Lucky 13 Interview With Emma Stonex

1. Can you start by telling us a little about your current book?

The Lamplighters is a literary suspense mystery about three lighthouse keepers who disappear from their remote tower light over Christmas 1972. It’s based on the real-life vanishing of three men from the Flannan Isles Lighthouse over a hundred and twenty years ago, whose fates to this day are still unknown. Mine is the story of Arthur, Bill and Vince, keepers on the fictional Maiden Rock, in the weeks leading up to their disappearance; as well as their wives, whose long-drowned secrets are about to come to the surface…

2. Are you a plotter or a panster?

I wish I was a plotter, I’m sure it’s a much more efficient way of doing things, but I’m too impatient: if I plot too rigorously, I’m bored by the time I sit down to tell the story. Also, I find things out as I go along, and often let my characters figure their way through the story. It means they lead me down all sorts of dead ends and I have to draft five or six times before I’m properly confident about what’s going on, but I can’t seem to do it any other way!

3. Savoury or sweet?

Savoury. Starter over pudding, every time.

4. Three books to a desert Island. Go!

Tony Parker, Lighthouse; John Fowles, The Magus; and something more light-hearted and escapist, Jackie Collins, Lovers & Gamblers.

5. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Star Wars.

6. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Time travel. To be able to fast-forward through things I don’t want to do, and revisit times I miss.

7. Music or Silence when writing?

Silence. Used to be music and then I got old.

8. If you could live anywhere in the world, and take everything that you love with you, where would you choose?

Argentina and Italy are my favourite countries to visit, but I’d miss home too much if I lived there. For me, there’d be nowhere better to live than by the sea in Cornwall.

9. Your favourite karaoke song?

Prince, Purple Rain. But there are lots.

10. One piece of advice to an aspiring writer?

Finish the first draft. Just sit down and do it. If you can commit to putting 90,000 words on the page, you’re a novelist, whatever happens.

11. You win £1 million, but you must give half to charity. Which charity do you chose, and what do you do with the rest of the money?

Tough question. I’ll say the Grand Appeal at St Michael’s neonatal unit, Bristol, because of the sterling work they do in saving newborn babies’ lives. The doctors there are angels and the work they do immeasurable. If I can’t give any more to charity, I’ll buy a lovely house in Cornwall by the sea, fill it with dogs, and set up a writers’ retreat.

12. Horror films, yes or no? If so, any favourites?

Yes. If it qualifies, the original 1973 The Wicker Man. ‘And on that tree, there was a limb; and on that limb, there was a branch…’ Creepy, unsettling and so distinctive in tone.

13. What are you currently working on?

My second book is inspired by another real-life mystery and is set between the Lake District and London. Watch this space…