Bio

Gillian Morgan Books

Writing industry

March 1986 – Present (25 years 5 months)

Several articles published in traditional magazines:

~ Western Mail
~ Women's Realm
~ Carmarthen Times
~ Cardiganshire & Teifi News
~ The Book Bag, Liverpool
~ Waverton Good Read 2009-2010
~ Changing Times 2003 
~ Changing Times 2010





Published 'Lucy Walters' a novel - self-published
Published 'Salt Blue' a novel - Honno Publishers


Radio Appearances:


~ Radio Wales Interview - by Peter Johnson (Interview of the week)
~ "Now Read On" Programme - by David Allen
~ "Four Five Six" Programme - by David Allen

When I was sixty-seven my 'debut' novel was published by 'Honno'. Called 'Salt Blue' it is set in a small Welsh town, overlooking the Irish Sea.

One reviewer said it was obviously written by a young girl and another called it autobiographical.


I feel no older now than when I was sixteen, but I'm not young.  This is not the story of my life either.


Someone asked me if it was a surprise that I could write a novel at my age.  I still function in most ways so no, I was not surprised.  'Salt Blue' is the novel I was meant to write.


THANKS TO MY MOTHER


My mother wanted me to write a novel.  She had decided I would be a writer when I was twelve and she read my first essay while I was at Grammar School.  (Even now I know what that essay contained).


I loved books from a young age and we, mother and I, went to the library each week.  Once I began reading, I couldn't put a book down. (Often, my mother told me not to read while eating).


Apart from story books, I liked poetry.  


I learnt John Masefield's 'Sea Fever' by heart and Walter de la Mare's 'The Listeners'.  Once a month at Chapel, we had a 'Cwrdd Y Plant' (Children's Club) for which I learnt verses in Welsh, such as 'Pwy yw Bugail y Briallu'?


I had a hardback book from Woolworth's, costing 2/6 pence for  homework.  For the first 'composition' homework, there was a choice of titles: 'A rusty bicycle', which made me despair, or 'My Pet'.  Fortunately , our lodger, a fifteen year old who was the cashier at the local 'Home and Colonial' Store, had forced the shop cat's kitten on us, so I had my subject.


BOOKS WERE LIKE OXYGEN TO ME


After leaving Grammar School, I worked in the Civil Service, in Fishguard.  I read Thomas Hardy in my spare time, knowing I would never write a book like that.


When Alan Sillitoe, John Braine and Stan Barstow erupted on to the sixties scene, their books were like oxygen and I recognised a new way of writing.


During the ten years I was home bringing up my daughters I began what I thought might become a novel, but it didn't.  I knew it was not quite right and destroyed it.


When both my daughters went to school, I trained as a teacher, taking English as my main subject.  When I qualified, my mother told me not to teach, to write a book instead.  I thanked her for saying that, but I decided the safest thing was to teach, because I still had no story I wanted to tell.


FIRST FORAY IN PUBLISHING A BOOK


A competition in 'Woman's Realm' resulted in the prize of a mini library and gave me the confidence to write for two local newspapers.  Then my book 'Fishguard in Old Photographs' was published.


When Prince Charles married Diana, I read that Lucy Walter the mistress of Charles II, was an ancestor of hers.  Lucy Walter was brought up in Roach Castle, eight miles from Haverfordwest.  My husband had a link to Lucy, too, which spurred me on.  Researching Lucy's story, I determined to write a book about her and I did, self-publishing it.


Although I was teaching, I finished the book within a year.  It was not difficult to write, being fiction based on fact.  I did not have the problem of finding the 'voice', either.


I FOUND MY VOICE


When I took early retirement from my post as the headteacher of a nursery school my daughters told me the time had come to write a novel.  I embarked on an MA in Creative Writing in Trinity College, Carmarthen, to compose this long awaited tome.


There is a saying about the 'best laid plans of mice and men' and it is true.  Instead of writing a novel, I produced a volume of poetry.


After completing the MA, I enrolled on a three year textile art course.  Days away from starting, my daughters decided I was avoiding writing the novel.  To please them, I switched on the computer and told myself if I was meant to write a novel I would write it now.


Writers usually decide what they're going to say before putting it down on paper. I did the opposite and cleared my mind.


From nowhere the words: 'The morning light is as clean and blank as a frost-bleached linen sheet', jumped onto the screen .  This was the first sentence of my novel 'Salt Blue'.  There was no going back now,  I had found my voice and my subject.  'Salt Blue' was a 'coming of age' novel for Stella, the heroine, and for myself.


Need I say I did not start the art course?