CLARE FLYNN

Sometimes when working I get dizzy. Not out of tiredness, though there's plenty of that, but from the distance I travel without leaving my chair. One day I'm walking the blacked-out streets of wartime Sydney, absorbing the anxiety of a city that suddenly finds the war not on the other side of the world but terrifyingly close to home. The next day, I'm on a hillside in Sri Lanka, back when it was called Ceylon, surrounded by a green counterpane of tea bushes stretching in ever

Clare Flynn discusses the research she undertook when writing her novel The Star of Ceylon, and gives her tips for historical research

Sadly, I never met either of my grandfathers – they both died in the 1930s when my parents were still children. My paternal grandfather,...

Evening at the beach When I was in Sri Lanka recently, I started writing what would have been my seventeenth novel. At that stage, I...

I’ve visited Istanbul several times – once in the mid 90s on holiday and several times on business with the odd weekend tagged on. I...

I’ve been doing writing retreats for ten years. Not the sort with tutors but ones where you can hunker down and do some serious writing...