Afternoon Tea with Tim Pears at the Longmynd Hotel, 18th May 2008

We were delighted to welcome author Tim Pears to the Longmynd Hotel where he talked about his life as a writer and read a moving and eloquent short story.

Tim left school at 16 knowing only that he wanted to write poetry and “wasted time” doing a number of little jobs and travelling around Europe. After spending time at Old Churchstoke where he had family connections, then moving to Oxford, he began to write short stories based loosely on his European experiences. He spent many years leading a bohemian lifestyle, waiting for inspiration to strike, before he discovered that sitting down at a desk from 9-5 was actually far more productive! By writing from memories of childhood and growing up he eventually found his true voice and his first novel, In the Place of Fallen Leaves, was published in 1993 at the age of 36. He describes his style of writing as “chronicling the times we live in through the experiences of people I know”. Several of the audience remarked that his novels have a very photographic quality, almost as if he was watching a film as he writes. Indeed, his novel In the Land of Plenty was serialised on television. Tim finds writing very therapeutic, and a mistrust of computers (particularly the cut and paste facility, which has a habit of consuming great chunks of writing) means that the first draft of each novel is written by hand. He has written 5 novels to date, with another almost completed, and would one day love to publish an anthology of short stories.

After a short break for tea and delicious home-made cakes (calorie-free, of course), Tim answered questions from the audience who were keen to know more about his methods of writing, whether his characters were inspired by real people, and how many of his own experiences he included in his books. Finally Tim kindly signed copies of his books and chatted to people individually.