Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Alex Craigie was ten when her first play was performed at school. It was in rhyming couplets and all she can remember about it is that:
• it was written in pencil in a book with weights and measures on the back
• the two heroes were Prince Rupert and his brother (whose name was changed to Sam to facilitate the rhyming process.)
• as writer, producer and director she ‘bagged’ the part of female lead.
When her children were young, she wrote short stories for magazines and since then has fulfilled her ambition to write a novel.
Someone Close to Home has won two ‘Chill with a Book’ awards – The Reader’s Award and the Book of the Month Award.
Alex lives in a small village in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and knows that she and her husband are lucky to have their children and grandchildren living nearby. It’s often chaotic and noisy but these are her most treasured moments and she savours them – even if she’s reduced to an immovable heap after they’ve gone.
As an independent author, without a big publishing machine behind her, she is very grateful to all the people who have found and bought her first book – and a huge thank you to those who’ve gone out of their way to write a review on Amazon or Goodreads. These reviews make a massive difference to ‘Indies’ and the positive ones encourage other readers to risk buying a copy.
What else can she say? Nothing, really. Writing this personal promotion has been very, very hard and she needs to go away now and lie down in a darkened room, preferably with a big bar of chocolate…
She looks forward to any contact from fellow lovers of books and any honest feedback is very welcome.
You can reach her by email: alex@alexcraigie.co.uk
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My book is called Someone Close to Home.
The research started in a natural, personal sort of a way, many years ago – in the 1970s- when my mother, a nurse, considered working in a care home. She arrived for her interview to witness the residents lined up in chairs one behind the other in the corridor. She walked out. Since then, things have moved both for the better and for the worse. All homes know not to treat residents like that but lack of appropriate funding has brought its own horrors and I’ve witnessed these for myself. Better living conditions and medical care has meant that more and more of my older friends and relatives are dependent on care homes, and my own friends have witnessed the same things themselves. Social Services have to make their budgets stretch which means putting a squeeze on the care homes to accept people at a lower tariff, many care homes are then running on a shoestring budget which means that the carers themselves, most of them amazing and dedicated people, are paid minimum wage or thereabouts and there aren’t enough of them to go round, particularly at pinch points in the day such as when the residents wake in the morning.
There’s plenty of information out there in the media. Last month a care home was closed down because it was so below standard – but this was no cause for cheering because there was nothing else in place and families were simply told to remove their vulnerable relatives straight away and find them a place somewhere else. Every week there’s at least one court case outlining deliberately cruel treatment of vulnerable residents unable to defend themselves.
It’s horrific. To go from your own home, surrounded by the things you’ve gathered during your life, all those memories, and end up in a room the size of a garage with barely enough room for some clothes, toiletries and some photographs – that in itself must be depressing, but to face institutional neglect on top of that is appalling. I’ve been so angry on behalf of those who are trapped in these homes where the majority of carers do a brilliant job despite the conditions but who lack the time and manpower to give the support that would make all the difference.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Ah, but how to define unusual?
My worst habit is a non-writing one in the form of displacement activities when the muse escapes me. I didn’t inherit the ‘pleasure in housework’ gene but sometimes I’ll find myself cleaning windows, dusting, attacking the oven or even searching for cobwebs (yes, it is that bad).
What authors, or books have influenced you?
So many it’s hard to limit them.
I loved Anne of Green Gables as a child. Growing up there used to be an adaptation of a Dickens book serialised on Sundays. I couldn’t wait for the next week’s episode and would take the book out of the library and read that. I discovered at this early age that adaptations of books on the screen aren’t always faithful to the originals. I remember a later Agatha Christie phase, discovered the delights of Georgette Heyer as a teenager and since then have enjoyed the works of authors as diverse as Dorothy L Sayers and Karin Slaughter.
What are you working on now?
At the moment I’m writing a novel that begins in the very near future. There’s a dystopian air about it but also, I hope, that element of hope and love that balances everything. It’s called Acts of Convenience and focuses on how successive governments pass legislation that’s convenient for them but that isn’t morally right nor for the benefit of most people.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
This is the bit I loathe. Sorry. But I do find this part of it so incredibly difficult and am grateful to Awesome for giving me a hand with this.
We’re taught not to boast about ourselves, which makes self promotion a tad difficult. On top of that, I’m not comfortable with social media. I’ve tried to use it but don’t know what I’m doing, who sees what or – well, anything, really!
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t put it off. Once you’ve realised there’s a book in there, go for it or you’ll regret it later. Also, don’t even think about presenting your book for publishing until you’ve shown it to at least two people you trust to give you honest feedback. As the author, your brain misses the typos, the repetition, the grammar errors and if you post a book containing those, readers will pass. Worse than that, readers won’t give you a second chance.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Don’t waffle. Get a good first hook and grab your reader’s attention.
What are you reading now?
My ‘To Be Read’ pile is tottering dangerously and I’m almost scared to touch it. However, I’m just finishing an old book by Juliet Gardiner about women between 1938 and 1957. It’s called Picture Post Women and is a fascinating glimpse into life during those times.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Once I’ve finished Acts of Convenience, I have the plot for a thriller worked out and some of the characters are nagging at me to put them down on the page. They have clear, distinct voices and I’m trying not to listen to them at the moment…
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?
That’s so hard. I’d need something that would take some time to read and so one of them would have to be the complete works of Shakespeare. I do enjoy the old bard and every time I read something like Macbeth or Hamlet I discover something new or my appreciation for his skill grows. I’d need something humorous to keep my spirits up – something by David Sedaris, perhaps. My third book would be Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen; cutting social comment and a great read. The fourth book would be Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery. These are the ones I’ve chosen today, but ask me tomorrow and the list could be completely different!
Author Websites and Profiles
Alex Craigie Amazon Profile
Alex Craigie’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile