Welcome Annalisa Crawford

Very delighted to bring you Annalisa Crawford's new book The Clock in My Mother's House and other stories.  I met her on line while blogging and have enjoyed her posts, newsletters, books, and her author success. 

Let's  see what she has to say:

Thank you, Joanne, for inviting me onto your blog today to help me celebrate the release of my new short story collection The Clock in My Mother’s House.

People often ask writers where they get their ideas from, and it’s a question we sometimes struggle with. For my novels, it’s impossible to answer because several (if not, many) elements converge over time until I have no memory of the inciting concept. Equally ideas rise in prominence and fall away never to be seen again.

However, as all the stories in my this collection were written relatively recently, it’s much easier to remember where I was and which nuggets of inspiration stuck – and hopefully it will whet your appetite to check out the book😉

Click – I stumbled across an article, one day, about an art exhibition where an artist had asked members of the public to send him photographs they could no longer bear to look at – those too sad or poignant or painful. Isn’t that just an incredible idea? (Just writing this has given me an great idea for something new, too.)

So, one of the photos was of an man walking away from the camera, which sparked an interest in the story behind it, and why it had been sent. The story records the break-up between the photographer’s mother and step-father.

All the Magpies Come Out to Play – This was my lockdown story, the story I swore I wouldn’t write because who’d want to read about the pandemic while it was still so large and raw. But a character, inspired by my dad who lived opposite me, appeared in my head, waving at her neighbour, just as my dad and I had done when we couldn’t meet in person. From there, I thought of the queues outside shops, as people were allowed in one at a time. I recalled the way neighbours helped each other, and the eerie silence across town as we all took our one-hour walk each day. I wrote this story in the summer of 2020, I was still on furlough, some lockdown measures about crowd sizes and mask-wearing were still in place, but people were returning to work and school.

Everything in the story was my real experience of how lockdown was in my town. It was published online, and many comments scoffed at my ‘fairy tale’ depiction, which only served to make me proud of the way my town, my friends and neighbours, stepped up to the challenge of keeping each other safe. It was early, remember, we had no way of knowing how the virus would affect us.

Vera Says… - Oh, it’s another Dad anecdote! My sister and I often went on road trips with my dad to see various air shows around the country. One trip, unbeknownst to us, my mum had fiddled with the settings on the sat-nav which meant that wherever we drove, the sat-nav became increasingly insistent we turned around and went a different way. My dad and the sat-nav had quite a few arguments that weekend. It was possibly on a different holiday that we named the sat-nav. It wasn’t called Vera, but we can’t remember what it was. Luckily, we made it to our destination. As do the characters in this story…

 

 Thanks so much Annalisa. You make it look easy, but I know you've put a lot of time, effort, and editing to bring your new book to fruition.  Now all we have to do is buy and read it! 

Here's a blurb to whet our appetite

 

The Clock in My Mother’s House

Life can change in an instant, but that’s not always a bad thing.

A hotel explodes leaving staff and guests in peril; a woman retrieves an old clock from the attic with disturbing consequences; one man leaves heart break behind him, and another arrives to bring adventure.

In this haunting collection, Annalisa Crawford creates characters who will charm, captivate and intrigue you.

 

Annalisa Crawford lives in Cornwall, UK, with a good supply of moorland and beaches to keep her inspired. She lives with her husband, and canine writing partner, Artoo. She is the author of four short story collections, and two novels.

Website: https://www.annalisacrawford.com/

Buy Links: https://books2read.com/clock-in-mothers-house

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annalisacrawford.author

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnalisaCrawf