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" I can trace my interest in modern classics to the summer before art college. "
Emma Healey
Summer
Art
College
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" Like most new writers, I could only hope that one day one publisher might agree to publish one of my books; I couldn't imagine several publishers all wanting to buy the first book I'd written. "
Emma Healey
New
Book
Day
" I tried to help a shirtless man who was being arrested in Starbucks. He obviously wasn't right in the head, but the police thought I was trying to make things worse. "
Emma Healey
Thought
Police
Head
" When you are in the midst of writing a book, I think it is important to touch base every day. If I wasn't writing something, I would be reading back what I'd already written. I did take a month off writing at one point and found it really difficult to get back into the world I'd created. "
Emma Healey
Book
Think
Day
" I used to say I wasn't interested in writing about characters. "
Emma Healey
Say
Interested
Used
" There are lots of things going on for teenagers, with exam stress, changing friendship groups, becoming independent, and all those hormone changes affecting you. "
Emma Healey
Friendship
Stress
Going
" I had tried to write about young women in London who had jobs and boyfriends, and it was so tedious. "
Emma Healey
London
Jobs
Tried
" I spent a lot of time researching dementia, read papers on the subject, and also found a lot of dementia diaries on the Internet which were a great help in getting an insight into the disease. "
Emma Healey
Dementia
Help
Internet
" I was very worried about whether I could do it or not. I mean, how arrogant - here I am in my 20s trying to write from the point of view of a woman in her 80s. "
Emma Healey
Point Of View
Woman
View
" I used to go to the gym with one of my best friends, and we seemed to have the same conversation over and over again. I was always saying, 'I'm still not pregnant, and I still haven't worked out what I'm writing,' and her answer to both was always, 'Just relax!' "
Emma Healey
Best
Friends
Relax
" I had so many people in my family with dementia that it felt like it belonged to me in a way. I feel like the same with teenage depression because I went through it. I feel like I'm allowed to write about it; it's mine. "
Emma Healey
Feel
Me
Depression
" I spend a ridiculous amount on pots, lilacs, and alliums. "
Emma Healey
Spend
Amount
Ridiculous
" I like to go for walks on Wandsworth Common and feed the ducklings. "
Emma Healey
Like
Walks
Go
" Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' was published while I was trying to work out how to write 'Elizabeth Is Missing,' and reading the story of that impaired amateur detective gave me the licence I needed to attempt one of my own. "
Emma Healey
Curious
Dog
Work
" Ann Radcliffe was an early influence; I devoured her books while I should have been studying for my GCSEs. "
Emma Healey
Studying
Early
Books
" If you work hard at something, you can forget everything else. "
Emma Healey
You
Work Hard
Everything
" Reading about what a digital native thinks of the Internet is like reading about what it's like to blink: it's kind of boring. "
Emma Healey
Boring
Digital
Internet
" I've been surprised that 'Elizabeth is Missing' has been so well received as a crime book. I love mystery stories, and that is what I decided to write. "
Emma Healey
Love
Mystery
Missing
" Penelope Fitzgerald never fails to surprise: her language is clever and elegant, her settings are unusual, her characters are unpredictable, and I am always caught out by a line or moment which makes me laugh out loud. "
Emma Healey
Surprise
Never
Moment
" I was a 20-something woman living in London and didn't want to write about a 20-something woman living in London! It's an area well covered already, and people would probably have thought it was about me. I decided that if I wrote about an 82-year-old dementia sufferer, then no one could mistake it as a memoir. "
Emma Healey
Mistake
Woman
Thought
" Although my father's mother, Nancy, has dementia, and her experiences gave me ideas for some of the scenes in the book, it was my mother's mother, Vera, who most influenced the character of Maud. Vera died in 2008, before I'd gotten very far into writing 'Elizabeth Is Missing,' but her voice is very like Maud's. "
Emma Healey
Father
Writing
Book
" I found 'The Face Of Another' by Kobo Abe disappointing despite the excellent, gothic premise: a man who's terrible facial scarring leads him to create a perfect mask. "
Emma Healey
Face
Create
Him
" People always want to give you advice about parenting. People who you've never met before will tell you you're doing something wrong. And it's quite similar in writing. People forget that you're a human; they just want to give you their advice. "
Emma Healey
Advice
Writing
People
" I loved 'A Lion in the Meadow' by Margaret Mahy. "
Emma Healey
Lion
Meadow
Margaret
" I'm not a writer who thinks about writing only for themselves; I do always have a reader in mind. "
Emma Healey
Only
Writing
Writer
" With novels, you're representing things. You're not explaining. "
Emma Healey
Explaining
Things
You
" When I was writing my first novel, 'Elizabeth is Missing,' I was writing the only novel I had ever written and writing about the only protagonist I'd ever written about. Because of this, I didn't think of her as a construct. Maud was real. "
Emma Healey
Real
Only
Writing
" A boyfriend made me a hammock in Richmond Park once. That was lovely - although I ended up getting a tick on my stomach from the deer. "
Emma Healey
Me
Deer
Lovely
" I really admire Ana Mendieta. She was a Cuban American artist who died the year I was born and whose work examines violence, feminism, and belonging. Her art is always brave and visually arresting and vibrates with meaning. "
Emma Healey
Art
Brave
Violence
" Writing is the thing that pervades my whole day - I'm always wondering how I might describe something or improve my understanding. I'm constantly trying to remember an eavesdropped conversation or an idea for a story. "
Emma Healey
Day
Understanding
Story
" Several members of my family have, or have had, one form of dementia or another. I really wanted to explore what it might like in fiction, but I didn't know how to start. "
Emma Healey
Know
Dementia
Explore