Indie author interviewKerry Dywer

Hello all.
This post is part of a blog tour. I didn't do the actual interview. It's a little different to the interviews that I usually do. Hope you enjoy it :)

Author Interview with Kerry Dwyer Author of Ramblings in Ireland (Travel Memoir)Bio

Kerry Dwyer was born in the North of England and educated in the South. She worked in finance for more than two decades in the UK, USA and various countries in mainland Europe. She now lives with her husband and daughter in the South West of France. Following the birth of her daughter, she gave up finance and retrained as an English teacher (TEFL). She currently teaches English as a foreign language to adults by telephone and internet. Kerry once jumped out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane (for charity) and by the time she hit the ground had forgotten the experience and so had to go up and do it again. Ramblings in Ireland is her first novel.

Ramblings in Ireland, Excerpt

“He reluctantly agreed to leave the shop.

“You don’t find hardware shops like that any more in France. Not often.”

As we were leaving, he took the first of his collection of photos of hardware shops. He reminisced for days about what these shops had been like in his youth.

After the hardware shop, we found a small supermarket and bought some lunch to take on our walk that afternoon. I needed to buy some shampoo as well. I had put the empty bottle into my wash bag instead of the full bottle. We had used the shampoo provided at the B&B.

I was selecting some cold meats and salads from the chill cabinet when I heard Bertrand call me excitedly from the sandwich counter. I went over to where two shop assistants were serving freshly made hot and cold snacks to take away. What had excited Bertrand so much was the “deal of the day” – Full Irish Breakfast in a baguette.

What more could a French man want out of life?

We bought one for Bertrand. I chose what I wanted and we drove up the Beara Peninsula. The car soon filled with the smell from the still-warm ingredients in the baguette. We had to pull into a lay-by so Bertrand could wolf down his second breakfast of the day, improved immeasurably with the addition of French bread.”

Interview

Q – What inspired you to become an author?

A – I hadn’t made a conscious decision to become an author. The book was inspired by a walking holiday in Ireland. I was so enthralled with the place and the people and the different sort of relationship I had with my husband whilst we were there. We hadn’t been in each other’s company quite so intensely for a long time. As we were walking ideas for the book kept popping into my head. Something would happen or we would talk about something and a new chapter would formulate in my head. The book almost wrote itself by the time we got back to France.

Q – Why do you write?

A – I love writing. Ideas formulate and I need an outlet for them. If I don’t write down my ideas, I can’t sleep. Sometimes it will just be something that has happened during the day. Other times the idea will take weeks to develop but then when it becomes coherent to me, a fully-fledged idea, I must write it down. I have many jottings that will become the beginning of or a part of a short story, a poem or an idea for another book. Although I have never written a full novel before this one I have taken part in NaNoWriMo purely for the pleasure or writing something.

Q – Do you have any advice for other authors?

A – Write; just that write, write for the love of writing. Get it all out. Worry about formatting, proofing, editing later. Once you have written the story that you want to write then you should consider what, if anything, you want to do with it.

Q – What do you want readers to take away from your book?

A – Firstly, how much I loved Ireland, the country and the people. This really was the inspiration that lead me to write the book. Secondly, the cultural differences that I explore between the French and the English and Irish through my eyes and those of my French husband. The changes in a relationship that can occur when so intensely in each other’s company. Finally, the idea of rambling not just as a form of exercise and exploring the countryside but of talking using Free Association. Free Association was a therapeutic technique invented by Freud in which a patient said at length whatever came to their mind. With practice the patient was able to do this without the censor of the conscious mind, which protects us from saying and doing things, which may embarrass ourselves or others. The object was to access unconscious processes for the purpose of therapy. Readers who let their minds wander may find things in their sub conscious that they didn’t know were there.

Q – Of the reviews that you have had which one do you like the most?

A – The one below. I like this one the best because I think if a reader likes the things that this reviewer talks about then he will like the book. This review has really understood what my book is all about.

“In a world which seems to be increasingly sterilised, globalised and homogenised, Kerry's ramblings reminded me that there are still differences between countries and cultures which should be recognised and relished. Although Kerry is English, her husband is French and there are many little touches in the book where she not only interprets both Ireland and France through English sensibilities but also interprets Ireland as understood by a Frenchman.

This is one of those delightful yarns where nothing much happens - but it happens a lot. You can almost feel the calmness and serenity of rural Ireland as you read each page. Little details become important; small events assume a significance they would not normally have in a busy and crowded life. Ramblings In Ireland lets the reader step back from the hustle and bustle of everyday living to lose themselves in a more unhurried world with a warm and loving couple.”

Q –  What was the most difficult part of getting your book published?

A – I’d thought I would write my book and that would be it. There it would be this book for sale and people would buy it or at least read it. That wasn’t how it happened. There were beta readers who hated parts of it. Then the proofreader who changed things like tense and punctuation and the editor got me to delete my first chapter and re write it. I didn’t want to take it out. I had thought about that paragraph, worked on the words, found them and written them down. It wasn’t good, it had to go. Now the book is there but I don’t have a pig publisher behind me to promote it. I have to find my own audience.

Q – So what are you writing about next?

A – I am writing another book. It’s a work in progress that I started as part of NaNoWriMo last year and it has grown considerably. The story follows a year in the lives of four women who meet at a monthly English book exchange in France. As with Ramblings in Ireland, it again explores cultural differences between the English and French. Fiction is a lot harder to write than I had anticipated. I don’t have a deadline and as I work full time I have to use what time I have available for writing. I am also not very disciplined.

Links to Kerry and the Book.

http://www.amazon.com/Ramblings-Ireland-Kerry-Dwyer/dp/1478392762/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ramblings-in-ireland-kerry-dwyer/1112597489?ean=2940044791848
www.kerrydwyer.com
www.facebook.com/KerryDwyerAuthor?ref=hl
www.goodreads.com/author/show/6467112.Kerry_Dwyer

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