I am thrilled to have interviewed author Alison Layland, who shared with us details of her writing life, her book ‘Riverflow‘, which was released on 20th June 2019, and answered a few fun questions. This post contains affiliate links.

Alison Layland is the author of two psychological thrillers: Someone Else’s Conflict, a compelling narrative of storytelling and the aftermath of war, was featured as a Debut of the Month on the LoveReading website, and Riverflow, a story of family secrets and community tensions against a background of flooding and environmental protest, was a Waterstones’ Wales Book of the Month. She also writes short stories and flash fiction; she won the short story competition at the National Eisteddfod in 2002, and her story Quirky Robbers is featured in the Honno crime anthology, Cast A Long Shadow. She is the translator of a number of award-winning and best-selling novels.

A member of the Crime Cymru collective, she has been actively involved in their First Novel competition in 2022 and the Gŵyl Crime Cymru Festival in 2023. When not writing, at home on the Welsh borders or in her caravan in the countryside of mid-Wales, she is an environmental campaigner, and involved in various local community projects focusing on sustainability and the natural world.

At the time I started writing it, the effects of climate breakdown were increasingly being felt and I wanted to write a novel that raised awareness of the issues. In a local pub on the banks of the Severn (which inspired the location of my characters’ smallholding and, nearby, the fictional village of Foxover) there is a collection of photographs of times when the area around the pub has flooded. These photos captured my imagination and the story, which begins with a terrifying flood, was born.

I’m not very good at planning – I make up my first draft as I go along, which means that subsequent drafts are where detailed planning takes place and I refine the plot. At all stages I keep track with a table in Word of each chapter, with notes on the main events of that chapter and the characters who feature in it – I shift viewpoints between my two protagonists, Elin and Bede Sherwell, and I want to be sure that the viewpoints are balanced. I also have a separate file with timelines, not only of the events in the novel’s present – the backstory of Bede’s teenage years is told in a series of diary entries by his Uncle Joe, so I needed notes to make sure that ages, periods of time, etc. were consistent.

I find titles difficult, but when they come to me, usually about halfway through writing the novel, they stick, so I’m glad that neither my editor nor my publisher have ever asked for a change. This one came from a Levellers track. Although the song is about something completely different, when it popped up on my random play one time, the title Riverflow seemed to fit my novel perfectly.

I try to avoid the names of people I know; other than that I simply choose names that have the right feel and suit the character. This can take some time, sometimes with the poor things nameless for a while, and occasional name changes. Bede’s name was inspired by someone my husband had worked with many years previously – I never met this colleague so the character is certainly not based on him, but I loved the name.

After the novel was published, a friend and neighbour read it and was intrigued because her brother-in-law was called Bede and she’d never heard of anyone else with the name. It turned out it was the same guy my husband had worked with all those years ago! Apparently she gave it to him to read, but I’ve never heard how he reacted (the Bede in my novel can be, to put it politely, a ‘difficult’ character…)

Not a scene as such, but on the subject of names again, Elin was originally Ellie, but as I wrote the novel it became clear that she’s Welsh. The ‘ll’ sound in Welsh wouldn’t have worked and Eli risked being pronounced wrongly by English readers, so she became Elin.

I hadn’t set out to write a psychological thriller with either this or my debut, Someone Else’s Conflict, but at my editor’s suggestion I tweaked both at the drafting and editing stage to suit the genre.

Four years, which sounds like a long time, but it included two house moves and breast cancer treatment.

Character-driven ecothriller.

The first draft. Most writers seem to hate the editing stage, but refining, polishing and being pedantic are my favourite aspects!

If you fancy a story with relatable characters, family secrets, protest and plenty of tension, and the threat of marital breakdown echoed by the effects of climate breakdown, then this one’s for you!

Ted thinks he’s better with a keyboard than he actually is. Sometimes he’s also partial to a mouse.

I build playlists around my novels and stories – songs that inspire me, even if it’s just a line (or title, see question 3 above); not always as the songwriter intended, I’m sure! I tend to write in silence, but my playlist keeps me in the zone when I’m not writing, and a song can sometimes remind me of an atmosphere or feeling I wanted to convey, that I might have lost sight of. You can have a peek at my Riverflow playlist here

When we moved we converted the garage to a lovely garden office and writing den. I also have a ‘writing caravan’ where I take myself off for regular writing retreats away from the distractions of everyday life.

As I’m no actor, I’ll be watching from the sidelines over a lovely pint of Seven Bells at the village pub, the Horseshoes in Foxover, which is a focal point of many scenes in the novel.

‘Hoooo. As a shy barn owl, I’d love to live in the rafters of the old mill at Alderleat, with the Sherwells to take care of me.’

A big thank you to Alison Layland for sharing her writing life with us and for a wonderful interview.