JACQUELINE Karp-Gendre has lived in France for over 30 years, writes Beryl Brennan. She speaks French and Spanish like a native, as well as a smattering of Arabic.
Her mother was a journalist, so writing is in her blood, and she never travels without a notebook and pen.
“People I meet, things that happen, places I visit, all inspire me and trigger my thoughts, and I have to sit down there and then and write them down,” Jacqueline explains. Nowadays, she also carries a laptop.
MOST builders are happy to put their feet up after a hard day on site carrying bricks and mixing cement, but for Trevor Morris his day job has become his writing muse.
His experience of running a building company in the Tarn region of South West France is the back drop to his book Vive la Rénovation, which features tales from the property restorations he has been involved with.
Since crossing the Channel with his wife, Sue, and their feline friends the couple have settled into village life in a small hamlet just outside Albi.
THE bloody history of medieval Carcassone was brought to life in the international best-selling book Labyrinth.
And now its author Kate Mosse takes us back to the south west with her latest book Sepulchre, a tale from the dark woods of the Corbières involving ghosts, murder and tarot cards.
Here I chat with Kate about the mystery of the region and her writing life – also find out how to win a copy of Sepulchre – and so my first question was what frights can people expect from the new book?
WHEN an email landed in my inbox asking if I was interested in finding out more about a book called My French Life, I thought with a title like that how could I resist?
So I quickly arranged an interview with the book’s author Vicki Archer, and asked for a copy so that I could offer it up as a prize for readers of the site.
The Q&A style interview is below and you will find details of how to enter the competition to win a copy of the book at the end of the piece, but first a little about Vicki Archer and her book.