The Jean Gill Interview by Claire
Jean Gill is a Welsh writer and photographer living in the south of France with a big white dog, a scruffy black dog, a Nikon D700 and a man. For many years, she taught English in Wales and was the first woman to be a secondary headteacher in Carmarthenshire. She is mother or stepmother to five children so life was hectic.
Publications are varied, including prize-winning poetry and novels, military history, translated books on dog training, and a cookery book on goat cheese. With Scottish parents, an English birthplace and French residence, she can usually support the winning team on most sporting occasions.
Tell us a little about yourself, your work and how you got into writing:
When I was a little girl, I wrote stories. I remember one about my pet hamster escaping, another about the charms on my bracelet coming to life. As a special treat, I sometimes went to work with my father, who was a soldier in an army hospital, and he’d let me type them up on a big old-fashioned typewriter.
When I was in my twenties, I started writing poetry and, at thirty, I was encouraged by a professional mentor, Jonathan Clifford (the National Poetry Foundation), who edited and published my poems. At 40, I turned to prose :) and now here I am, writing all kinds of everything.
What are you working on at the moment?
Now that ‘One Sixth of a Gill’ has gone to press and pixels, I’ve returned to the 12th century and the third novel in the Troubadours’ series. It feels good to be back with Dragonetz and Estela, deep in the Baussenque Wars of medieval Provence.
How did you come up with the title ‘One Sixth of a Gill’?
Because it’s a collection of shorts, alcohol came immediately to mind (as it often does!) and I remembered the notice for spirit measures that’s always up behind the bar in UK pubs. I liked the pun on ‘Gill’ and the implication that these are ‘shorts’. I’ve only just found out that it’s actually ‘one fifth of a gill’ in Scotland so maybe I’ll use that for another collection of shorts one day!
Where do you write?
I write prose at my desk in a corner of the living room. These are my work-mates. (photo of Blanche and Sherlock). Poetry arrives when it wills and gets scribbled on whatever’s to hand then thrown into/onto my desk. I have fragments of poems on shopping lists, backs of envelopes and invoices. I also write in my head at 3am when I can’t sleep and then I put the words on paper when I wake up.
Do you write full time or do you keep a day job?
I worked full-time as a teacher until my husband retired and then we moved to the south of France, where I write and take photos. There still aren’t enough hours in the day!
Pick one of your characters and sell him/her to us in twenty words or less.
Several of my readers have told me they’ve fallen for Dragonetz and I’m not immune to his charm. This description of the ex-Crusader comes from the TVTropes page for ‘Song at Dawn’ created by a reader, the talented Brian Wilkerson.http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/SongAtDawn
The Ace: famous warrior, popular lady's man, as a troubadour second to none. Also bitter, disillusioned and afraid of marriage.
What is the best piece of advice you ever received from another author?
‘Don’t get it right, get it written.’ That’s exactly how I work, after any planning and research; I let the writing of a novel flow until it’s finished then I edit.
How do you come up with the character names in your books?
I’m sure you do the same for your Egyptian novels: for the 12th century fictional characters, I use my history books and the internet to find names of that region, period, religion and language background. Dragonetz is ‘little Dragon’ in Occitan ( his father being Lord Dragon) but he gains his nickname ‘Dragonetz los Pros’ (‘the brave’ in Occitan) from his actions in the 2nd Crusade, where he commands the Guard of Alienor (Eleanor) of Aquitaine.
In Bladesong, I found Bar Philipos a fascinating mix of humanity and disciplined cruelty. How did you come up with his character?
‘Bladesong’ had to answer some of the questions left dangling in ‘Song at Dawn’. ‘Why did Dragonetz blame himself for what happened in Damascus during the 2nd Crusade?’ That led to me wondering exactly what did happen in the 2nd Crusade. I studied the siege of Damascus until I felt I’d solved the mysteries and the character of Bar Philippos was essential to make sense of the military and personal aspects of real events. I’m so pleased you see his character as complex. One reader said she was intrigued about the story from the moment she realised Bar Philippos ( a citizen of Damascus) was Christian. Truthfully, I feel very smug at having explained events in medieval Damscus in a manner that fits all the facts and also suits my story – unfortunately not enough people know the factual detail so they can tell me how clever I am :)
Someone To Look Up To is one of my favorite books. How did you so cleverly manage to step into Sirius' POV in order to write such authentic 'dog'?
What a lovely thing to say! I’ve been trained by six Great Pyrenees over the years so they take a lot of the credit but it’s thanks to top dog-trainer Michel Hasbrouck that I corrected some of the usual misunderstandings humans have about dog behaviour.
