014 OUR COUNTY’S LITERARY HERITAGE
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WRITING A NOVEL IS IMMENSELY SATISFYING BUT IT IS ALSO FRUSTRATING AND PAINFUL
writer and translator – whose family owned a manor in Hadlow – established England’s fi rst printing press in 1476.
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Since then, notable local writers include Elizabethan poet and soldier Philip Sidney (Penshurst), Vanity Fair author William Thackeray (Tunbridge Wells) and Rudyard Kipling (Burwash). Jane Austen’s Tonbridge connections are well known but she started writing Pride and Prejudice after staying at Goodnestone Park near Canterbury, while Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and The Mystery of Edwin Drood while living near Higham. In 1909 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame built Windlesham Manor in Crowborough where he lived and worked until his death aged 71. Virginia Woolf was very productive while living near Lewes and Bromley-born HG Wells penned The Time Machine in Sevenoaks – check out the blue plaque in Eardley Road – before building a house in Folkestone and writing The First Men in the Moon. James Bond creator Ian Fleming based Moonraker villain Drax near Cliffe, where the wartime naval intelligence offi cer-turned-author owned a house.
The writing’s on the wall
Our homage to these literary giants is dotted round the county in the form of commemorative plaques. See 19th century cookery writer Eliza Action’s in Tonbridge or visit George Orwell’s in West Malling. There are several in Tunbridge Wells,
t was William Caxton who brought Chaucer’s fi ctional pilgrims to public attention a century after they were written. The Canterbury Tales was the fi rst work to be printed in this country, after the
dedicated to 18th century dramatist Richard Cumberland, E.M. Forster of A Passage to India fame, William Thackeray and others.
A new generation
The literary fl ag has been passed to a new generation represented by Staplehurst- based Caroline Ward Vine (top), whose atmospheric Breathing Water won the 2018 Costa short story award. Former magazine publisher Caroline has recently fi nished a modern novel and a historical novella, for which she’s working on a sequel. “I absolutely love writing and want to make it the heart of everything I do,” she says. Former criminological researcher and university lecturer Mark Oldfi eld (right) is the author of thriller trilogy Vengeance of Memory, set in Spain. Sheffi eld-born Mark, who’s spent the last 30 years in Tunbridge Wells, is working on the fi rst in a quartet of thrillers depicting a French detective hunting for a missing heiress in 1950s Vietnam. Despite his novels’ exotic locations, Mark draws inspiration from the Kent countryside. “Writing a novel is immensely satisfying but it is also frustrating and painful. Then things go right and all the bad stuff is forgotten. You need patience and determination,” he warns. Here’s one for younger readers –
Freddie Windsor Goes to Football is the fourth novel by mounted police officer/author Emma Toomey, who lives in Sevenoaks. The latest in this
popular series about loveable police horse Freddie sees the equine hero work at a
football match – and there’s plenty of fun and treats to be had…
Tips for aspiring NOVELISTS
Here, Tunbridge Wells- based thriller writer Mark Oldfi eld shares some advice: • Carefully plan the major events of the plot and locations – mind maps and cartoons can help. • Write every day and then edit it – a lot!
• Be your harshest critic. • Read a lot, analysing what you do and don’t like, and the reasons why.
• Know your audience. If you want to write light romances, read some – otherwise why are you writing them? • If you submit work to an agent, take their
comments seriously. If they reject your manuscript, get over it and send it to someone else.
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