so many blog friends who supported me (as a writer) and maintained interest/my sanity all through the publishing process. The ups and downs have all been exposed on my blog and I feel that many of my readers have taken the journey with me. Perhaps it was a confidence gained from their support, which led to a blog campaign. I had a blog widget, a map where people plotted their location, instant reviews and word of mouth spread rapidly. I have no doubt that the blogs and blog connections were largely responsible for the initial success and I can’t begin to express how thankful I am.

MT: Do you read the critics? Have you been pleased with the response to your novel? Have you learned anything from it?

CS: Yes I read my critics, I laugh, smile and cry. I also have a tendency to focus on the negatives, which I know annoys a large number of people. The sense of exposure and any negative reactions are difficult to cope with. There is, of course, an achievement in writing, in being published and so confidence and fragile egos can be easily knocked. I am learning with the process and the negative reactions, to date, seem to be about the subject matter. On the opposite side, the positive reactions have been overwhelming. I have written something that has caused people to react and I have learned that pushing boundaries, with integrity, can lead to connections.

MT: How do you write? Longhand or directly onto a computer, straight off or with lots and lots of editing?

CS: I seem to be writing each novel differently. For In Search of Adam and Disraeli Avenue, I had to write everything longhand and then draft as I typed up. I would draft and draft every section, before progressing. I couldn’t sit at my pc and be creative. With my second novel, Black Boxes, I couldn’t write longhand. I found that everything had to be typed and the drafting was continuous, focusing on sentence by sentence.

MT: What were the principle challenges of writing In Search of Adam?

CS: Technically, I would say that the restricted view point of the first person child narrator, caused many problems. I had to seep the building of a realistic location around what a child could and could not comprehend. Personally, my confidence as a writer and writing an experimental debut novel was a challenge. My MA gave me self-belief and reader reactions within weekly workshops helped, beyond measure.

MT: Tell us a little about Disraeli Avenue, Caroline.

CS: The main character within In Search of Adam is a child called Jude. She lives on a street of 32 houses, on Disraeli Avenue. For consistency, or rather I guess for piece of mind, I created detailed back stories for each of the inhabitants of Disraeli Avenue. This included minutiae of names, ages, colours of front doors, car registration numbers and, of course, their secrets. Some of the back stories were included within overheard snippets of gossip, inside the main narrative of In Search of Adam. Disraeli Avenue, the novella, has been born out of these back stories. The novella consists of 32 flashes of narrative, working its way along the houses within Disraeli Avenue. The stories and characters weave and echo tales hinted at within In Search of Adam. Disraeli Avenue will be released as a free download on February 18th 2008, with voluntary donations going directly to the charity One in Four (an organization run for and by people who have experienced sexual abuse or sexual violence). (Shameless plug - all details can be found on my website.)

MT: What do you do when you are not writing?

CS: I’ve three young children, so I guess I have my hands full juggling school runs and everyday life. I work as a freelance editor and am about to start working as a mentor for Tonto Books. I’ll be mentoring the writer Rosalind Wyllie as part of the Tonto Books Fiction 2008 Project, which is supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England.

MT: Did you have an idea in your mind of your "ideal" reader? Did you write specifically for them?

CS: No, no reader in mind. The story unfolded and, although clichéd, I sometimes felt that I had little control over it. I guess that my writing will appeal to readers with an open mind and an inability to be shocked, easily.

MT: What are you working on now?

CS: My second novel, Black Boxes, is being published by The Friday Project in July 2008 and I am starting work on my third novel. I’m currently researching, as the novel will be partly set in Malta and I’m seeking the voice that fits with the narrator.

MT: Who is your favourite writer? What is/are your favourite book(s)?

CS: A difficult question. Perhaps the only way to measure my ‘favourites’ would be to say that I would read any new release by that author, regardless of genre. Currently, my favourite writers are Jeanette Winterson, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood and I’m particularly excited to have recently discovered Sarah Salway. My favourite books, those that I keep close, would be The PowerBook, Stardust, Wuthering Heights, A Handful of Dust, The Edible Woman, Matilda, Leading the Dance ... I could go on.

MT: Do you have any tips for the aspiring writer!?

CS: To write and to write because you have to, you need to. A rather typical response to your question, but I feel that people fantasise too much, they long and look forward, they write to be published and are often distracted by this. The way that I see it, the key or rather hope of any possible success would be to have a completed manuscript that is of a publishable standard. The only way to achieve that would be to write and then write some more. I’d say not to worry about letters to agents or synopsis or anything else, simply to write because you need to and have to. I think to write hoping and dreaming of publication, for that to be the driving goal, is wrong.

MT: Anything else you would like to say?

CS: Yes, lots. But I’m trying really hard not to say anything embarrassing or to mention how I enter rooms or my celebrity crushes... I should stop now.