Kate Lace’s first novel with Random House imprint Arrow, Gypsy Wedding, was released last week and to celebrate, we have an interview with the lady herself! It’s a great interview, and we hope you enjoy it too!

1. Describe your latest novel Gypsy Wedding in five words.

Outrageous, utterly over-the-top

2. Are you currently working on a second novel for Arrow/Random House? If you are, could you please tell us anything about it?

I am and it’s got a large cast, most of whom seem to be men who wear Lycra. Yum

3. What do you think it is about gypsies that everybody is so fascinated with?

I think it’s their lifestyle is so completely different to the sort of life most of us experience. What with that and the prejudice they have to cope with they really do seem to be aliens in their own country. And yet their exuberance, their high spirits really are quite endearing. And of course their incredibly strict moral code and their very close knit families give their communities an enviable strength. How many non-traveler parents would have the sort of control over their offspring that these people have - I know I didn’t!

4. Had you started writing Gypsy Wedding before programmes like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding started, or is it the other way around? Did you write the book because gypsies are sort of the ‘in’ thing at the moment (Gosh, that sounds such a horrible way to put it!)?

Like everyone I was riveted by the programmes and there was one episode where a traveler girl had a job in a hotel but the instant she got married she was going to have to give it all up. It made me wonder how it would be for a traveler girl who had a real, burning ambition to achieve something and how she might come to terms with such a clash between her hopes and duty.

5. Is it really true that young gypsy girls get engaged as young as 15? And can be married by 16? It seems so 1950s, so old-fashioned. I don’t know if you’ll be able to answer this, but can they get divorced if their marriage doesn’t work out? (Everyone in Gypsy Wedding seemed to be happily married is all, and I wonder if there is a get-out clause, as such.)

I really don’t know much about this. There was an episode which featured a lady whose marriage hadn’t worked out and it seemed very unusual that she’d divorced her husband. I think they really do believe that marriage is ’till death do us part’.

6. How much research needed to be done before you could write the novel? Did you infiltrate a traveller camp, or was it all Internet research?

It was all Internet. I think if I’d gone to a traveler camp I would have been there as a voyeur - and rightly treated as such. Given the way a lot of people treat gypsies and write about them they’d have every right to be very wary of me. Even though my intentions would have been honorable, I reckon they’d have still run me off the camp if I’d gone along and asked questions. And, frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed them

7. How did your book deal for Gypsy Wedding, with Arrow, come around?

I met Gillian, my editor at an RNA party and we discussed the programme - just like everyone else did when it was being screened. And she asked if I’d like to make a story of it - and well, that was that. Sheer luck really, just a case of being in the right place at the right time and talking to the right person.

8. You wrote 6 novels for the now resting Little Black Dress imprint, what was it like being an LBD author? Would you return to writing for LBD if they asked you/if you wrote another book for the imprint?

I loved being an LBD author, I loved the imprint, my editors were smashing people to work with and the books I wrote were fun to do. The book I am doing at the moment is probably going to finish up at around 120,000 words, which is a lot, but with that amount of space you can have so many sub-plots and minor characters to add depth it means you can have a much more complex plot. With the length of LBD - around 80,000 - you are a bit limited as to what you can do. But, if they asked me back, and if I wasn’t contracted elsewhere - of course I’d write for them.

9. You also used to write under your proper name of Catherine Jones, can you tell us just a little bit about the books written under that name?

I spent eight years in the army and they always say that you should start out by writing about what you know. So I did. All those early books were based about my experiences. In fact my family loved spotting the various army quarters we’d lived in because they all featured one way or another (and we lived in quite a few). Besides I’ve always found men in uniform quite sexy and I thought readers might too. I was giving people an insight into a world which outsiders know nothing about - a bit like traveler camps. In the case of life following the drum it’s the problems of husbands doing emergency tours in dodgy places, the separation, the kids being moved from school to school, the awfulness of the march-out (that’s moving house to civvies) but then there’s the camaraderie amongst the army wives, the bond that shared experience gives you, the mutual support… It really is very different from life for non-service families.

10. Where did Kate Lace come from? I presume Kate is a derivative of Catherine, but why Lace for a second name?

You may not believe this but Lace is on my birth certificate. Honestly. (Apparently it’s a Manx name.) Anyway, if you’ve got a name like that you’ve just got to use it, haven’t you? So I didn’t make it up, it was a gift.

11. What books do you yourself read, when you’re not busy writing your own novels?

I read all sorts. I’ll read Mills & Boon, I’ve just read Room by Emma Donaghue, I’ve got Judy Astley’s latest on the go; if it has got a cover and words in between, I’ll read it.

12. Finally, what advice would you give to wannabe writers hoping to some day become a published author?

Stick at it. I know it’s disheartening unless you’re very, very lucky because you’re almost bound to come up against rejection - we all do. And it’s tough writing without a deadline or any chance of remuneration to spur you on. But the more you write the better you’ll get. And join a writer’s group, get criticism from others and listen to what other people write and ask yourself why you think it’s good - or why you don’t? It’ll all help you hone your craft. But stick at it.

Thanks so much Kate!

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