posted on 11 Sep 2022

An Interview with Jenny Sullivan

The Letterpress Project has asked authors and illustrators to think about what has inspired them as artists, what their favourite books are and how they relate to their audience - we've also asked them if they themselves are book collectors.

We are delighted to present an exclusive interview with author, Jenny Sullivan. Jenny told us:

"I was born too many years ago in Cardiff:  Dad an electrician, Mum a housewife.  Both avid readers.  Lansdowne Primary School then Canton High School, which I left aged 15 with no qualifications whatsoever.  Mum found me a job in Peacocks which would have been a disaster because I can’t add up.  However, my lovely brother, in his first job, paid for me to attend secretarial college, after which I became a copy typist at The Representative Body of the Church in Wales (which Mum thought would be Safe…  Ha.)  Then I moved to the civil service, left to have my first daughter, Kirsty, quickly followed by Tanith (who stars in the Magic Apostrophe novels) and later, somewhat surprisingly, Stephanie.  Before I married I joined the Cardiff Writer Circle – and carried on while we lived in Cardiff (as their youngest member).  The South Wales Echo had a short story competition - £5 if a story was accepted.  I had three accepted, and one of these was seen by the Features Editor of the Western Mail who prodded me into trying feature writing…  I wrote many articles, review and TV criticisms and a couple of 8-part series for them, then decided to have a go at a children’s novel. 

When I’d finished the first draft I went to the Taliesin Writing Centre (Ty Newydd, Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd) on a week-long course:  the guest speaker was the then Editor of Pont Books – he was looking for stories with a Welsh background and strong female characters.  I sent him “The Magic Apostrophe” and the rest is history.  Sadly, Pont/Gomer has reverted to being printers only.  I’m too old to start looking for a publisher, have never had an agent (I think it’s 31 books in all, now) so I’m using Amazon Createspace.  It was also at Taliesin I met Norman Schwenk, an ebullient American.  When I got home, in the post came an application form for the very first creative writing MA at Cardiff University.  I had no idea where it had come from and was going to ignore it.  My husband made me complete it and send it back:  I was accepted by return of post.  Norman was the coordinator of the course…  A few years later he came to dinner.  I (jokingly) said that now I had an MA I was going to try for a PhD.  He shook his head sagely.  ‘Nah.  You’d never get it”.  I think it’s what’s called reverse psychology…  I applied and got a PhD.  I have been shortlisted for the Tir na-n-Og Award eight times – and won it twice."

You can see how she answered our questions on this link to her interview:

Jenny_Sullivan_author_interview.pdf