S. C. Skillman

Interviewed by Wendy H. Jones

S. C. Skillman, I appreciate you taking the time to join us here at Mom’s Favorite Reads. I’m frightfully excited to interview you as I love your books. As you know I love a nice murder mystery.

By way of introduction tell us a bit about yourself and your books.

I live in Warwickshire, and write psychological, paranormal and mystery fiction and non-fiction under the pen-name SC Skillman. I’m a member of the Society of Authors and the Association of Christian Writers. My non-fiction books on local history are published by Amberley and include Paranormal Warwickshire and Illustrated Tales of Warwickshire; my next book, A-Z of Warwick, will be released in 2023. My new novel is being considered by an agent, and I’m working on the sequel. I also have some new ideas for non-fiction books and two of my proposals are with publishers.

I was born and brought up in Orpington, Kent, and have loved writing most of my life. I studied English Literature at Lancaster University, and my first permanent job was as a production secretary with the BBC. Later I lived for nearly five years in Australia before returning to the UK. I’ve now settled in Warwick with my husband and son, and my daughter currently lives and works in Australia.

A nice easy one - can you tell us how you came to writing?

Yes, my first inspiration was the adventure stories of Enid Blyton! I loved the Famous Five and those stories inspired me to write my own adventure stories. For me they were a kind of vicarious wish-fulfilment; I projected myself into the characters I created, who were brave, rebellious, intrepid, all the things I would have loved to be. Also, I wrote poetry; my earliest poems were rhyming comic verse, and later I went on to more serious subjects in blank verse and attended several weekends and workshops including an Arvon Foundation poetry course. But my dream was always to succeed as a novelist. I completed a novella with a friend, during my early teens. I began writing my first full-length adult novel after I had left university.

I’m curious as to why you started out with fiction and then made the change to nonfiction. Why the change?

My non-fiction arose naturally from my blog posts. I began my blog in 2010 on my website scskillman.com and I write about books, films, spirituality, history, nature, people and places of inspiration. I had written a number of posts about Places of Inspiration before a fellow writer suggested I put a book together, using some of those posts. This project appealed to me, so I went ahead with it. Then members of my local writing group suggested that for this book, I confine myself to Warwickshire and include photos. Finally, I submitted the synopsis to publishers, which at that time was called ‘Spirit of Warwickshire.’ A commissioning editor at Amberley liked it and wanted it for their Paranormal series. So the first of my Warwickshire books was born.

Do you think you will move back to writing fiction or is your heart now in non-fiction?

No, I still love writing fiction, but also greatly enjoy writing non-fiction; I love researching stories, interviewing people, and taking photos. I write my novels alongside the non-fiction projects.

How do you balance writing both?

If I have a deadline to deliver a manuscript, then of course that takes precedence. That’s really how I balance writing projects.

You seem to be fascinated by the history of Warwickshire. Where did this interest come from?

My initial Places of Inspiration included several places in the Cotswolds and in Warwickshire simply because Warwickshire is where I currently live and the Cotswolds is easy to travel to. Warwickshire has a special appeal because of its association with William Shakespeare who was born and brought up in Stratfordupon-Avon. Much of Warwickshire is known as Shakespeare Country, and this county has many iconic historical properties.

Often the stories of the families who lived in these properties are at the very heart of English history. The more I visited and researched, the more deeply drawn in I felt. Also Shakespeare’s ghosts and spirits provided a wonderful theme for me, and that was enhanced by the Stratford Town Ghost Tour which I have been on more than once; it’s usually led by an actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company. All these elements combined to make Warwickshire a rich subject for me.

(unless it’s terrible, which is rare). I’m about to start reading The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I’ve just finished The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. My lifelong preference is for Gothic stories and my greatest loves have been the novels of the Bronte Sisters, Dickens’ Great Expectations, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and so on. I love the gothic genre because it always includes thwarted desires, a young innocent in jeopardy, a claustrophobic enclosed environment, fear of the unknown, family secrets, and a taste of the supernatural or paranormal all the things I love, and many are included in my own novels! Using these tropes, a writer may explore the deepest areas of the human spirit. However, I also love reading fantasy, psychological thrillers, historical fiction and humorous novels, and many other genres too.

