Interview with Rebecca Powell Author of The Brazilian Husband
Hi Rebecca! Welcome to it is just a Word.
Tell us your latest news!
Hi Natasha – and thank you so much for having me! I’ve been really busy over the last few months following the launch of The Brazilian Husband. The book’s been getting some wonderful reviews and I have to admit to being quite overwhelmed by the emotional response I’ve been getting from readers. Right now I’m preparing for my first live book reading / author Q&A and I’m really looking forward to chatting with readers. You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to finally be able to talk about my characters with other people!
Can you tell us any info about your next writing project?
Ooh, I’m not sure how much I should say…I’m really excited about it though – it’s written from the point of view of three very different women and explores how their lives and choices impact on each other. Like The Brazilian Husband, it’s proving to be an emotional journey for me as a writer, but I’m relishing getting under the skin of my new characters, unravelling both their unconventional beauty and their ruinous flaws.
What inspired you to write The Brazilian Husband?
In my early twenties I lived in the Northeast of Brazil for a year, working as an English teacher to pay my way and as a volunteer at a women’s shelter. I met so many inspiring people during my stay: young girls for whom the street had become ‘their preferred rock to the hard place they’re supposed to call home’; women who were struggling to get out of a life of prostitution and learn skills to allow them to work for themselves; and of course, the magnificent staff and volunteers, who work tirelessly to help them – the real life Ricardos and Flavias. On my return to the UK I wanted to write a novel – to tell their stories. But life got in the way, as it does, and it wasn’t until many years later that I picked up my notes and started writing in earnest.
Did you travel to Brazil to help with the writing process?
Whilst in Brazil, I had no idea I was going to write a novel! I did keep a diary when I was there, however, and that came in very useful when I started writing many years later. I would love to return there one day.
The one thing that I was really impressed with when I read The Brazilian Husband was that I thought it had been published through a publishing house when it was actually independently published which I thought was fantastic. Can you give our readers some advice on why you decided to publish independently? What did you have to do in order to publish? Did you have to learn any new skills such as learning how to market your book etc.?
The Brazilian Husband took around seven years to write and edit. I sent early drafts to agents and, quite rightly, got polite rejection letters from them all. A few years and many rewrites later, the story as it is now came together. This coincided with the Olympics in Rio and I knew it would be the perfect time to publish. It was too late to go back to agents/publishers, so, with the help of Google, the Createspace publishing platform and a fabulous cover designer at paperandsage.com, I uploaded my file and pressed publish!
In terms of marketing, I didn’t want to bombard social media with a ‘look how great my book is’ campaign. I wanted readers to discover it for themselves and make up their own minds. That’s easier said than done however! Being based in France means that almost all my contact with readers has to be through social media. I’ve been lucky in meeting so many wonderful writers, readers and bloggers through Twitter, who have all been exceedingly generous with their help and advice.
Who was your favourite character in The Brazilian Husband?
There is, inevitably, a part of me in all the characters, but the character I’m still most affected by is Luciana. Writing her story in the form of interviews, getting under her skin, that was an incredibly hard emotional journey for me. Her story is the one I wrote the book for and she has become almost entirely real to me - and I think this is the way it had to be in order to write her truthfully.
What book are you reading right now?
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She’s such an intelligent, nuanced writer, who somehow manages to transport the reader in to a completely foreign world and instantly make it feel familiar and vital. At the same time, I’m reading her book We Should All Be Feminists after having seen her TED talk of the same title. I read somewhere that this book is being given to all 16 year-olds in Sweden. How amazing is that!
What books have most influenced you and your writing?
Oh, so many! I’ve found that even the bad ones have their use! As a teenager, it was The Outsiders; Lord of the Flies and Racine’s Phèdre for their intensity and sense of ‘no way out’, along with Anne of Green Gables and Little Women, whose main characters I so identified with. I also greatly admire Khaled Hosseini, Margaret Atwood and Haruki Murakami, who write the kind of books I wish I could write.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Thank you! Thank you for taking a risk on an unknown author. Thank you for your wonderful reviews and the photos of you all reading my book. I love these – they make my day every time. As an independently published author I have no great marketing machine behind me. My readers and their reviews on sites such as Amazon and Goodreads are everything. So thank you again for all your support, for reading my book and for helping to spread the word. We writers are nothing without you.
I also wondered if we could do some quick fire questions that are book related… So for instance:
Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice?
Wuthering Heights.
Jane Eyre or Tess of the D’Urbervilles?
Jane Eyre.
Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?
Neither I’m afraid. Started both, finished neither. My children love Harry Potter though.
Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train?
Gone Girl, although I liked the use of the unreliable narrator in both these books - such a clever device.
Thriller or Romance?
Romance. There’s nothing like a great love story.
Female main character or male main character?
If a character is well written and truthful, gender becomes
irrelevant.
First person or third person?
When writing, I love the first person. I trained as an actress and part of the process was to really inhabit a character. I love taking that process through to my writing now.
Winter or summer?
A British summer - or an Australian winter!
Reading or writing?
As much as I love reading, I’d have to say writing. When I find a new character, I love the process of discovery – of writing without knowing where I’m going, or who and what I’m going to find along the way.
Thank you so much Rebecca.
The Brazilian Husband has also been nominated for best read 2016. Read more here.