Follicular spec-fic

‘I was on a night out with a friend, back in 2017, and we somehow came up with the idea of a superhero who could change the colour of her hair at will, and was granted a different superpower for each colour,’ writes subscriber Annie Percik.

‘And so Anushka was born!’

‘Originally, we thought it would make a great comic book series, but then we realised neither of us knew how to write comics and neither of us could draw. So, I went with what I knew and turned it into a novel. I remember writing the first 10,000 words in one weekend at a marvellous Urban Writers’ Retreat in Devon. After that, it got complicated because I saddled myself with three POV characters, two different tenses and three separate timelines. But it all came together in the end, and I’m really proud of how it turned out.

‘A Spectrum of Heroes has aliens, superpowers, lots of different coloured hair, relationship angst, and badass ladies saving the world. What’s not to love?

‘And, as with my debut novel, The Defiant Spark, Writing Magazine played a big part in it getting published. While I was revising Spectrum for submission, I came across a column in Writers’ News about a comic book publisher, Markosia Enterprises, that was looking to branch out into genre novels. So I noted down their details and contacted them when I thought the manuscript was ready. They loved it, and so Spectrum has found a home that reflects the spirit of its origins.

‘I think I might be starting to get the hang of this novel-writing business. It took over ten years for The Defiant Spark to grow from concept to publication. And A Spectrum of Heroes has made it in under four!’

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