A wooden structure had been added to the front, an entrance hall of sorts, along with a toilet. The walls had been insulated and the ceiling covered with pine panelling. The previous owner was one of those people who click your back in when you put it out, and she had converted a very basic outhouse into a neat little clinic with electricity, heat, running water. Steak tartare and french fries with a glass of Cotes du Rhone.We bought our house in 2007.

What’s your favorite meal and go-to drink order? Northern Spain for green hills, Atlantic waves and the freshest seafood. Your favorite travel destination and why? What are your three favorite things right now?įaded hydrangea blossoms in the garden, a hand-painted teapot from Pakistan, and a pair of thick grey cashmere socks. When you’re not reading or writing, what are you doing?Ĭooking, cleaning, gardening. I began writing at the age of 47, and have no regrets about that. When this run of luck comes to an end I hope I will not take them too much to heart, but fear I might throw myself onto the couch, wailing ‘Is there one who understands me?’ If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be? Reviews in the press have been terribly kind, so I have not yet had to deal with a bad one. Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones? I stick doggedly at every idea until I get it to work. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Does writing energize or exhaust you?īoth I feel happily wrecked after a few hours at the desk. In a shed in my back garden, but when it is very stormy I work at the kitchen table. Where do you get most of your writing and editing done? I was already 5ft 8in and felt like a giant in the tiny rooms. I visited Jane Austen’s house in Chawton, Hampshire when I was 14. What literary pilgrimages have you gone on? It seemed like such a grand put-down I was terribly impressed. One day at practice, we were giddy, and the choir master exclaimed that our ‘Danny Boy’ was diabolical. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

Louise kennedy books