Author Natasha Carthew joins our Christmas calendar!
Natasha Carthew is from Cornwall where she lives with her girlfriend of nineteen years. She has had three books of poetry published. Her first novel Winter Damage was nominated for the 2014 Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for several national awards including the prestigious Branford Boase Award 2014. The Light That Gets Lost published in Winter 201.
Name three things on your Christmas list this year! Book Vouchers (behind every good writer is a great reader); new hiking boots (I walk everywhere and my old boots are full of holes); a puppy (really!)
Christmas is a time of family traditions – what are your best (or worst!) family traditions? The best is hunting down the Christmas tree; as kids we used to ‘find’ one in the local woods, but these days my girlfriend and I spend a full day travelling between barns, farms and garden centres in pursuit of perfection. I also love foraging for things like fir cones and holly to make into decorations.
What is your favourite story to read at Christmas? Winter Damage by me! I wrote this book outside in a particularly cold winter and because it was my first work of fiction I read it every Christmas to mind me of that time. It is set in a snowy Cornwall over two weeks running up to Christmas so technically it is a Christmas book and is best read in front of a roaring log fire (and with a box of tissues.)
If you could have Christmas dinner with anyone (alive today or person from history) who would it be? All my favourite writers, songwriters and musicians so we could have a huge party filled with readings and acoustic music (too many to mention here).
(Love the sound of this; what a brilliant idea!)
You have often spoken about your love for the Cornish countryside and the outdoors. What would be your ideal view if looking out of your window from home at Christmas time? The one I am lucky to look at every day; green fields, woodland and part of Bodmin Moor, but perhaps it could do with a little more snow, especially at Christmas.
You write both poetry and prose. Your novels have been described as ‘lyrical’ and having their ‘own poetry.’ Do you think it’s possible to 
separate the two forms of writing and if you had to choose between the two, which would it be? At this time in my career I would choose fiction writing. I’m a storyteller and I find sometimes I can’t say all I want to with poetry, but saying that I am working on a longer, book-length poem at the moment. I don’t think there’s any need to truly separate poetry and prose and thankfully readers are becoming more open to untried/lyrical writing such as mine.
Reader’s question from children at the Inkpots Writers’ Hut; we are often told keeping a journal can help our writing. Do you keep a journal? If not, what do you do to help inspire you? Keeping a journal or ideas book can definitely help with your writing. I have a memory book where I stick things like photos, ticket stubs and flight tickets which I have been doing since I was really young and I also include any poetry I have written so the book records a kind of timeline of my life (like a diary). I also have a beautiful leather-bound journal where I write ideas for new books and collect inspirational quotes and pictures for settings, characters or whatever.
(Great advice!)
Turkey or goose? Nut Roast (I’m Veggie).
Real or fake tree? Real!
Mince pies or Christmas pudding? Mince Pies (Homemade).
Stockings – end of the bed or over the fireplace? Fireplace.
Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve? Christmas Eve.
Thank you for joining our festive author calendar! Happy Christmas!
Find out more about Natasha at www.bloomsbury.com and follow her on Twitter @natashacarthew.
favourite story to read at Christmas? I have lots. I have two whole shelves dedicated to Christmas books I have collected over the years. My favourite individual story is ‘A Christmas Memory’ by Truman Capote, which is a mostly-autobiographical tale about how, when he was quite small, he and his best friend, Sook the housekeeper, would make thirty-two Christmas cakes every year and send them to a great long list of people. It’s a really wonderful, heart-breaking story.
Reader’s question from the children at 
How do you think we will celebrate Christmas in the year 2059? I hope we’ll all have matured as a society, have completely changed our attitude to the environment and mindless consumerism and be all Hygge around fir trees that we’ll replant the next day in our gardens. However, I fear we may be eating synthetic turkey grown in a vat and listening to the rain as winters become warmer and wetter.
household.
e a dragon as Evie’s magical companion? The Bone Dragon is very much about the line between truth and fiction… and there’s such a rich history of Dragons in fiction, it gave me a lot to play with: referencing other books and stories helped me keep the reader guessing about what sort of dragon Evie’s Dragon is… I purposefully wanted to keep the ground shifting, one minute making it seem like the Dragon falls under the mentor archetype, then ‘revealing’ it as more ‘shadow-like, then confusing everything so the only conclusion seems that the Dragon plays a ‘shapeshifter’ role. But I can’t lie – if I could have a magical companion, it would probably be a Dragon. The ‘able to breath fire’ thing is a major selling point.
Reader’s question from students at Warden Park Secondary Academy: what do you do if you get stuck when you’re writing? First, I try to figure out why I’m stuck. Sometimes it’s because I need a break… but usually it’s because I don’t know what happens next: maybe I know what follows plot-wise but somehow I don’t know what little steps and pieces of dialogue take the story from where it is to the ‘next big step forwards’. The answer almost always lies with the characters: maybe I’ve made someone act out of character so it all feels wrong… or maybe I’ve got an idea that just won’t work because the character would never do the thing I want him/her to do next. The solution is to go back to who the characters are and what motivates them… and then figure out how to change the context and situation so that it is not just believable but inevitable for them to carry out the plot I’ve got in mind. So when I’m struck I try to recognise that it’s my way of telling myself I need to think a bit more carefully, plan a little more, and respect who my characters are as if they were real people.
ok I gravitate to again and again. Instead I like to pick a new holiday-themed book to read at Christmas. I met Rachel Cohn and David Levithan at this year’s Cheltenham Literary Festival so I have my signed copy of The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily all ready to read at the holidays!
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