Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Elizabeth Coffey to the blog to talk about publishing her memoir And the Little One Said.
As a child I would listen to my dad’s bedtime stories, it fuelled my imagination so much I would interrupt him and end up taking over. One day he came home from work with an unused office diary for me to write in. I remember the excitement, it looked like an empty book waiting to be written, so that’s exactly what I did. Luckily it was red so I was able to write the title on the hard front cover in black marker pen so it looked like a real book. I called it ‘Murder on the 4.30’. I didn’t bother to mention if it was a bus or a train or where it was going or anything (minor detail).
Do you have a typical writing day or routine?
I sit at my desk and stare at the trees for a bit, get distracted by social media, then have to hide my phone so I can focus. I take the dogs out after lunch, get a bit of fresh air and mental space then it’s back to it. I stop about 4pm for a couple of hours to sort out dinner (and lie to myself that that’s enough for one day) then end up writing until about 8pm.
If you had to give an elevator pitch for your memoir And the Little One Said, what would it be?
My memoir; And the Little One Said is about our close-knit family of ten becoming two. It struck me, at an early age, being the ‘little one’ of the family, there was a high probability my dearly loved much older brothers and sisters were all going to die before me. I didn’t expect it would be quite so soon and each one in spectacularly tragic different circumstances.
