1: You are considered as one of the finest British modern authors. Your distinctive language, huge imagination and exciting criminal intrigues have given you a dedicated group of fans. You're like a literary magician - I can never stop reading your books once I've started. How did you manage to trick so much your readers? :)

2: You have a fascinating and original literary career. You've worked for 19 years in the film industry. Now, you're a full-time writer. Why have you forsaken movies for books?

3: How do you think your experience in the film industry has influenced your writing most? Is it 'easier' to create a story while you 'see' it? Or does your former experience not matter at all?

4: When you were asked whether your books will be filmed, you've said that yes, but only if you make it. So... When are you going to start? ;)

5: What do you think are the most difficult and most enjoyable things about writing?

6: How do you work? Do you have your daily routine?

7: What do you do when you have structured your novel? Do you go back and slip in tiny clues or there is no necessity to do so, while you have each piece of your novel in your mind?

8: You have started your literary career with books describing adventures of Thursday Next. But now you're in search for 'something different', new projects. Are you bored with Thurs? How many Thursday Next books are there in you?

9: You've said that you think of yourself as Landen, at least to some extent. What are these tangents between your life and life of your protagonist? When I compared your biography with your description of Thurs' life I was sure that she is your alter ego. Am I really wrong? ;)

10: Your next published book will be Shades of Grey, the book that will begin a brand new series, but you've also announced a publication of two more novels: One of Our Thursdays is missing (the continuation of First Among Sequels) and the third and final instalment of the NCD series, The Last Great Tortoise Race. Can you tell me more about your new books at this stage?

11: I've read once that you have Polish roots. Your grandfather, Jozef Rettinger, was a Silent Dark one and fought in the Second World War. Is that true? Have you done a genealogical research?

12: Have you ever been to Poland? Do you feel any bond with the motherland of your grandfather?

13: Do you come from a reading, story-telling family or maybe reading is your own passion? Did you grow up loving books?

14: If you could jump right into any novel, which novel would you choose to visit?

15: Do you have at home your own 'great library'? Do you collect books and, if so, how many do you have and how do you organise them?

16: If you could read one of the lost books (e.g. 'Cardenio'), what would it be?






1: You are considered as one of the finest British modern authors. Your distinctive language, huge imagination and exciting criminal intrigues have given you a dedicated group of fans. You're like a literary magician - I can never stop reading your books once I've started. How did you manage to trick so much your readers? :)

I think the trick is to have a lot going on, and mix the very familiar with the very fantastic. That way, the characters seem real, and by extension, what they then do also becomes real.

2:You have a fascinating and original literary career. You've worked for 19 years in the film industry. Now, you're a full-time writer. Why have you forsaken movies for books?

There isn't enough time to do both. When I was working in the Film Industry I had spare time to write books. Now I write books, I don't have any spare time for anything!

3: How do you think your experience in the film industry has influenced your writing most? Is it 'easier' to create a story while you 'see' it? Or does your former experience not matter at all?

I'm not really sure. I think what it gave me was a huge opportunity to travel, and to work with a lot of eccentric, often flawed yet funny and highly intelligent people. And observing people is what much of writing is all about. I also got to travel a lot, which is always helpful when writing.

4: When you were asked whether your books will be filmed, you've said that yes, but only if you make it. So... When are you going to start? ;)

No-ones yet asked me, so I'm still waiting!

5: What do you think are the most difficult and most enjoyable things about writing?

Writing is agony and ecstasy, all rolled into one. When it's not going well, then it's hard, and the book looks rubbish and is never going to amount to anything. But then good idea comes along or everything starts to slot into place, or you come out with a good sentence or snatch of dialogue - and the sun comes out again. It's more enjoyable having written, than actually writing.

6: How do you work? Do you have your daily routine?

Work on emails, website, stuff like that, then get cracking on the book. Sometimes I'll spend four hours on it a day, sometimes ten. It depends how close the deadline is, and how well it is going. I have to work most days; a typical book takes about six months to write, and that's pretty much constant work.



7: What do you do when you have structured your novel? Do you go back and slip in tiny clues or there is no necessity to do so, while you have each piece of your novel in your mind?

I don't structure novels in advance. I wish that I could; it would make writing them a lot more efficient. I tend to just pick five or six different strands that I want to include, and then write them in parallel before figuring out a way of intertwining them at the end. There's a lot of rewriting. And a lot of wastage. I usually write 300,000 words and eventually get down to a 100,000.