For instance, humans often think it’s cute when a dog apologises for wrong-doing by coming to the owner and licking him. Usually, this dog actually thinks it’s in charge, that it had a perfect right to punish the subordinate human (e.g. by biting him) and, like a good leader, it now forgives the human. And will bite again if the human steps out of line.
Breeders and fellow Pyr owners have added to the store of knowledge and stories I’ve accumulated, and my own dogs have included two adopted from a shelter. When the dogs in the book share their stories in the shelter at twilight, I could hear them in my mind. The dog chorus, where they echo and support each other, seemed to me exactly the way pack loyalty kicks in, just expressed in words.
Have any of your readers said your books leave a certain residue after they've read them? And if so, which one(s)?
Good question! Yes, with several of my books and I take that as a great compliment. I had difficulty coming out of a dog’s viewpoint myself after writing ‘Someone to look up to’ and I loved the comment from a Yorkshire reader that, by the end of the book, she was a dog and nearly barked at the postman. The best ‘residue’ I know of is that a Great Pyrenees breeder was so motivated by Elodie in the book that she started a qualification as a trainer so as to be able to help the owners who came to her for puppies. She completed it too! I’ve also heard from many dog owners that they understand their dogs better after enjoying my story – and that can only be a good thing. The French Breed Club for Great Pyrenees actually sells copies of my book (in English) at its annual show in the Pyrenees and I’m very proud of that. So far the book has a bigger following in France and the UK than in the USA.
Did any specific author(s) motivate you to begin writing?
A university degree stopped me writing, convinced that writers were great men. Then I read Stevie Smith’s poetry and loved it without being intimidated. Her poem that starts ‘Oh, I am a cat that likes to gallop about doing good’ made me smile and made me realise that I could write what I wanted to, in my voice. http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-galloping-cat/
Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?
My usual answer is ‘No. I always make sure I know exactly what comes next when I stop writing and then I can get straight into it when I sit down to write again.’ Then I realised that I DO get writer’s block, often! I ‘blank’ at interview questions, at writing blurbs and summaries – I’d rather write a novel any day than the blurb. What I do then is to write something, anything, to break the barrier of white space that’s in my head as much as on the page. Then I keep going back to it. And I ask friends for improvements on blurb.
Is anything in your books based on real life experiences?
‘How Blue is my Valley’ is about the first year we spent living in France, some of my poetry is autobiographical and the military history is factual but if you’re thinking about my fiction... all right, I’ll tell you a secret, the first time I’ve gone public. A few events and even some lines of dialogue come from real life. I was actually a witness to the real tragedy at the heart of ‘Snake on Saturdays’ and it haunted me until I wrote about it. My husband was once asked whether my books embarrass him and he said not at all, because he knows where the bodies are buried.
What tools have you found most successful in advertising/marketing yourself and your books?
I’ll let you know when it happens! I am very happily self-publishing, after having had various small presses (and one big one) in the past, and I try a variety of marketing strategies to suit a particular book and am empty pocket. I’m a bad example to other authors because I write in so many different genres.
I always do a print giveaway on goodreads and it’s a principle of mine to make the draw open to anyone in any country. I resent being left out of giveaways because I live in France and I don’t want my readers to feel left out, wherever in the world they live. If a reader’s online, his/her opinions reach everyone else online. The best marketing for me is one reader recommending the book to another. Word of mouth took ‘How Blue is my Valley’ to amazon Number 1 bestseller slot so I just try to build on whatever success my books have by happenstance.
My new book breaks all the rules and I love it for that but it doesn’t fit marketing categories so I’m a bit stuck. However, I have some readers who love my books and will put the word on the streets that ‘One Sixth of a Gill’ gives a taster of the full range of my work. I can’t tell you – or them – how much I value their support and encouragement.
Who are you reading right now?
I often have two books on the go, fiction and non-fiction. I’ve just finished ‘H is for Hawk’ by Helen MacDonald, one of the best books I’ve read this year – an autobiography with three strands: training a goshawk, coming to terms with her father’s death and commenting on T.H.White’s book ‘The Goshawk’. I love the combination of tortured souls and healing through animal communication. My other book is ‘Sketching Light’ by photographer Joe McNally, who inspires me. I get completely involved in his assignments and lighting choices, talk to myself about how I’d have tackled the shot – it’s a photographer thing :)
What do you do when you are not writing?
