Chris Stuart
I am an adventurous woman who finds life exciting no matter what, but I label myself a writer with a social conscience. I have worked most of my career overseas, mainly in the Middle east and as a former aid worker and health consultant in places where war, disease and disaster are endemic, I have seen the best and worst of humanity. I have worked alongside the powerful and powerless and am always amazed at the resilience of people to survive My experiences have informed the context and some of the characters for my crime novels and I have a hundred stories in my head that are begging to be written.
What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?
As a child I found Charles Dickens books really hard to read. I think this was because the text was always really small and it made reading such a large amount, daunting. Years later, I studied him at University and loved him because he wrote about the social conditions of the time and who he was as a person, his hurt and shame, and not just an author came through in his writing. I remember loving the way he described Pip looking at Magwitch upside down in Great Expectations. Perspective is absolutely essential in writing crime.
Do you try more to be original, or to deliver to readers what they want?
I do not want to write like other authors. I don’t think I would be as good and then my book would be considered an inferior second. I like to write as me, my voice, my thoughts and then its originality offers readers the opportunity to experience something new. I place a large amount of importance on the context of a murder, but I also delve into smallest details which gives an authentic richness of the reading journey and I to take the reader along with my characters, so they are more involved in the story, merely than looking on.
How do you select the names of your characters?
My characters names are a mixture of random choice and carefully planned. I get names from the credit lists at the end of a movie, tombstones, memorials, my own library, but also from people I admire. Of course what name is selected depends on the time period. DI Robbie Gray for example, is a tribute to Robbie Lewis from the pen of Colin Dexter and her last name is from my old Grays Anatomy medical textbook. Pip McMahon is a tribute to Dickens and the NZ artist, Colin McCahon and Michael Frame is a nod to Janet Frame.
What was the first book that made you cry?
Old yeller when they had to put the dog down because he had rabies.
When Ginger was worked to death and died in Black Beauty.
Nearly every page in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Are there any secrets in your books that only a few people will find? Can you tell us one? Or give us any hints?
I make allusions in my novels to New Zealand and British writers who I find inspirational. Also aspects of my life are weaved throughout my stories, maybe in the lead characters, maybe in the side plots. You will have to ready my autobiography to find the truth.