Imagine being young, wild, and free, and you're twenty years old and moving to Japan. Now imagine becoming so in love with the country and the culture that you spend the next decade or so writing a book about it.

That’s exactly what happened to my guest here today, the celebrated Scottish author, Jackie Copleton.

I invited Jackie on this show to pick her brain about how she went from writing in the privacy of her own home and feeling very shy about her work, to finally becoming a published, public author.  What was that creative journey like for her? What helped? What obstacles did she face and overcome? And what happened after the book hit the bookshelves?

In this interview Jackie Copleton talks about her writing process, on finding your own voice, why she thinks that the act of living is the ultimate definition of courage.

Jackie’s debut novel was picked for BBC Radio 2 prestigious book club and went on to be long-listed for the Baileys Women’s prize of Fiction. It’s titled,  A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding and has been described as ‘Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Piano Teacher.’

It's titled, 'A dictionary of mutual understanding'. 

You can buy the book here.