Adrienne Vaughan

I recently had a great one-to-one with the journalist and novelist Adrienne Vaughan, who said that although she’s not sure if she’s the first novelist in her family, she does have an Irish background and, thinking about the Celtic tradition in arts and music, she feels it’s highly likely that her ancestors have always written, sung, painted and danced.

‘While I was a child, any glimmer of creativity was always encouraged,’ she says. ‘I wrote poems, short stories and plays, mocking up magazines and books with paper and paste at the kitchen table. When I was eight, I was given a turquoise Petite typewriter – and, from that point on, my fate as a writer was sealed.

‘I wrote my first novel in my twenties, and Maeve Binchy’s . I printed it off and sent the whole thing to publishers and agents. After some initial interest, it sadly came to nothing. But, reading it through not so long ago, I feel this outcome was definitely for the best.