Take photos, walk dogs, garden, watch gruesome murders on TV with my husband. I did a beekeeping course this year to learn how to look after the hive we inherited when we bought some land. My beekeeping colleagues helped rescue the old hive and rehome the inhabitants. My man name the hive ‘Endeavour’ and is willing to join in looking after it so we’re hoping to add another couple of hives next year. ‘Resolution’ is already painted.
You are hosting a dinner party and must invite 3 famous people. Who would you choose and why?
The very idea of hosting a dinner party stresses me out and I don’t really like more than one person at a time. Small talk isn’t my thing although I can do it if I have to. I do enjoy food though, and I love cooking, so I would invite my famous people for a friendly lunch, separately. There are so many people whose true stories I’d love to hear but if I have to keep to three, they would be: Lee Miller, Colette and Alexandra David-Neel, all talented, gutsy and of course dead but hey, this is imaginary, right?
I love the fact that Lee invented the photographic process of solarisation by opening the door to the darkroom and ‘wrecking’ the image. After shouting at her, the surrealist Mann Ray, her lover and mentor, realised that something wonderful had happened and the two of them worked to make it happen again. There is more to Lee than a happy accident though; her technical skills and courage made her the only woman photographer to travel with the US Army to liberate France in WW2 and she was there when the concentration camps were discovered, shooting images no magazine would print. ‘Believe it!’ she wrote.
I discovered Colette’s writing when I was eighteen and now I can read it in French, I appreciate the sensuality even more. She could talk to me about her childhood, her crazy marriages, her work as a Paris dancer, her dogs and cats, her lovers and how she broke into the all-male clique of the French Academy with her writing.
Alexandra David-Neel was a 19th century Parisian explorer and writer, who was happy to use her husband’s money to finance her journeys to Tibet and just as happy not to see him too often. Tantric sex was among the philosophical discoveries she made on her travels so I think she’d be a very interesting lunch companion. Travel does indeed widen the horizons and I’m a lifelong armchair traveller. Books transport me to another world and their authors are my company. I’m so lucky that I count among my (living) friends, people whose company expands my own life. Not just artists, photographers and writers (like yourself) but people who consider themselves ordinary and who enrich my world with their adventures and their warmth.
Where can readers stalk you?
http://smarturl.it/onesixth
My blog www.jeangill.blogspot.com
facebook https://www.facebook.com/writerjeangill
twitter https://twitter.com/writerjeangill
Photos www.istockphoto.com/jeangill
Publications are varied, including prize-winning poetry and novels, military history, translated books on dog training, and a cookery book on goat cheese. With Scottish parents, an English birthplace and French residence, she can usually support the winning team on most sporting occasions.
Tell us a little about yourself, your work and how you got into writing:
When I was a little girl, I wrote stories. I remember one about my pet hamster escaping, another about the charms on my bracelet coming to life. As a special treat, I sometimes went to work with my father, who was a soldier in an army hospital, and he’d let me type them up on a big old-fashioned typewriter.
When I was in my twenties, I started writing poetry and, at thirty, I was encouraged by a professional mentor, Jonathan Clifford (the National Poetry Foundation), who edited and published my poems. At 40, I turned to prose :) and now here I am, writing all kinds of everything.
What are you working on at the moment?
Now that ‘One Sixth of a Gill’ has gone to press and pixels, I’ve returned to the 12th century and the third novel in the Troubadours’ series. It feels good to be back with Dragonetz and Estela, deep in the Baussenque Wars of medieval Provence.
How did you come up with the title ‘One Sixth of a Gill’?
Because it’s a collection of shorts, alcohol came immediately to mind (as it often does!) and I remembered the notice for spirit measures that’s always up behind the bar in UK pubs. I liked the pun on ‘Gill’ and the implication that these are ‘shorts’. I’ve only just found out that it’s actually ‘one fifth of a gill’ in Scotland so maybe I’ll use that for another collection of shorts one day!
Where do you write?
I write prose at my desk in a corner of the living room. These are my work-mates. (photo of Blanche and Sherlock). Poetry arrives when it wills and gets scribbled on whatever’s to hand then thrown into/onto my desk. I have fragments of poems on shopping lists, backs of envelopes and invoices. I also write in my head at 3am when I can’t sleep and then I put the words on paper when I wake up.
Do you write full time or do you keep a day job?
I worked full-time as a teacher until my husband retired and then we moved to the south of France, where I write and take photos. There still aren’t enough hours in the day!
Pick one of your characters and sell him/her to us in twenty words or less.
