Alison McQueen

Blog

Crazy About Stationery

Posted: June 8th, 2012

Wherever I go in the world, I cannot help but go searching for stationery shops. Bookshops too, naturally, but stationery is the big draw. I also help myself to every scrap of hotel stationery I can lay my hands on. It’s an addiction that has gone on for as long as I can remember, and I have absolutely no intention of changing my ways. Letters are a dying form and we are all much the poorer for it. I write letters every week, even if it’s just a brief note to someone I am thinking of. I use a proper pen that leaks ink all over the place but I don’t care. I like ink. Ink changed the world. Continue Reading »

The Kindness of Strangers

Posted: June 8th, 2012

It seems that The Secret Children has resonated with readers in a way that I had dared not hope. To tell such a difficult story is always a delicate business, particularly one that involves the innocence of children caught in a web of deceit. I was particularly moved by the woman who took me aside at one of the literary festivals and told me that she had suffered a similar fate. These things were never talked about. She was an old lady, and she spoke to me in whispers and squeezed my hand. Continue Reading »

Three Years Later…

Posted: June 7th, 2012

I have no idea what happened to the last three years. They seemed to have slipped by in a blur. That’s one of the things about writing, for me anyway. It sucks me into a vacuum where nothing else exists and the next thing I know I’m several years older and none the wiser. My husband once said to me that he might as well live on his own for all the company I give him. He also said that I am the most tortured person he has ever met. Amazingly, we have been married for a very long time and neither of us has any plans to change that.