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Rosalie Parker on Tartarus Press
Rosalie Parker
is co- proprietor and editor of the independent publishing house Tartarus
Press, lives in the Yorkshire Dales. She has degrees in English
Literature & History and in Archeology.
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Interview
with Rosalie Parker
The
Short Review:
How long did it take you to write all the stories in your collection?
Rosalie Parker: I wrote seven of them over a period of six months or so. The first one in the collection, The Rain, was written some years ago (during a particularly rainy autumn) and went through several later rewrites.
TSR:
Did you
have a collection in mind when you were writing them?
RP: Not
really. I wrote them mainly to prove something to myself, and
then I hoped to place some individual stories in anthologies,
etc, and was lucky enough for that to happen with Spirit Solutions, The Picture, and In the Garden.
TSR:
How did
you choose which stories to include and in what order?
RP: The stories in The Old Knowledge
were the sum total of my output at that point! The order was
chosen so as to mix up the variety as much as possible. My
publisher, the lovely Brian Showers at Swan River Press also had some
input into the final story order. You should always listen to your
publisher :)
TSR:
What
does the word "story"
mean to you?
RP: Maybe, a tale that needs to be told.
TSR:
Do you have a reader in mind when you write stories?
RP:
Not a specific one. I do obviously try to make the stories worth
reading by a general audience, and I am very pleased if any reader
likes what I have written.
TSR: Is
there
anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your collection,
anything at all?
RP: I think I'm too scared for that. They might be honest!
TSR:
How does
it feel knowing that people are buying your book?
RP: It's extremely gratifying (more than you could ever know) and a bit scary.
TSR:
What are you working on now?
RP: I'm
a bit busy with the day job (I co-run Tartarus Press with R.B.
Russell), but I'm planning to write some more short stories over the
winter months. Being stuck inside more means I have to get down to some
writing.
TSR:
What are
the three most recent short story collections you've read?
RP: I'm reading David Mitchell's Ghostwritten at the moment, which it seems to me is a short story collection rather than a novel Before that I read Sub Rosa by Robert Aickman (I thoroughly recommend this), and Sourdough and Other Stories by the fabulous Australian writer Angela Slatter.
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