Several of my readers have told me they’ve fallen for Dragonetz and I’m not immune to his charm. This description of the ex-Crusader comes from the TVTropes page for ‘Song at Dawn’ created by a reader, the talented Brian Wilkerson.http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/SongAtDawn
The Ace: famous warrior, popular lady's man, as a troubadour second to none. Also bitter, disillusioned and afraid of marriage.
What is the best piece of advice you ever received from another author?
‘Don’t get it right, get it written.’ That’s exactly how I work, after any planning and research; I let the writing of a novel flow until it’s finished then I edit.
How do you come up with the character names in your books?
I’m sure you do the same for your Egyptian novels: for the 12th century fictional characters, I use my history books and the internet to find names of that region, period, religion and language background. Dragonetz is ‘little Dragon’ in Occitan ( his father being Lord Dragon) but he gains his nickname ‘Dragonetz los Pros’ (‘the brave’ in Occitan) from his actions in the 2nd Crusade, where he commands the Guard of Alienor (Eleanor) of Aquitaine.
In Bladesong, I found Bar Philipos a fascinating mix of humanity and disciplined cruelty. How did you come up with his character?
‘Bladesong’ had to answer some of the questions left dangling in ‘Song at Dawn’. ‘Why did Dragonetz blame himself for what happened in Damascus during the 2nd Crusade?’ That led to me wondering exactly what did happen in the 2nd Crusade. I studied the siege of Damascus until I felt I’d solved the mysteries and the character of Bar Philippos was essential to make sense of the military and personal aspects of real events. I’m so pleased you see his character as complex. One reader said she was intrigued about the story from the moment she realised Bar Philippos ( a citizen of Damascus) was Christian. Truthfully, I feel very smug at having explained events in medieval Damscus in a manner that fits all the facts and also suits my story – unfortunately not enough people know the factual detail so they can tell me how clever I am :)
Someone To Look Up To is one of my favorite books. How did you so cleverly manage to step into Sirius' POV in order to write such authentic 'dog'?
What a lovely thing to say! I’ve been trained by six Great Pyrenees over the years so they take a lot of the credit but it’s thanks to top dog-trainer Michel Hasbrouck that I corrected some of the usual misunderstandings humans have about dog behaviour.
For instance, humans often think it’s cute when a dog apologises for wrong-doing by coming to the owner and licking him. Usually, this dog actually thinks it’s in charge, that it had a perfect right to punish the subordinate human (e.g. by biting him) and, like a good leader, it now forgives the human. And will bite again if the human steps out of line.
Breeders and fellow Pyr owners have added to the store of knowledge and stories I’ve accumulated, and my own dogs have included two adopted from a shelter. When the dogs in the book share their stories in the shelter at twilight, I could hear them in my mind. The dog chorus, where they echo and support each other, seemed to me exactly the way pack loyalty kicks in, just expressed in words.
Have any of your readers said your books leave a certain residue after they've read them? And if so, which one(s)?
Good question! Yes, with several of my books and I take that as a great compliment. I had difficulty coming out of a dog’s viewpoint myself after writing ‘Someone to look up to’ and I loved the comment from a Yorkshire reader that, by the end of the book, she was a dog and nearly barked at the postman. The best ‘residue’ I know of is that a Great Pyrenees breeder was so motivated by Elodie in the book that she started a qualification as a trainer so as to be able to help the owners who came to her for puppies. She completed it too! I’ve also heard from many dog owners that they understand their dogs better after enjoying my story – and that can only be a good thing. The French Breed Club for Great Pyrenees actually sells copies of my book (in English) at its annual show in the Pyrenees and I’m very proud of that. So far the book has a bigger following in France and the UK than in the USA.
Did any specific author(s) motivate you to begin writing?
A university degree stopped me writing, convinced that writers were great men. Then I read Stevie Smith’s poetry and loved it without being intimidated. Her poem that starts ‘Oh, I am a cat that likes to gallop about doing good’ made me smile and made me realise that I could write what I wanted to, in my voice. http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-galloping-cat/
Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?
My usual answer is ‘No. I always make sure I know exactly what comes next when I stop writing and then I can get straight into it when I sit down to write again.’ Then I realised that I DO get writer’s block, often! I ‘blank’ at interview questions, at writing blurbs and summaries – I’d rather write a novel any day than the blurb. What I do then is to write something, anything, to break the barrier of white space that’s in my head as much as on the page. Then I keep going back to it. And I ask friends for improvements on blurb.
Is anything in your books based on real life experiences?
