This month brings an interview with a thriller author, a tip on moving to bluer skies, and a recommended novel about a daredevil pilot flying in blue skies.
📖 Author interview with Alex Pavesi
Alex Pavesi lives just outside of London, in Surrey, England, where he writes full time. He previously worked as a software engineer and before that obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He enjoys puzzles, long walks, and recreational lock picking. His debut novel, Eight Detectives, published in 2020, was translated into more than twenty languages and was picked by the Sunday Times and the New York Times as one of their books of the year.
What inspires you?
I write the books that I'd like to read: namely, thrillers that move in truly unpredictable directions and do things with the story that you don't expect. My biggest influence is probably the group of authors, active in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, who are often described as "postmodern". Paul Auster, John Fowles, Jeanette Winterson, etc. I am really excited by the idea of finding different ways to tell stories.
Do you have a writing routine?
As I get further into my career, I spend more and more time planning my books. I don't have a routine for planning. It involves long walks, visits to coffee shops, and reading other books. But it's fairly chaotic. When it comes to actually putting words on the page, I try to treat it like a 9-to-5 and be at my desk for as much of that time as possible. I wrote my first book in coffee shops before work, for ninety minutes each morning. But I don't think that was sustainable long-term.
Writing’s biggest secret is…
I'm a great proponent of time as a tool for writers. If you're not fully convinced by an idea, give it more time. Don't rush. The brain uses time in ways that are hard to understand. You could struggle for months to think of the ending for a story, then one day it will just come to you. You have to see this as one of the tools in your toolbox...though of course it can be hard to reconcile with deadlines and publishing schedules. I don't have a solution to that unfortunately.
My worst writing moment
I scrapped several earlier versions of my second novel and started from scratch. Each time was more painful than the last. This is why I now spend more time planning.
My best writing moment
My first book was written out of order (anyone that reads it will probably understand why), but the opening chapter was written first and I've always been really happy with it. I knew as soon as I'd finished it that it would eventually grow into an entire novel.
What are you reading right now?
I've just adopted a pair of kittens and have been struggling to concentrate on novels. So instead I've been working my way through the complete short stories of J.G. Ballard.
Book recommendation
I always recommend the novels of Alison Moore, who publishes with a small independent press and so doesn't get the publicity a lot of lesser authors get. Her latest, The Retreat, might be my favourite. It's about a socially awkward woman struggling to fit in with her peers at an artists' retreat on a remote island. The sense of discomfort is sublime.
Where can we find you?
I'm on Twitter/X as @pavesi_alex and on Bluesky as @AlexPavesi. My website is alexpavesi.com.
📚 Recommendations for ravenous readers
I was intrigued by the complex, interwoven structure of Alex Pavesi’s Ink Ribbon Red. Six friends gather every year—but this year is different. Anatol, the host, asks his friends to write short stories about murdering each other according to his “motive, murder, death” requirements. As a reader, it’s initially unclear which stories are the actual novel and which are the tales written by Anatol and his friends. Near the end, I was worrying, “What if I don’t understand anything?” but thankfully all was revealed, and I even patted myself on my back for noticing a few of the clues.
You’ve probably heard a few times by now about The Hope Prize anthology, Tomorrow There Will Be Sun. Though it’s a little cheeky of me to include my own writing as a recommendation, my story is only one of twenty in this hope-infused book. Australia’s former Prime Minister Julia Gillard says, “Tomorrow There Will Be Sun is more than just a book, it is hope in your hands.” From a young gay couple in Nigeria to a mother escaping an abusive partner, all the stories emerge from darkness into the light. All royalties go to Australia’s mental health charity Beyond Blue.
Maggie Shipstead’s historical and contemporary fiction novel Great Circle is a tour de force. Marian Graves is a daredevil pilot determined to complete a great circle: to circumnavigate the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. She sets off in the 1950s. Decades later, in the 2010s, actor Hadley Baxter plays Marian in a biopic. We follow Marian’s entire life story, even from before her birth. By the end of this 672-page book (I had to buy two extra 10-hour packs on Spotify Premium to get through it!), I was so invested in the characters that it felt like my heart was being torn out every time something happened to them.
✏️ Resources for wonderful writers
Have you noticed the X-odus? (And please may I claim credit for that coinage?) The writing community has pulled up its tent stakes and moved over to Bluesky en masse. Maybe some non-writers too, considering that 1 million people signed up in 24 hours. The Chrome extension Sky Follower Bridge is a super-easy way to check who you’re following on Twitter/X and follow them all on Bluesky with the click of a button. I’m running it every couple of weeks and every time there are more and more people flying over to where the sky is blue.
Particularly for short story and poetry writers, there are competitions all over the world you can enter. They’re useful for providing you with a deadline, getting published, and raising your profile. Short Story Comps on both Bluesky and X is a great place to find competitions—they tend to retweet/re-X/re-sky (??) calls for submissions. Chill Subs is also a fab source for many things including contest listings, though their Writing Contests section is getting a revamp at the moment, so there are fewer listings than usual. And check my Instagram on December 22nd for a fun announcement!
The Writer’s Routine podcast is where you can discover that everyone is different and there is no one “right” way to write. Host Dan Simpson starts each interview by asking what the writer sees around them at that moment, in their writing space. Of course he enquires about their routine as well, and then he picks up on writers’ responses to further explore their work and approaches. The weekly episodes cover a wonderful range of genres, from crime to fantasy, young adult to nonfiction. Fun fact: it’s where I first heard of Alex Pavesi.
👣 Updates on my moseying
It’s another month of writing updates! December saw in the publication of Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, together with a launch in Melbourne. I regretted the lack of teleportation technology to whisk me over there. The publicity team at Simon & Schuster Australia have been hard at work: the day before the launch, The Conversation Hour on ABC Radio Melbourne asked “How do we find hope?” and right toward the end of the hour, I had the opportunity to talk about my shortlisted short story and even mention my work in sustainability.
I came across Jason Buchholz, author of A Paper Son, when I was researching the Chinese side of my family. It turned out that he offered manuscript assessments through Collaborist, which he runs with publisher Ben LeRoy, so Jason provided the very first evaluation of my short story collection manuscript. Now, almost two years later, the duo kindly invited me as a guest on their podcast, Collaborcast. It was an honor and a pleasure to discuss my writing at length, responding to their thoughtful questions.
Check out my reading of “His Bones” at the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology launch back in October! Transformations is available on Amazon US and Amazon UK.
I haven’t been writing much for the past six weeks or so, and over the winter break I’m looking forward to playing around with more tweaks to my short story collection while continuing to submit to agents. I also plan to work on two new short stories as well as my first full novel.
Queries to literary agents — tracked on QueryTracker 📊
⏱️ 7 waiting for replies on query letter
🕰️ 1 waiting for reply on full manuscript
🚫 2 rejections after reading query letter
😭 1 rejection after reading full manuscript
🟰 11 total
Writing submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊
🏆 7 accepted
⏱️ 6 pending
🙅♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)
🚫 48 rejected
🟰 68 total
Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!
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