Personally I estimate about a third of my time is spent on author events, social media and traditional publicity. – Sara Sheridan
Writers have it easy. If you write a bestseller or have your book made into a movie, you’ll never have to work again, or so the myth goes. – Sara Sheridan
Living in Edinburgh, I consider myself particularly lucky – we have the biggest book festival in the world, a plethora of fascinating libraries and museums, and some of the greatest architecture in Europe. – Sara Sheridan
We’re all so digital, but the ’50s was the era of watches you had to wind. When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest in 1953, Hillary was equipped with a Rolex Oyster Perpetual. – Sara Sheridan
I realized early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Because there are no pay grades and very little structure, people make interesting assumptions about the profession. – Sara Sheridan
I’ve never seen an ‘English’ books section in, well, an English bookshop, but in Scotland, most bookshops have a set of shelves dedicated to Scottish authors. – Sara Sheridan
I’d never be where I am if more successful writers hadn’t taken an interest in me and done me a good turn – be it chiming in with constructive criticism or giving me sound advice about my career plan. – Sara Sheridan
I once did an event with Ian Rankin where he said he didn’t really need to do much background research because his books are set in the present, and I just thought: ‘You lucky, lucky beast!’ because as a historical novelist, I live constantly on the edge of wondering whether tissues had been invented. – Sara Sheridan
How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There’s people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow. – Sara Sheridan
Let’s be clear – for people like me, who are obsessed with story and for whom words are their medium, writing is the best job possible. I work hard, but I earn more than the national average wage while I play with my imagination, and for me, that’s a dream. – Sara Sheridan
The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two. – Sara Sheridan
If I hadn’t been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done. – Sara Sheridan
I’m grateful that I’ve enjoyed the support of libraries, bookshops and institutional funders. – Sara Sheridan
Most fledgling and mid-list writers are lucky to be offered a 4-figure sum and are not only expected to deliver copy that needs minimal editing but also take an active part in marketing and publicizing their work. – Sara Sheridan
People were consuming on average less calories after the war than during the war. Things were still very tough. If you look at the film footage of London streets, even in areas which weren’t slums, there are kids in the streets who are dirty and have no shoes on. It was rough. There was a real edge. – Sara Sheridan
It’s easy to laugh at etiquette, but in a hundred years, our children’s grandchildren will almost certainly be laughing at us. – Sara Sheridan
I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 – a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I remember it, though – my mother excited at the dinner table because Britain had its first female prime minister. – Sara Sheridan
As an historical novelist – there are few jobs more retrospective. I dumped science at an early age. – Sara Sheridan
The digital revolution has wrest a little control away from corporate publishers and white, male, middle-aged critics, but the financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession. – Sara Sheridan
Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrian’s Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England. – Sara Sheridan
The Best of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Hailey and the Comets, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine all topped the charts in the ’50s. Load a playlist of rock n’ roll royalty. You’re spoilt for choice. – Sara Sheridan