‘How Blue is my Valley’ is about the first year we spent living in France, some of my poetry is autobiographical and the military history is factual but if you’re thinking about my fiction... all right, I’ll tell you a secret, the first time I’ve gone public. A few events and even some lines of dialogue come from real life. I was actually a witness to the real tragedy at the heart of ‘Snake on Saturdays’ and it haunted me until I wrote about it. My husband was once asked whether my books embarrass him and he said not at all, because he knows where the bodies are buried.
What tools have you found most successful in advertising/marketing yourself and your books?
I’ll let you know when it happens! I am very happily self-publishing, after having had various small presses (and one big one) in the past, and I try a variety of marketing strategies to suit a particular book and am empty pocket. I’m a bad example to other authors because I write in so many different genres.
I always do a print giveaway on goodreads and it’s a principle of mine to make the draw open to anyone in any country. I resent being left out of giveaways because I live in France and I don’t want my readers to feel left out, wherever in the world they live. If a reader’s online, his/her opinions reach everyone else online. The best marketing for me is one reader recommending the book to another. Word of mouth took ‘How Blue is my Valley’ to amazon Number 1 bestseller slot so I just try to build on whatever success my books have by happenstance.
My new book breaks all the rules and I love it for that but it doesn’t fit marketing categories so I’m a bit stuck. However, I have some readers who love my books and will put the word on the streets that ‘One Sixth of a Gill’ gives a taster of the full range of my work. I can’t tell you – or them – how much I value their support and encouragement.
Who are you reading right now?
I often have two books on the go, fiction and non-fiction. I’ve just finished ‘H is for Hawk’ by Helen MacDonald, one of the best books I’ve read this year – an autobiography with three strands: training a goshawk, coming to terms with her father’s death and commenting on T.H.White’s book ‘The Goshawk’. I love the combination of tortured souls and healing through animal communication. My other book is ‘Sketching Light’ by photographer Joe McNally, who inspires me. I get completely involved in his assignments and lighting choices, talk to myself about how I’d have tackled the shot – it’s a photographer thing :)
What do you do when you are not writing?
Take photos, walk dogs, garden, watch gruesome murders on TV with my husband. I did a beekeeping course this year to learn how to look after the hive we inherited when we bought some land. My beekeeping colleagues helped rescue the old hive and rehome the inhabitants. My man name the hive ‘Endeavour’ and is willing to join in looking after it so we’re hoping to add another couple of hives next year. ‘Resolution’ is already painted.
You are hosting a dinner party and must invite 3 famous people. Who would you choose and why?
The very idea of hosting a dinner party stresses me out and I don’t really like more than one person at a time. Small talk isn’t my thing although I can do it if I have to. I do enjoy food though, and I love cooking, so I would invite my famous people for a friendly lunch, separately. There are so many people whose true stories I’d love to hear but if I have to keep to three, they would be: Lee Miller, Colette and Alexandra David-Neel, all talented, gutsy and of course dead but hey, this is imaginary, right?
I love the fact that Lee invented the photographic process of solarisation by opening the door to the darkroom and ‘wrecking’ the image. After shouting at her, the surrealist Mann Ray, her lover and mentor, realised that something wonderful had happened and the two of them worked to make it happen again. There is more to Lee than a happy accident though; her technical skills and courage made her the only woman photographer to travel with the US Army to liberate France in WW2 and she was there when the concentration camps were discovered, shooting images no magazine would print. ‘Believe it!’ she wrote.
I discovered Colette’s writing when I was eighteen and now I can read it in French, I appreciate the sensuality even more. She could talk to me about her childhood, her crazy marriages, her work as a Paris dancer, her dogs and cats, her lovers and how she broke into the all-male clique of the French Academy with her writing.
Alexandra David-Neel was a 19th century Parisian explorer and writer, who was happy to use her husband’s money to finance her journeys to Tibet and just as happy not to see him too often. Tantric sex was among the philosophical discoveries she made on her travels so I think she’d be a very interesting lunch companion. Travel does indeed widen the horizons and I’m a lifelong armchair traveller. Books transport me to another world and their authors are my company. I’m so lucky that I count among my (living) friends, people whose company expands my own life. Not just artists, photographers and writers (like yourself) but people who consider themselves ordinary and who enrich my world with their adventures and their warmth.
Where can readers stalk you?
http://smarturl.it/onesixth
My blog www.jeangill.blogspot.com
facebook https://www.facebook.com/writerjeangill
twitter https://twitter.com/writerjeangill
Photos www.istockphoto.com/jeangill