Ann Cleeves - 19th October 2016

This was an event organised by the Lincoln WI to celebrate the 7th book in the Shetland series (Cold Earth) and Anne's 30th book in 30 years.  She was very entertaining and spoke for nearly an hour about Shetland and its people and her life as a writer.

She feels she has been very lucky in her writing life.  From accepting a job in the Shetland Islands as an assistant cook, to the ultimate 'luck' when someone picked up a copy of a 'Vera' book in a charity shop to take on their holidays; which the lady enjoyed so much.....the rest is history.

What she did say about writing is that she started off writing her first novel in long hand.  She did have a lot of time as she was living on an island with only her husband for company.  Now she says, she gets up at 5am in the morning and finds she gets a lot of writing done between 5 and 9.30am when her husband gets up.....

I decided to buy a copy of one of her Vera novels, which she was kind enough to sign.  I reminded her (she had no recollection) that we had met before at a writing workshop, many years ago, that she had led in Lincoln Castle Prison.  This was before the Shetland and Vera books, and before she was famous!  I enjoyed that workshop and I enjoyed this evenings talk.