Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m currently a postgraduate journalism student, studying near Manchester in the UK. I read history at undergraduate at Durham University, in the north-east of the UK. I co-wrote Athens in the Classical Period with two friends while at school just outside Manchester, and this is the only book that any of us have written (to my knowledge !).
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Athens in the Classical Period was inspired by a particularly difficult course we all took after school, which seemed to lack any accessible resources targeted at providing a concise and reliable grounding in the major aspects of ancient Greek life. We were lucky to have had good teaching, from our Classics teacher but also a student at Manchester University, who would sit in on lessons. His knowledge was invaluable, but we knew it was something to which not everyone with an interest in the ancient work would have access to – so we put it all together in a book.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not particularly, although I do find I’m never quite satisfied; there always seem to be changes to be made, even when a sentence … a page … a chapter … is perfectly good.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I think our style is deliberately quite different from that of traditional textbooks and reference books. We began writing when we were around 15 years old, and it was inevitably a bit unpolished. We have edited the book since then, and the style fits professional conventions much more closely, but I would say that our influence was trying to do something a little bit different from the standard textbook; we want to retain the idea that we are students ourselves, passing on what we are learning.
What are you working on now?
I am currently busy studying and haven’t had much time to embark on something new, but I am thinking of ideas for a future project.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
We have very little experience in promoting our books; we have found Awesome Gang to be a wonderful idea for authors in our position – just starting out, and without a large group of potential readers that we already have contact with.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
It has been said countless times before, and perhaps it is addressed better to prospective authors, but I think anyone with an idea for a book should try to write it.
We produced a book because we felt there was something missing, and we were not (and still are not) experts in the subject. We believed, nonetheless, that we could add something to people’s knowledge – and almost anyone should feel the same about a topic they know something about, or an idea they have had.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Do something you enjoy. That way you worry less about how long it is going to take, and about any potential gain at the end of it. Working towards is a partial reward in itself.
What are you reading now?
I am currently dipping in-and-out of a couple of books. I’m trying to learn Spanish and have been reading Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish. I have just finished On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, which I really enjoyed. It’s a truly unique book, in a unique style.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have planned to write a couple of other history books – one, perhaps, on the Romans, and another on the period of Napoleon which, although a big change from ancient History, formed the basis of my dissertation at university.
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?
I would bring On The Road, actually, because I feel it is the kind of book you could read several times and get something different from each time. I would bring an encyclopedia (possibly of military history) because of the enormous wealth of knowledge it would contain, and its capacity to answer many of the questions that I would inevitably have.
I would also take a book in a foreign language – French or Spanish probably – because there is an essential difference between fiction written in different cultures and anglophone literature. You can also never hope to understand it entirely – part of its charm lost in translation – which would provide me with a never-ending (enjoyable) task on the island. I’m particularly thinking of a book by Émile Zola (“Nana”, “Thérèse Raquin”, for example).