It’s a full house with Emma Carroll

A talk that opens with ‘Duran Duran’ and embarrassing childhood pictures of a bad 70’s haircut, is only going to go one way – absolutely hilariously. ‘The Letters from the Lighthouse’ author kicked things off at Barnes Methodist Church, discussing all things old and new in the life of Emma Carroll.

The talk was introduced by the lovely Hannah, age 10, and when Emma came on to tell her and the rest of the room full of impressionable children that rules were, “made to be broken”, they were all spellbound. The rules Emma was referring were actually in her latest book, ‘When We Were Warriors’: a story of all things forbidden and mysterious set in World War Two.

When asked how she got her idea for the novel, Emma said, “Things I want, dream, hate – it’s like a making a smoothie: you whizz it all up and it becomes something new.” Other than where to pull inspiration from, Emma had some great tips for the budding author;

-Drink lots of tea.

-Eat really disgusting snacks that no one else wants, whilst being stared at by dogs.

-Buy notebooks. They’ll make no sense to anyone but it’s here where the essence of the story lies.

That sounds about right.

Emma’s next book is called Somerset Tsunami which is about – that’s right, you guessed it – a tsunami in Somerset. Out this October, Emma is the woman who makes the impossible imaginable – and that includes her favourite snack, as she shared with us during her talk, peanut butter, marmite and cucumber on toast, yuck!