Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Favourite part of writing’
her reach out to other budding writers. She is the founder of the Katie Fforde Bursary for writers who have yet to secure a publishing contract and in 2016 she launched the Stroud Contemporary Fiction Writing Competition as part of the Stroud Book Festival.
Katie likes to shut herself away in the mornings in the home she shares with husband, Desmond, where she will write until lunchtime, but she admits sometimes lunch can come early if she is having a touch of writer’s block.
For the rest of the day, myriad interests take up her time. She is a doting grandmother of six, who all live close by, and her face is aglow when she talks about them.
Then there is her involvement singing with the Thames Head Singers, a chamber choir based in Stroud, and she and her neighbours organise an annual Open Gardens to raise funds for local charities.
While many writers don’t read for pleasure as they find it can create a muddle in their heads, Katie, despite so much going on in her life, says reading is “like breathing” to her and she devours books.
Talking to her is like catching up with an old friend. She’s warm and funny and like a multitude of other women, stresses about her weight. She wears a Fitbit but has set it much lower than 10,000 steps a day saying that life is far too short to waste 90 minutes on exercise.
Instead she has found an alternative, more enjoyable method to burn off calories, which involves marching up and down in front of her favourite TV programme, Escape to the Country.
“Actually I have taken to doing that with a few shows to the point that when they come on air I have an immediate desire to start marching on the spot,” she says.
She wasn’t intending to buy a new outfit for the party, saying she would prefer to feel comfortable in an old favourite that she might dress up with a “big chunky necklace.”
“I have got to an age now where I am quite comfortable in my own skin and it is people who matter,” she says.
And fans will be pleased to learn there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of ideas for more books. Katie is already almost a third of the way through the next one.
“I get a lot of ideas for stories from TV documentaries, small ads in magazines and overheard conversations,” she says.
“Inspiration is like oxygen, you can’t see it but it’s everywhere.”
For now, she says she doesn’t have any plans to stop writing.
She says: “I will just keep going until people stop buying my books.”
I get a lot of ideas for
stories from TV documentaries, small ads in magazines and
overheard conversations
A Rose Petal Summer