What was your first job? Did you like or dislike it?
Why?
I started teaching Science in an outback town in New South Wales. It was 1970 and I was 20. I loved it and continued teaching in the UK as well as Tasmania over the years. I’ve always liked sharing my love for Science with students. That first year was the basis of Lost in the Outback, my first novel published in 2018.
Do you have a pet peeve? If so what is it?
Not really. I’m an easy-going guy. Although spending hours waiting on the phone whist listening to dreadful music does test even my patience. And why, whenever I ring, am I told it’s unusually busy? When does the exception become the norm?
Do you spend more time researching or writing?
Writing definitely. I live in my imagination. I enjoy researching if needed but my novels are plot and character driven. Boring facts get in the way of my stories. Saying that a few novels, not based on my experiences, need research to make the story plausible.
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Tell me about your book Love in the Golden Sun
and where you got your inspiration for it?
My grandmother told me tales of Bushrangers in the Aussie outback. Captain Starlight was a favourite of hers. I vowed never to write a western but decided that my love story, Aussie drama was not a conventional western. It’s out in libraries as a large-print book along with eight more novels of mine.
How much of your book is realistic?
The setting is quite accurate – Jerilderie is the town where it’s set. I’ve lived nearby but never went there. The people, apart from Ned Kelly who makes an unexpected brief appearance, are fiction and the story, including the potential overthrow of the British based governments ....? Well, let’s just say that I’m a bloke who has a lot of imagination.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
Continue writing novels and selling them. It’s too late in my life to expect to be famous but I’m happy to keep doing what I love.
Who is your role model? Why?
Interesting question. I don’t have one as such. My father encouraged my reading as he loved fiction. He introduced me to Bradbury, Asimov and other SF writers. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman showed me that imagination and skills have no limits and there are so many others. Strangely, although I’m regarded as a romance writer, I read very little of my contemporaries. I have my own style of writing dramas with a bit of mushy stuff thrown in. I love writing strong female characters.
Share one fact about yourself that would surprise
people.
I learnt to write from reading comics. I still enjoy them even though they call them graphic novels now. I discovered a lot about characterisation, plot twists, dramatic cliff-hangers from them. In 1984 DC comics were interested in a character I created. I visited New York to discuss it with the editor. Sadly, nothing eventuated but my character re-appeared as the protagonist in my novel Moonlight Rising in 2020. It will be republished by Linford Romance in 2023.
Finally, many thanks to you, Rachel, for allowing me
to share my thoughts and memories on your blog.
BIO
Alan is a retired Science teacher and Financial Services Manager, currently exiled and has recently moved from France to the UK. He is a widely published author, concentrating mainly on women’s magazines. He has sold over fifty short stories to Australia’s That’s Life (a national magazine) as well as national magazines in UK (Take a Break and My Weekly).
In the past four years, Alan has sold thirteen novels to My Weekly published by DC Thomson in UK. Nine of these are available in libraries worldwide in large print published by Linford Romance.
Despite being both male and Australian, he is a member of the RNA (Romantic Novelists Association).
His continuing writing story can be found at
Website acwilliams-author.com
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/
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