Interview Q&A with Adele Evershed
We offer our first and exclusive Q&A Interview with Adele Evershed, a writer whose literary works have been featured on our Spillwords pages as well as being Author of the Month of November 2023.
- What does it mean to be selected as Author of The Month?
To be honest with you, it feels a little surreal! I have only been writing since 2019, so to be a little cheesy, just being nominated was amazing. I can’t thank everyone who voted for me enough-it’s a wonderful way to end the year.
- How have your friends and/or family influenced your writing?
My family has been very supportive, which is so important when you embark on anything new. My children are all grown, probably the only reason I am writing now. When they were young, I was also working as a preschool teacher, and I had no time to even write a shopping list, let alone a poem or story. I’ve been lucky as my daughter is my beta reader and helps edit some of my writing, which has been invaluable.
My friends have also been fantastic; they read and comment on things I post. Also, I have made new friends through writing, which has been great because as we age, I think it becomes more difficult to make new connections.
In terms of influence, I have found through writing that I’ve been able to explore things from my childhood, which I have realized I never truly processed. My mother died of ovarian cancer when I was twenty-one, and through writing about her, I rediscovered memories, if that makes sense. So, I would say, as well as influencing what I write about, my writing has influenced how I think about my family.
- What inspires you to write?
That is a tricky question. It can be anything: a snippet I hear on the radio, a piece of art, or something I overhear on the train.
I also write haiku, which I find meditative, and it helps me hone my language. There is a very active haiku community online, and it has been one of the joys of the last two years for me to meet and interact with some outstanding haiku poets. I write a daily haiku from a prompt on X and tweet it @AdLibby1. So, especially at this time of year when I haven’t had time to sit down and write a story or poem, I still keep my hand in as it were.
- What was your writing catalyst?
I am originally from Wales, but I now live in America. When I first moved to Connecticut, I joined a British ex-pat group putting on an annual amateur Pantomime. Panto is a particularly British form of theatre, usually based on a fairytale with songs, slapstick, audience participation, and double entendres. After a couple of years, I started to supplement the script, and then I had a go at writing a whole script. Our last production was Cinderella in February 2019, a month before the world changed. This was my initial foray into writing. Then, I started writing poetry when my daughter went to college. I have four children but only one daughter. My boys and their father love soccer, so weekends are filled with watching or playing. When my daughter lived at home, we visited museums in New York or saw a Broadway show. With her gone, I had hours to fill each weekend, so I picked up a pen and wrote a very bad poem about missing Wales. Since then, and because of COVID-19, I have done many virtual workshops and, recently, some in-person workshops run by my local library, which have helped no end in developing my writing. The more I learn, the more I discover I have so much more to learn!
- Tell us a little bit about your writing process.
I belong to a virtual writing group through a local library, and each week, the teacher provides a prompt. During term time, when I’m working, this provides the spark to write. I will have to share my story with the group, which motivates and makes me accountable. I need the discipline of a deadline; otherwise, it is so easy to put off writing if I’m tired or if I have school reports to write. In terms of the process, writing to a prompt is great. Sometimes, a first line immediately comes to mind, and I’ll go from there. I think that’s called ‘pantsing it’– not planning out the story, just making it up as I go along. Other times, I have to do some research; for example, one of the prompts was of Degas’s painting, ‘L’Absinthe.’ After researching absinthe and its effects, I wrote It’s Only Make Believe, published by Spillwords.
- What would you say is most fulfilling about writing?
People talk about ‘a state of flow,’ and when I’m in the grip of a story, that’s what I love—that feeling of being totally absorbed in the life of my characters so that real-life worries fade away.
- Does the addition of imagery help to tell your story?
I write flash fiction and poetry, and both these genres rely heavily on metaphors, imagery, and making language work hard with a limited word count. Imagery is a short-hand way to get a reader to feel something that resonates with their own experiences, hopefully giving intensity to the reading experience.
- What is your favorite reading genre?
Eudora Welty, an American short story writer, novelist, and photographer, said, “Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean.” And that, in a nutshell, is what I get from reading other writers. What initially pulls me into a novel is a good story, but what keeps me on the hook is how the writing makes me feel. I’ve always been a reader, and I like a lot of different genres.
At the moment, I’m reading ‘The Searcher’ by Tana French, which is a mystery; before that, I was reading the short story collection, ‘The Garden Party and Other Stories’ by Katherine Mansfield. I also like sci-fi and dip into Olivia Butler’s short stories when I’m looking for inspiration. I can’t recommend ‘Blood Child and Other Stories’ highly enough.
- What human being has inspired you the most?
Wow, another hard question. In terms of writing, anyone who had success in later life, like Mary Wesley, who published her first novel ‘Jumping the Queue’ when she was over seventy. In life, it would be people who make a difference in the lives of ordinary people, like the footballer Marcus Rashford. He campaigned to force the British Government to rethink its policy about canceling free school meals for children during the pandemic. My personal hero is the Welsh Labour MP Aneurin “Nye” Bevan. He was Minister of Health in Clement Attlee’s government and spearheaded the creation of the British National Health Service.
- What message would you have for the Spillwords Press community that voted for you?
I’m just so grateful to everyone who voted for me and for everyone who takes the time to comment on my stories. The way the Spillwords community interacts and supports writers is phenomenal. I’m always recommending writing friends to read and submit. I especially love how the site is curated, with the photo chosen to complement each feature. I’d also like to thank Dagmara for publishing my stories and providing such an inspiring forum.
- What would you like your legacy as a writer to be?
In another interview, I was asked, ‘How do you envision your writing journey in five years’ time?’ Until I was asked that, I had never thought about where I want to be in five years, and likewise, until you asked me this question, I had never thought about my legacy or even if I’ll have one.
My answer to the first question was that I would like to publish a full poetry collection. Even writing that makes me smile. At the start of 2023, I thought I’d only ever publish one book. I’d signed a contract with Finishing Line Press for my chapbook ‘Turbulence in Small Spaces,’ and it took almost two years from acceptance to holding the physical book. Now, at the end of the year, I have published a second poetry chapbook, ‘The Brink of Silence,’ through Bottlecap Press and a Novella in Flash, ‘Wannabe,’ through Alien Buddha Press. I have also signed a contract with Unsolicited Press for another Novella in Flash to be published in September 2025 and won the Open Contract Challenge. So, Dark Myth Publications will publish my short story collection, ‘Suffer/Rage,’ next year. Sometimes, I have to reread the acceptances to convince myself this has all happened.
So, my answer to your question would be I would like anybody reading this to know it’s never too late to embark on a new adventure. I started writing in 2019 at 55, so in five years, I will be 65 and retired with more time to write. Fingers crossed. If I can inspire just one person who might be struggling with the aging process to take on a new challenge through my writing, I think that would be the best legacy anyone can hope for.
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