This is the hardest question to answer for a writer and reader, if you could choose only one book that shaped your journey as a reader, what would it be?

This is indeed difficult to answer, and I’ll have to give two options: Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment on the one hand, and JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings on the other. Make what you like of that!

We always ask authors about their own books but never ask them about their reading habits. What do you read to relax and what books would you pack to go on holiday?

I have a very wide reading taste: just look at my Goodreads profile and you’ll see my reading tastes as I always review every book I read

Which author do you think has most influenced your writing?

I often think influences are unconscious, and I have also been influenced by TV dramas, plays and films. These are the stories that have elements which I believe may have influenced me: The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde, An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley, The Breakthrough by Daphne du Maurier and The Bell by Iris Murdoch.

Do you have a favourite book on Writing and if so, what is it? Again, I know this is a tough one, especially when you have so many friends in the writing world.

My favourite book on writing is the one by Stephen King: On Writing. I found it inspirational, encouraging, and also very moving. My other choice would be Story by Robert McKee, which is superb, and breaks down story structure referring to screenplays, which applies equally to writing novels.

I have reviewed Paranormal Warwickshire and Illustrated Tales of Warwickshire for the magazine. Who would these books appeal to?

My first two Warwickshire books appeal to all those who love travelling within the UK, England’s history, unexplained mysteries, and Shakespeare. I don’t believe you need to be “a believer” as such to be fascinated by ghost stories. You can be sceptical and still fascinated by the stories people tell. My stance is objective, and I report the experiences people have described to me, or stories I have read about, but I try not to make any assumptions that I myself believe in the reality of ghosts; in fact, I believe there are several interesting theories out there which may account for these experiences.

I’m curious as to how much from your life as a writer spills over to and shapes your fiction or, indeed your non-fiction?

A great deal of my life-experience has shaped my fiction; people I have met in different situations have appeared in composite fictional characters and I particularly enjoy observing the interaction of diverse personalities in ‘hothouse’ situations like weekend workshops, retreats and conferences, therapy groups, dinner parties, etc, which is very much to the fore in my fiction. Both Mystical Circles and A Passionate Spirit have characters and situations which have arisen from my own life experience.

You are a prolific writer with numerous books under your belt. What does a writing day look like for you?

If I have a deadline or a book which is really going well, I’ll write straight away in the morning or at any time of day; of course, it is interspersed with emails, promotional activities and domestic tasks. Then of course there are the days when I’m driving round doing research and taking photos. I prefer to keep the evenings for social, family, relaxation time and reading.

If you could go anywhere in the world to write, where would it be and why?

It would probably be Queensland, Australia, in the mountains of the Gold Coast hinterland, in a clifftop retreat among the rainforests.

My final question, which one of your books would you recommend Mom’s Favorite Reads readers, read? Now that’s a mouthful and I wouldn’t want to try saying it after a glass of wine.

I would recommend A Passionate Spirit (gothic paranormal mystery set in the Cotswolds), because although it’s had some fabulous reviews from readers who really ‘get’ it, I believe it deserves more love. My pitch for it is: “A little girl lost. An ill-omened spiritual healer A raven with its eye on a prize.” The novel is saying some very important things I care about a lot, has emerged from my personal experience, and I’d love it to go further… like a film or a TV drama mini-series. I wish I’d put more promotional push behind it. My daughter, who is a filmmaker, created a brilliant and very creepy book trailer for the novel. So, I’d say: sit down with a glass of wine and read it!

Thank you very much, Wendy, for giving me this opportunity to share my writing and reading life with the readers of Mom’s Favorite Reads. I’ve greatly enjoyed answering your questions.

Wendy H. Jones is the award winning, international best-selling author of the DI Shona McKenzie Mysteries, Cass Claymore Investigates Mysteries, Fergus and Flora Mysteries, Bertie the Buffalo children’s books and the Writing Matters books for writers. She is also a writing and marketing coach. You can learn more about Wendy on her website: https://www.wendyhjones.com/