Clara’s Heart was published when I was in my late twenties; the sequel, In Clara’s Hands, was published fourteen years later. Just after the sequel was published I was in London promoting the book and was taking a black cab to an interview. Once the driver began to speak to me, I could tell he was from Jamaica and we began to chat. As someone who normally downplays the fact that I am a writer, I very uncharacteristically told him that I’d written a novel and a sequel whose protagonist was a Jamaican woman. He asked me the name of the books and I told him and he’d actually read Clara’s Heart and was surprised to hear there was a sequel. He asked me the plot of the sequel, and I told him and there was silence – I couldn’t tell if it might be the silence of disapproval. After a few moments, he asked, “Do you think you’ll write another book about her?” [Read more…]
lives in Italy and just happened to ask if he had any fiction he wanted to publish. At the end of the evening, he emailed me a copy of a novel called American Stranger. I read it the next morning in one sitting and finished the novel in tears. 
I would like to believe that writers achieve celebrity because their work reflects a depth of thought and intelligence. That these writers see their fame as incidental to the excellence of their craft and, unlike actors, they don’t behave any differently once they have achieved the pinnacle of success. Most actors, after all, aren’t known to be deep thinkers, and therefore we tend to forgive their public outbursts, drug binges and generally bad behavior as by-products and delusions of their fame. 