We chat with author Roisin Meaney about Moving On, which is a warm-hearted Irish-set romance that follows Ellen through each significant house move in her life and the people who cross her path as a result, perfect for fans of Marian Keyes, Lucy Diamond and anyone who loved the TV show, Love Life. PLUS we have an excerpt to share with you at the end of the interview!
Hi, Roisin! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure – I’m an ex primary teacher, and a fulltime writer since 2008. I’ve lived in lots of different places but these days I’m based on the outskirts of a little town on the west coast of Ireland called Miltown Malbay in Co Clare. I share a small old cottage with three cats, and I drink lots of tea and eat far too many spotty bananas, and I’m partial to the odd pint of Guinness, and a glass of decent red wine. Ordinarily I like walking and yoga, but I’m currently waiting on a hip replacement – childhood thing, was always going to happen – so I’m not doing much of either at the moment. I’m also a lover of cryptic crosswords, and baking is my therapy of choice after a day of writing. You should taste my sour cream coffee cake.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ll give you the shortened version. I always enjoyed writing essays in school but never thought about taking it further, and then when I was 18 and waiting to start teacher training college I won a car by finishing a sentence that began ‘I would like to win a Ford Fiesta because… (…my father won’t let me drive his’) and after that I entered every competition I could find that required a sentence to be finished, and I won lots more things – holidays, bicycles, clothing and more – so when I decided I’d like to take a break from teaching I harrassed advertising agencies in London until one took pity on me and gave me a job as a copywriter, and I loved writing for a living but ultimately chose the relative calm of the classroom over the deadline-ruled panic of an ad agency’s creative department. I wanted to keep writing though, so I wrote a monthly column in the teacher’s union mag about the joys of teaching young children (4-6 year olds) until I finally decided, over 20 years after the car win, to try my hand at a novel, so I took another career break and moved for a year to San Francsico where one of my brothers lived, and that was the start of it.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: That would be one of the Noddy books by Enid Blyton – I worked my way through the series as soon as I made sense of the written word.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Probably more than one, but the one that stands out is Lolita by Nabokv. Every line took my breath away. I was so jealous of someone who could write like that.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Terrified the wits out of me, but I couldn’t stop reading it.
Your latest novel, Moving On, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Heartwarming. Life-affirming. Emotional. Twisty. Moreish.
What can readers expect?
To get to know Ellen Sheehan and her circle of friends and relations as she moves through the middle part of her life, from the age of 20 as she leaves home for the first time, through all her significant relocations over the years, to what she senses will be her final house move as she approaches the age of 60. Readers will laugh with her and cry with her, and hopefully love her as much as I do.
Where did the inspiration for Moving On come from?
The central theme – using house moves to chart a person’s progress through life – arose out of a conversation with my editors while we were tossing around a few ideas, but the nuts and bolts of the writing was largely inspired by myself! I didn’t realise how much of me there is in Ellen until I’d finished it – so many parallels with my own life. It’s the closest thing to an autobiography I’ll ever write. Having said that, a lot of things happened to Ellen that didn’t happen to me too, so it’s a combination of mining my own past, and imagination. There may be things that Ellen experienced that I might have wished had happened to me – I couldn’t possibly say!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The character of Ellen’s aunt Frances is one I return to often, because I love creating those strong, feisty, unafraid women who face life full on and take no prisoners. I love depicting them at the start as someone to be wary of, as Ellen is on encountering Frances, but then showing how that relationship changes as Ellen slowly discovers her aunt’s true nature, and is herself changed by her interaction with such a woman.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I faced the same challenge I face with every book – the conviction, usually in the middle of the first draft, that I’m writing rubblish that nobody will possibly want to read. When this happens I usually send a panicked email to Ciara, my longtime Irish editor, who always manages to talk me down from the literary ledge and give me the heart to go on – and with Moving On, which has such a lot of story in it, there was more than one case of I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing-so-you-need-to-help. And now that I have acquired Molly, my UK editor, she can look forward to her very own panicked emails in the future, once I know her well enough to show her my vulnerability.
What’s next for you?
The next book, which has a working title that’ll probably change. I’m currently writing the first draft, and approaching the halfway mark, so it’s only a matter of time before the panic hits. It’s scheduled for publication in spring 2026, so there’s plenty of time to put right all the mistakes I’ve no doubt already made.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson, one of my favourite authors. It was published last August but I’m a really slow reader so I’m always at least six months behind. I gave it to a friend for Christmas so it’ll get passed on in due course. Devious, but effective. Also Three Days in June by another favourite author, Ann Tyler. And the short story collection Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfield sounds interesting, so I’ll pick it up too, or drop heavy birthday gift hints.
EXCERPT
GALWAY OCTOBER 2019
Anticipation
Her tea has gone cold. She wonders how many cups she’s wasted over the years, made and then forgotten as she’s tapped the keys of her laptop or sat lost in thought, trying to puzzle her way through a roadblock in a plot while tea has cooled in a cup. Today she’s not typing or sitting; she’s standing in the littlest bedroom that became her writing room after the girls moved out, and she’s preparing to pack up the contents of her bureau, a task she’s left till last. She found the bureau in a charity shop over twenty years ago, and its drawers and cubbyholes harbour many memories.
Packing again, moving house for what she hopes – no, she knows – will be the last time. Tomorrow she will leave the home she loved best, of all the places she’s lived, and today she’s lost in the past, and her tea cools.
She sets the cup back on the windowsill and makes a start. From one of the little nooks in the top of the bureau she takes a note- book, its cover dark green with a flowery print. She traces the inscription on the flyleaf, its ink faded with age. They were children, two children playing at love.
In the pocket inside the notebook’s back cover are letters written in different hands, all precious, all folded and stored there over the years. She unfolds them carefully and rereads them now, tears brimming as the words conjure long-ago emotions.
In the same pocket is a newspaper clipping of the Irish fiction bestseller list from almost twenty years ago, her first book sitting at number ten. Seeing it listed there prompts a stir of the old excitement. Its publication had been the beginning of something, when she’d thought herself too old for any more beginnings. So much still ahead, and she’d had no idea.
