Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a novelist and Cultural Historian with a varied background. At forty five I started a research PhD into Americanisation, Juke boxes and their cultural effects on youth culture 1945-60. It took me six years and my book Juke box Britain was the result. It was well received, and as I needed to speak at academic conferences as well as teach, it gave me the confidence to speak publicly. But more than that, it made me think that I might write fiction and become what I always wanted to be: a novelist. I have recently given up teaching with the Open University to concentrate on my writing.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Anaesthesia: a story of love, war and addiction. After my parents died, I found a box of old family papers in their attic. They were a revelation. Growing up, my grandfather on my mother’s side was never talked about and I had never seen a photograph of him. I discovered that my grandfather was the son of Swedish immigrants and fought in the Great War, and that his father was a successful timber merchant in London . It made me wonder, what terrible thing could a man could do to make his family erase him from their history? After reading more about the war, a possible answer came to me: morphine addiction!
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Dog walks in the local countryside but that probably isn’t so unusual. My best time for writing is from ten or eleven in the morning until about one or two in the afternoon. After that I do more practical things. I frame pictures and grow vegetables.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
There are so many: Ernest Hemingway, Isabelle Allende, Louis de Bernieres, Thomas Hardy, Daphne du Maurier, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rebecca West, Pat Barker, Sebastian Faulks.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a sequel to Anaesthesia that follows the seventeen-tear-old Lisa in 1936 from a dreary London suburbia up to Sweden and the town of Sundsvall. At the outbreak of WWII she is left with some big decisions to make.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
My website adrianhornwriter.com has helped as well as various promotion sites. But mostly by making myself known to local press, libraries, bookshops and book groups. Being available to give talks.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Yes, believe in yourself. All authors struggle with self-confidence issues and almost all authors are rejected at the beginning. The ones who survive stick at it.
Read as well as write. Learn about style. I found Hemingway’s book On Writing really useful. Don’t wait for inspiration to come, have a writing schedule. Avoid most adjectives.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
A first draft is usually rubbish but you have to write it. It’s normal to rewrite ten times before it looks OK.
What are you reading now?
Just finished Ingrid Bergman’s autobiography. I couldn’t put it down. Books by authors like Emma Smith’s, As Green as Grass, to give me an idea of what it was like for a girl to grow up in the years before WWII. Also an array of history books about Sweden’s role as a neutral in WWII.
What’s next for you as a writer?
To carry on with my present saga that will probably end in the 1950s. To enjoy my status as a writer and bask in the glory of a successful book.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts, the Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran, Tess of the D’urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende.
Author Websites and Profiles
Adrian Horn Website
Adrian Horn Amazon Profile
Adrian Horn’s Social Media Links
Twitter Account