Author Spotlight no.18 – Alberta Ross

To complement my daily blog interviews I recently started a series of Author Spotlights and today’s, the eighteenth, is of novelist and short story author Alberta Ross. You can read the others here.

Alberta spent the first part of her adult life travelling the world, the middle years studying and now has settled down to write.  From the first part she has endless photographs, memories and friends.  From the second she has a BSc Hons, an MA and friends.  Now in the third part everything comes together.

Over the years Alberta’s interests have expanded, as has her book and music collection.  A shortlist would include reading (almost anything), science, opera, folk, gardening, philosophy, crazy patchwork, freeform crochet, ethics, social history, cooking (and eating of course), gardening, anthropology, climate change and sustainability.

She claims her parents gave her, apart from a love of reading and music, an interest and curiosity in everything which in itself has become a total inability to be bored and for this she is always grateful.

And now from the author herself:

One of my childhood ambitions was to visit every continent.  I did, and have the friends, photos and memories to prove it.

Then returning home to keep an eye on aging family members I decided to try for another childhood ambition – to go to University! Somehow, despite having no qualifications in the fields I wished to study, I was allowed in. I passed. I am now a proud possessor of a BSc Hons in Anthropology / Food Science & Nutrition and an MA in Women’s Studies.

Well if I could do that I could write a book also!

I have often been asked when I started writing and why I chose the indie route to travel on.  Well the answer to the first is ‘late in life’ and the second because I felt my life was too short to wait the traditional time. I had just officially retired when I began Ellen’s Tale, the first of my series the Sefuty Chronicles. I had scribbled attempts as a child but always thought being an author was not an ambition I would ever achieve.

Then on a whim I joined a local writing class run by a great teacher, Emily.  Impossibly young, erudite, clever and supportive, she enthused me with great creativity at a time in my life when events seemed a little dire and dreary.

Ellen’s Tale (the result of trying short stories!) was penned during a period of great stress and distress.  I was nursing my mother through a long and progressive illness.  Writing became a therapeutic escape from a life becoming more unbearable by the day.  The words flowed and I settled into a very agreeable alternative world.

I continued writing after that particular stress vanished with my mother’s death but then more stress crowded in behind with my own major illness. Illness and operations have dictated my life for a few years now and I have learnt the benefits of a ‘lie down’ on odd occasions during the day.  The magic is that it is during these quiet times I find inspiration and work out an impending piece of writing.  In these quiet times I hold conversations in my head to decide which character says what.  If I drift into sleep, those moments as I fall asleep and the moments I come back, are very fertile moments. So for me extreme stress has been a spark to ignite my imagination.

To travel the indie route meant I had to turn to and learn many new skills.  It meant a great deal of research which I enjoy, burning the midnight oil as I struggled to master such as PDF, DTP, web design, book cover design, social networking and oh, the list is never-ending. I found I enjoyed the challenge.

I have been writing full-time now for just over three years and cannot think of anything else I would rather be doing.  It is such fun, I meet such amazing people from all over the world.  Increasing age does not seem to be slowing my imagination, the fourth book arrives in a few weeks and I have two more in the series planned.  In November I will be trying a different genre in NaNoWiMo.

Oh, I hope to continue writing for years with good luck and a following wind.

I am grateful that my parents gave me, apart from a love of reading and music, an interest and curiosity in everything which in itself has become a total inability to be bored. With an insatiable desire to ‘know’ my interests have over the years grown and expanded. A short list would include reading (almost anything) science, opera, folk, gardening, philosophy, crazy patchwork, freeform crochet, ethics, social history, cooking (and eating of course) gardening, anthropology, climate change and sustainability.

In some form or other all of these have fed into my writing.

Thank you Alberta (I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo too :)). You can find more about Alberta and her work via…

http://www.albertaross.co.uk (details her books, extracts, readers comments and contact information), http://sefutychronicles-albertaross.blogspot.com (where she blogs about writing, self-publishing and her books), http://www.didyoueverkissafrog.typepad.com (where she blogs about anything she fancies).

She can also be followed on Twitter (http://twitter.com/albertaross).

Alberta is running a giveaway during her blog tour:

2 winners of draw will win an e-book edition of: the first two books of the Sefuty Chronicles ‘Ellen’s Tale and The Storyteller’s Tale’.

3 runners up will win an e-book edition of ‘Ellen’s Tale’ (unless already read in which case The Storyteller’s Tale)

How to win: A comment on each visited host site gives you one chance to win, also on her sites on those days she is posting there during the tour (an extra entry will be given if you mention the post on Twitter or Facebook and an extra entry will be given for a mention of the post / tour on your own blog). Please let her know where you have spread the word.

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For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.

As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.

I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:

Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group

Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group

Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group

Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group

Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group

We look forward to reading your comments.

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