In an article for The Royal Literary Fund, Isabel shares her own and others’ experiences of holiday jobs and internships, and explores how youthful work experiences can make a better writer.
My Life in Books
Roald Dahl, Spike Milligan, Stephen King, Tobias Wolff – do read this fascinating account of Isabelle Ashdown’s favourite books at different times in her life, as told to Anne Cater for her blog Random Things Through My Letterbox.
Interview with Sussex Life: a perfect Sussex weekend
Having grown up on the south coast, Isabel now lives in Chichester, and says that Sussex is ‘a constant source of inspiration. All my novels have a coastal location, largely inspired by the beauty and range of our south coast beaches – I grew up in East Wittering, so I guess it’s in my blood!’
Read about Isabel’s perfect Sussex weekend on the Sussex Life site.
'Top Five: Women on the Run' for We Love This Book
‘In my latest novel Flight, a happily married young mother wins the lottery – and runs away. Wren simply disappears, giving up her old connected life in favour of a new solitary one on the coast of North Cornwall. What she seeks, ultimately, is peace; peace, freedom, quiet, space to be alone… Haven’t we all felt this desire at some time or other?’
Isabel Ashdown selects her ‘Top Five: Women on the Run’ in fiction in a feature for We Love This Book.
Special guest appearance at NACOA dinner
Isabel Ashdown reads from and discusses her critically acclaimed debut novel Glasshopper at a fundraising dinner for NACOA, the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, May 2012.
Isabel Ashdown returns to her old school
Isabel returned to her old school, Chichester High School for Girls to run a series of talks for Year 9 English students. She gave the girls an insight into the working life of a writer, and to offer some practical writing tips that they might take away with them to develop further.
Isabel’s advice for all? ‘Store it up, write down the dull, the fascinating, the troubling stuff – and it will undoubtedly rear up again in the future, as some kind of creative cue. Keeping a notebook is another vital habit for a writer to develop – and of course, if you want to be the best you can … read, read, read!’
Interview with The Undercover Soundtrack
‘When I write, there must be no sounds other than the distant purr of traffic and birdsong, and the tap of my fingers on the keyboard. But between the moments of physical writing, music plays a strong role in the development of my fictional worlds, and it provides me with a therapeutic contrast to the long hours of quiet and solitary creation.’
Isabel discusses her writing obsessions and social change on Roz Morris’s The Undercover Soundtrack.
Interview with Retreat West
‘It was several years ago that I first began to develop a fascination with memories of 1976, when I started writing in earnest, having given up my career to study English and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester. Images and senses of summer seemed to play a strong role in my writing – the heatbaked scent of drying lawns, the rise and fall of honeysuckle and the slip-slap of flip-flops on boiled asphalt – and my recollections were repeatedly drawn back to that heatwave summer, when I was turning six.’
Isabel talks to Retreat West about the creation of Summer of ’76 and her writing processes.
Guest post on Mostly Reading YA
‘I remember my own teenage years with great clarity. From around the age of fourteen, I pretty much felt I knew my own mind, and started to leave behind the things of childhood…My interests had shifted: I wanted to read about bigger things than my parents chose for me – I was after free-thinking and books with adult themes.’
Read Isabel’s guest post on Young Adult fiction blog Mostly Reading YA as she discusses her growing popularity amongst adolescent readers.
Isabel supports NACOA
Isabel is a supporter of NACOA, the National Association for Children of Alcoholics.
Isabel says, ‘Alcoholism in the family is one of society’s best kept secrets. In families where alcohol is a problem, children are often deeply affected by the guilt of this secret, of not understanding why their parent drinks or how to help them get better. It can be a lonely place. But thanks to Nacoa, today’s children have someone they can to talk to without fear of exposure, and sometimes that’s all a child needs to help them through it. I’m proud to be a supporter of Nacoa’s vital work.’
Interview with Red magazine
Read Isabel’s moving article in Red magazine about how her father’s addiction has shaped her life.
‘When I was 21, I walked into my local bookshop and asked the woman behind the counter if they could find a particular book for me. There was no internet shopping back then, and, as it was a specialist book, it would need to be ordered. I felt ashamed asking for it, and had to repeat the title several times before the assistant located it in her trade journal. ‘Ah, yes!’ she finally declared, loudly. ‘Here it is! Adult Children Of Alcoholics!’ She looked up at me, delighted, and I wanted to die on the spot.’
Article in the Guardian: My Saturday Job
‘When I was 14 I took a job in a chemist in the West Sussex seaside village of East Wittering, where I lived. The owner was a softly spoken man called Mr Holmes who had an entirely female staff, many of whom had worked for him for decades.’
Isabel Ashdown remembers her first job working at a West Sussex Chemist in the Guardian.
Isabel Ashdown
Isabel Ashdown was born in London and grew up on the Sussex coast. After fifteen years working in product marketing, Ashdown made the decision to give up her job in senior management to return to education, and she now writes full-time, walks daily, and volunteers in a local school for the charity Pets as Therapy. She is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Chichester.
Her award-winning debut Glasshopper (Myriad, 2009) was twice named as one of the best books of the year, and her second novel Hurry Up and Wait was published to critical acclaim being listed as one of Amazon Kindle’s Customer Favourites in 2011. Myriad published her third book, Summer of ’76, in 2013, her fourth novel, Flight, in 2015, and A Quiet Winter, an exclusive ebook short story released November 2015. Isabel is also the best-selling author of psychological thrillers Little Sister and Beautiful Liars.
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