Amidst the beauty of Cornwall, two women struggle with their past: one cannot remember hers, the other cannot forget...

Hi there I'm your host Jenny Wheeler. The Guardian newspaper called Liz Fenwick the "Queen of the Cornish novel" and today Liz talks about the emotional stories of family secrets and lies across generations she loves to write - and explains why Cornwall is the perfect place for heart-deep drama.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Liz's dedication to getting it rightHow the 'Queen of Cornish fiction' made 34 drafts of one bookWhat's so special about Cornwall How she hasn't let dyslexia hold her backShowing them how its done: encouraging her sons to dreamWhy she'd never put a deadline on dreams

Where to find Liz Fenwick: 

Website: http://lizfenwick.com/

Facebook: @liz.fenwick.author

 Twitter: @liz.fenwick

Instagram: @liz_fenwick

Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.nz/lizfenwick3/

What

follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for

word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Liz.  Hello there Liz and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Liz: It's great to be here!

Jenny: Beginning at the beginning – was there a “Once Upon a Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?  And if so what was the catalyst for it?

Liz Fenwick - Women's fiction author

Liz: Ooh... that's always an interesting question because I have always wanted to write from early on. I was an only child, and so books became my best friend, and my grandfather who was from Ireland. He lived with us and he was a great story teller and a huge lover of poetry so I was surrounded by words and stories from an early age, and I was that typical kid that loved the story so much that I would continue the story in my head and I started telling my own stories, and then eventually I started writing it down.

And what happened was I went to university, got a degree in English literature, wrote three quarters of a novel for my senior thesis and then the real world happened... I went out and got a job... But the interesting thing was my professor gave me an agent's name to show her my novel that I'd started for my thesis and at that point I got cold feet and I didn't follow through.

Cornwall became home for Boston-born writer

It wasn't until 2004, when I realized I didn't want to just be writing non fiction. At that time we were living abroad, I had run a huge expat organisation, I had given many talks about how to move with expat children, I had written many articles for corporate magazines about organising an ex pat life, and I just realized I wanted to write fiction again. I went back through my papers and found the name of the agent and Googled her and I thought "Oh my God, what have I given up?" If I look back now, many years since, I think I was a far better writer when I was coming out of university in 1985 - 86 - but I didn't have the life experience.

The book I had written was called The Irish Woman and it was based on the experience of my grandmothers and aunts who were all living around us in the Boston area. It was a cracking story but I realized when I looked back on it - there were childbirth scenes in there - and I thought 'Oh My God I didn't have a clue.' so I think that to become the writer that even then I wanted to be I had to have lived life, had the shiny edges knocked off a bit, come to understand sorrow and grief - all those things that happen in the course of most people's lifetimes.

So when I came back in 2004 I wasn't as skilled, because I hadn't been writing fiction, but I certainly had a better grasp of what it was like to live...

Jenny: It is intriguing because you do have an English accent and you have mentioned you were born in Boston, so how did you establish yourself as an American-born writer who has made Cornwall your d...