Gwyneth Rees
About Author
Gwyneth Rees is half Welsh and half English and grew up in Scotland. She was born in Leicester in 1968, moved to Hastings in 1970, and then on to Glasgow in 1974 where she remained and later studied Medicine at Glasgow Medical School. In 1992 she moved to Birmingham and specialised in Psychiatry and graduated in 1997 before finally moving to London to study Child Psychiatry from 1999-2002.
Gwyneth's love for writing extends back to her childhood ambition and hours of joy had from writing in her spare time. She attended many writers' workshops and continued with her writing as a student.
Much of her inspiration is drawn from people and family relationships. Gwyneth makes great use of her educational background and training, as well as her whimsical imagination, to create a whole cast of magical characters that appear in her books.
Her first book, Something Secret, was published in 1995. She followed this success with Mermaid Magic, Rani's Sea Spell and The Shell Princess, which are now published as a bind-up called Mermaid Magic.
Other titles from Gwyneth include The Mum Hunt, which won it's category of the Red House Children's Book Award last year, Fairy Dust, My Mum's From Planet Pluto, Fairy Treasure, Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze, Fairy Dreams and The Mum Detective.
Gwyneth Rees currently lives happily in London with her two Siamese cats, Magnus and Hattie.
Interview
CHERRY BLOSSOM DREAMS
BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN'S BOOKS
JUNE 2015
In Cherry Blossom Dreams, 12-year-old Sasha is finding it hard to cope with her mother's new boyfriend - a teacher at her school - and the changes in her friends who only seem to be interested in boys and clothes. So she escapes to Blossom House, an old, run-down house that her mother, an estate agent, is selling. But while Sasha sees Blossom House as an escape, the house is soon creating more problems and mysteries in her life than she could ever have expected!
We spoke to author Gwyneth Rees about her latest book, Cherry Blossom Dreams.
Q: You're well know for writing about books that explore real life characters and situations. What draws you to writing about real life?
A: If I'm reading a book or watching a film, what I'm interested in is the dynamics of the relationships I see and I enjoy writing my own stories about family-based, real life situations. That's what I started writing and that's what is still close to my heart.
I am interested in what makes people tick and when I qualified as a doctor I very quickly moved over into psychiatry because I was more interested in talking to people and finding out about their lives.
I also write books about magical creatures like mermaids and fairies and I find those a lot of fun to write - but even they feature families and friendships, and the dynamics between people. The Cosmo stories, about a sneezing, magical cat, is about a family of cats and there are always real children with real problems even in those stories.
I draw on my own childhood for those imaginative scenes just as much as I do for my real life scenarios, because as a child I did a lot of walking in woods and imagining fairy things. I grew up in Scotland and we'd go for holidays to the Isle of Skye and when I think about magical things, that's where I'm headed in my mind.
Q: Is thinking about the characters and their relationships the starting point for you when you begin a new book?
A: Yes, when I begin my stories it's usually with the characters and with the family set-up. I think of who is going to be in the book, so I might have a quirky child character and a quirky granny, which gives me a start, and then I work on the plot.
For Cherry Blossom Dreams, I wanted to write about siblings, a boy and a girl, but they needed to be a similar age so I made them twins - Sasha and Sean.
I also wanted to explore the issue of who was being the parent in this family so we have a mother who slips in and out of the role of parenting because of the struggles she faces.
I was interested in the idea of someone who is not your parent 'parenting' you. Father figures come in and out of these children's lives as their mother's boyfriends come and go and I wondered what effect that might have on the children? Children are very vulnerable to the choices that adults around them make and that's a big theme in my writing.
Q: Where was the starting point for your plot in Cherry Blossom Dreams?
I had the idea of having a big house that has a mystery behind it. I made the mother an estate agent whose job is to sell Blossom House, as I had heard from friends about what can go wrong when you're working as an estate agent - and in my story I have only touched on the things that can go wrong! Blossom House becomes a sort of secret hideaway for the twins.
Q: Friendships are a strong theme in the story. Do you remember friendships being very important to you at that age?
A: In this story I am exploring that 'transition phase' of friendships, as girls grow up and sometimes grow apart. I was virtually an only child - my sister was born when I was 12 - and as a result, I developed strong friendships.
When I'm writing about friendship I can go straight back in my head to when I was 12. That's the age when you're starting to become more adolescent and because girls develop differently, that can make or break friendships.
It's a very strange and amazing time, just before you get to your teenage years, and at that stage you can't see that your whole life is ahead of you; you are focused on your friends and it's devastating if you lose a good friend. These are the kinds of experiences that Sasha has to work through in the story.
Q: Your characters also face a lot of peer pressure in the story and end up doing foolish things as a result. Do you think this can be a real issue for young people at this age?
A: Sasha and her brother Sean do get themselves into sticky situations and I think that can happen during your early teens, because peer pressure is so influential. It's a really big part of growing up, and at some point we all have to ask ourselves that question: Do I stick with what I think is the right thing to do and do I believe my instincts about people, or do I care more about being a part of a group? If you want to be part of a group, is it more important to stay with that group or to stand up for what is right?
In this story, Sasha is lead astray because she really likes a particular boy, and Sean Does things he shouldn't like helping out a friend with a snake, because he really wanted the snake for himself. As a writer, it's fun to make your characters do things you never would!
Q: Do you think that young writers should start off writing about real life?
A: I think writing about real life is a good place to start; it's what we know best. My advice would be to write about something you find interesting or fun or exciting. If it's something you get really excited about, perhaps it's horse riding, then that's a good starting point.
You really need to engage your readers and if you sit and tell someone something that interests you, then that excitement will come over in your writing. Also try to include some direct speech because that can make your writing more lively.
You also need to remember that your reader won't know what's going on inside your characters' heads so for some of your story, you will need to go inside your characters' heads and explain what they are thinking and feeling.
Q: Is there one book from your childhood that you remember reading and loving?
A: My favourite book was The Secret Garden, I loved the characters and the development of Mary and I remember watching a drama of it when I was a child, so it's a very memorable book for me.
Q: Where do you write?
A: I write at a desk in our front room, from 9am to 3pm when my children are at school. I'm very fidgety when I am writing and I tend to graze all day, I have lots of tea and coffee and my favourite snack is anything with chocolate. At the moment I'm writing The Honeymoon Sisters, which will be published by Bloomsbury in March 2016.
If I could choose my favourite place to write, it would probably be the garden of Blossom House, and it would be just like the one in the story. I like that kind of old Edwardian house and if I lived there, I'd have doors that opened out to the garden, which would be full of cherry trees. That's what I'd look out onto while I was writing.
Cherry Blossom Dreams
