Isabel Wolff is one of my favourite authors - I’ve just recently reviewed A Vintage Affair and I reviewed Forget Me Not a while back - and I love how her books are so real. I’ve read most of Isabel’s books and have loved them. I was thrilled when Isabel agreed to do an author interview!

1. Describe your novel, A Vintage Affair, in a sentence.

It’s a story of friendship, regret and redemption, set in a vintage dress shop in contemporary south London, and in wartime Provence.

2. Please tell us there will be a next book?! I’ve just finished - and loved - A Vintage Affair so I eagerly await your next novel!

I’m working on it now - it’s a about a portrait painter. I always give my heroines interesting jobs - for example agony aunt, animal behaviourist, radio journalist, vintage dress shop owner etc. - because I think it’s interesting for the reader to learn something about a different world while at the same time having what is, hopefully, an engaging and compelling read.

3. What inspires your books?

I try to write with a blend of pathos and humour because that’s true to life. As a child I was very influenced by M*A*S*H* - the ultimate comedy with a catch in the throat - and I still watch re-runs of it on Paramount. I’m always aiming to give my heroines the chance to put right something right that they’ve got badly wrong. If it can’t be put it right - and in ‘A Vintage Affair’ something has happened that can’t be - then I try to redeem my heroine in a different way. I aim to make my books uplifting, finally, without writing endings that are easy or saccharine.

4. How did you get published?
I was a journalist and broadcaster and I had a comic column in the Daily Telegraph - ‘Tiffany Trott’, and after it had been in the paper for a month or so I was approached by HarperCollins to write a book about Tiffany Trott, and that was it - I was started. I consider myself very lucky in that I didn’t have to hawk a manuscript around the publishing houses.

5. Who are some of your favourite authors/books?

Amongst contemporary authors Anita Shreve, Anne Tyler and Kate Atkinson. I’m a huge fan of Philip Roth and of Rohinton Mistry whose ‘A Fine Balance’,about India under Mrs Gandhi, is a mdoern masterpiece. I also try to read classic novels and have just been blown away by Anthony Trollope’s ‘The Way We Live Now’.

6. What is your normal writing day like?

I have young children so as soon as my nanny arrives I go downstairs to my basement workroom and get cracking. I try to write at least a thousand words every day, but it’s not always easy.

7. What’s the best thing about being an author?

The best thing, undoubtedly, is meeting someone, or hearing from someone, who loved your book. Writing is so solitary and it’s very hard - so knowing that your book has in any moved, amused or affected someone is a wonderful reward. Also, you get to uncover so much in the course of your research and that’s very enriching: I learned so much about vintage fashion while researching ‘A Vintage Affair’, although I wasn’t in any way a ‘fashionista’ before. Now I almost think I could run a vintage dress shop myself!

8. Finally, what advice would you give to those wanting to write a book?

I’ve written a Guide to Writing and Getting Published on my website, www.IsabelWolff.com, but in brief, I’d say ask one trusted friend to read the MS as you write so that you get some kind of feedback (and of course encouragement). Secondly, try to plan it (as far as possible) so that you know where you’re going: writing a novel is like building a house - it helps to have plans. Lastly, I’d say just stick at it. Writing is like knitting. If you can do just a few rows every day you’ll soon see it grow.

Thanks, Isabel!

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