8: You have started your literary career with books describing adventures of Thursday Next. But now you're in search for 'something different', new projects. Are you bored with Thurs? How many Thursday Next books are there in you?

The Thursday books are a very broad canvas. There is little I can think of that can't be fitted into the narrative somehow. I write books about books, so the scope is pretty broad. In the latest Thursday Book I include previous Thursday novels in the narrative. It's bizarre, convoluted, complex world - and the fact that people enjoy it speaks volumes for the power of the imagination!

9: You've said that you think of yourself as Landen, at least to some extent. What are these tangents between your life and life of your protagonist? When I compared your biography with your description of Thurs' life I was sure that she is your alter ego. Am I really wrong? ;)

It's difficult to say. I always think I'd like to be Landen, since Thursday is such great fun and so strong, and he just supports her without thinking. Most men should be delighted by being with a strong woman, but it doesn't seem to work out that way; Thursday is unusual in that for a strong woman, she's not looking for a strong man. She wants someone who loves her, and she can love back. She asks very little of Landen, although she is, I think, quite demanding.

10: Your next published book will be Shades of Grey, the book that will begin a brand new series, but you've also announced a publication of two more novels: One of Our Thursdays is missing (the continuation of First Among Sequels) and the third and final instalment of the NCD series, The Last Great Tortoise Race. Can you tell me more about your new books at this stage?

'Shades of Grey' is a novel set seven hundred years into the future, where the social and monetary currency is Visual Colour. Everyone is streamed into social groups depending on the colours that they can see, synthetic hue is piped into colour-gardens, and scrap colour left by the previous civilisation is mined and boiled down to colourise their surroundings. Naturally, something goes wrong..

'The Last Great Tortoise Race' is the third and final Jack Spratt adventure, and revolves around the annual 'Tortoise V hare' race held in Reading every year. Each year the Hare is odds-on favourite to win, but every year it fails. Will the Hare win this year, and will Zeus make trouble at Pandora's wedding. And was the Town Council really right in defaulting on the payment from the Hamelin Pest Controller?

'One of Our Thursdays is Missing' continues the story from where 'First Among Sequels' left off. Jurisfiction has serious problems: With a Serial Killer on the loose, Speedy Muffler declaring all-out Genre war and aggressive book-pulpers threatening to turn entire libraries into MDF self-assembly furniture, only ace book-jumper Thursday Next can save the day. But where the is she? Last seen investigating the theoretical Dark Reading Matter, the place - where it is conjectured - erased and forgotten books end up, Thursday is nowhere to be found. With time running out, Jurisfiction decides that you need a Thursday to find a Thursday, so they persuade Thursday5, comfortably getting to grips with the hastily rewritten TN series, to look for the real Thursday in the one region she fears more than anything else - A place of chaos, unpredictability and unresolved plot lines: The Real World.

11: I've read once that you have Polish roots. Your grandfather, Jozef Rettinger, was a Silent Dark one and fought in the Second World War. Is that true? Have you done a genealogical research?

Yes; Retinger was the right hand man to General Sikorski, and was parachuted into Poland late in the war to gauge the power of the Polish resistance. Sadly, he died four months before I was born.

12: Have you ever been to Poland? Do you feel any bond with the motherland of your grandfather?

I've visited twice. Once in 1978, and again in 2006. Quite a change! I don't consider myself Polish at all, as my mother was brought up to be English, so I'm two generations away from my roots - I'm as much French as Polish, to be honest, but Yes, I always tend to be pro-Pole. I like a good argument, too, so I'm half way here already.

13: Do you come from a reading, story-telling family or maybe reading is your own passion? Did you grow up loving books?

Lots of books in my household when I was growing up, but also TV, movies, plays- it's all part of STORY.

14: If you could jump right into any novel, which novel would you choose to visit?

'The Little Prince'. I aim to retire onto one of the planets he visits; perhaps make one up of my own.

15: Do you have at home your own 'great library'? Do you collect books and, if so, how many do you have and how do you organise them?

I have a very large library, which are catalogued by colour, and how much I like them

16: If you could read one of the lost books (e.g. 'Cardenio'), what would it be?

Ambrose Bierce's lost journals; the ones he would have been writing when he vanished while observing the Mexican revolution with Pancho Villa.



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