An evening with Joanna Corrance

We had such an encouraging evening at HighlandLIT’s meeting on September 18^th when local author Joanna Corrance spoke about her ‘path to publishing’.  Her talk was warm, informative and assured as she shared herself with us, and described the pathway which has already led to the publication of three books – John’s Eyes, The Gingerbread Men, and, most recently Hamlet. She specializes in sci-fi and horror.  (See note for some details of these titles.

Joanna spoke about her family background, and her attraction as a young child to storytelling and writing.  He parents are both creative people, she told us, and she loved listening to her father’s stories about bears and witches. She was a precocious reader:  Dracula, which she read age about 8 or 9 was a real Gothic inspiration. She devoured Jane Eyre, and Frankenstein. These, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials had a big influence on her.

She began writing what she describes as ‘dreadful stories’ at the age of 7 or 8, and from then on ‘just knew’ that she wanted to be a writer.  But when she was considering her options at the end of her time in school, there was no Career path labelled ‘Author’.  And so Joanna decided to study law, with the intention of being a journalist – at least journalism involved writing and telling stories. In the end, however, she became a lawyer, and loves the job – she is currently a Senior Solicitor at a law firm.

Aspects of legal study and practice were helpful in her first forays into authorship – the precision of legal drafting, and the business side of legal practice have both been very helpful.  Initially, she checked her own contracts, but has now joined the Society of Authors where people with expert industry knowledge are available  to evaluate contracts on behalf of members.

For Joanna still itched to write. She was whinging about this one day, and her mother-in-law said with gritted teeth ‘Just do it!’ And so she adopted an empty room in her house, suitably redecorated it to stimulate creative flow, and before too long had produced a first draft of 160,000 words.

She kindly mentioned how much she appreciated the support of HighlandLIT when she was in this ‘aspiring author’ phase – she found lots of encouragement and advice from other writers in the group, and from the Creative Writing weekend in Cromarty which HighlandLIT organized.

She also devoured The Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book, and spent much time researching agents and their specialisms. And she received many rejections.  She still doesn’t have an agent, but is in the process of doing so – but she understands that these days a writer may not always have the same agent forever, and not necessarily for all of their books. She has found networking is a good way of contacting publishers, and has made the most of indie publishers’ open submission days.

She pitched the draft at a Twitter pitch event – no-one picked it up, but one publisher liked her style. ‘Could you write a novella?’ Joanna’s writing room saw a lot of her over the next few weeks. She produced John’s Eyes – and it was accepted.

She next turned to writing The Gingerbread Men, driven in part by her ‘strong feelings’ about gender norms and unpaid domestic labour.  It also particularly shows the importance to her of the Highland dimension, and the tradition of oral story-telling – the book contains lots of folk lore.

Although she hadn’t finished  The Gingerbread Men by the next Twitter pitch event, she pitched it.  Two publishers showed an interest, of which one gave her a contract, with a deadline!

‘Good!’ said Joanna, knowing she responds well to deadlines.  The only thing was – she fell pregnant. But rather than renegotiate the delivery date for the word child, she decided to get the book completed and the proofs signed off just before the arrival of her baby son.

As part of her formation as a writer, Joanna has attended lots of industry events and conventions. She mentioned being at, among others, the Worldcon Science Fiction Convention, Cymera, and the World Fantasy Convention.  Travel and accommodation, on top of the ticket price, makes attendance at these events costly, but she tries to go to as many as she can. Contact with a publisher at one of these led to the writing and publication of Hamlet – a story about the end of the world. ‘Play to your strengths!’ she advises. And one of her key strengths lies in the networking and building connections, which has worked well for her.

She didn’t  consider going down the self-publishing route, but knows people who have done this.   She feels that to be successful in this, you really need to know the business and to be deeply involved in marketing, and so she has opted for conventional publishing.

More recently, Joanna has been writing short stories, some of which have been published in anthologies. And now she is working on a new book which she described with three words – ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘Horror.’  Sounds intriguing!

She concluded her talk with a reading from Hamlet : the skillfully-structured narrative totally captivated the audience.

In the Q&A which followed Joanna’s talk someone asked ‘How do you make things scary?’  She pointed out that book horror is quite different from filmic horror. The affect she aims for is one of ‘dread and the uncanny’, odd things happening, and a deep sense growing of fear and threat.

Someone else asked how much research she does before writing on Sci-fi theme. We heard that she has done a lots of research, and learned a lot at Worldcon, but she still feels her knowledge is only superficial. On the other hand, however, she’s aware that most people want a good story, and aren’t too concerned about technical accuracy.

Asked if she would like to write and extended piece of fiction, she said ‘Yes! But I don’t know if I could persevere!’  She still has the 160000 word novel, which as it stands she feels is not good enough to ‘put out into the world’ (though her husband loves it). The word length would need to be drastically cut and she may address that at some point.

‘How do you get into the process of writing?’ someone asked. Joanna told us that you need confidence and momentum, and fresh ideas if you’re going to write a book.  She finds it helpful to have a structure in place when she starts writing – you can always change that if the story and characters take a life of their own.  When the ideas are not flowing, Joanna will go to a café where the atmosphere lubricates the brain, or plays loud classical music – or just goes for a walk.

We were most grateful to Joanna for her presence and her story.  It was particularly heartwarming to know that HighlandLIT  played a part in Joanna’s journey to the printed page, and we look forward with great interest to her continuing career.

Thanks to HighlandLIT Chair Paul Shanks who organized and chaired the event, and to David Goldie who looked after all things technical.

NOTE

Joanna’s debut science fiction novella, John's Eyes, was published by Luna Press Publishing in 2020.  You can read an interview with Joanna here.

Joanna’s second book, The Gingerbread Men was published in 2022 by Haunt Publishing. Joanna says ‘it tells the story of a man called Eric who abandons his fiancé at a Christmas market, following a mysterious woman back to her hotel in the Highlands of Scotland, which Eric realises is entirely staffed by men. By day, the men carry out their domestic chores in the hotel, cut off from the rest of the world by the snow and at night, they tell horror stories beside the fire, hoping to entertain the woman they serve. They don’t ask why there are never any guests, why it always snows, or why they can't go home.’

And Newcon Press describes her third and most recent novel, The Hamlet in these word:

‘Screens go blank, radios go silent, and the government is advising everyone to stay indoors. The residents of a rural Scottish community abandon their picnics and return home. Everyone can sense that something is wrong, but little do they suspect just how wrong...

The Hamlet is a new novella by Scottish author Joanna Corrance, who delivers a fabulous tale that dances between horror and science fiction with an added dash of weird.’

(The text of this note is drawn from the web-sites of Joanna’s publishers, Luna Press Publishing, Haunt Publishing and NewCon Press.)