Q&A WITH RENITA D'SILVA

We like to start our interviews by asking our authors to introduce themselves. Can you tell our readers a little about yourself?

I love stories, both reading and creating them. My short stories have been published in award-winning anthologies and literary publications and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net Anthology, shortlisted for the LoveReading Very Short Story Award and The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. I have had twelve historical fiction novels published. The Neighbours is my first psychological thriller.

What did it mean for you to be the winner of Britain's biggest crime prize, the Joffe Books Prize 2023?

It means the absolute world. I grew up in a small village in India with no running water, electricity or indoor toilet. I would make up stories to rain drumming on the tiles and collecting in pans around us — the roof leaked something terrible. Dreams for us were just something we made up to escape reality with no expectation of them ever coming true. But thanks to winning the prize, for me, they have, and it has given hope to everyone in our village.

Where were you when you found out you had won?

At home on my own, which was lucky, because I literally shouted the roof down. Afterwards I felt sorry for Jasper and Emma — I think they had to push the phone away from their ears for fear of going deaf :).

What kind of thrillers do you love?

Psychological thrillers, of course.

Describe your novel in three words.

Hooky, tense, insightful.

And what advice would you give to any aspiring writers? What do you wish you’d known at the start of your own writing career?

1) Finish your book and work and rework it until it is the best it can possibly be.
2) Research your publisher/agent before sending your book off to them. Make sure they accept unsolicited submissions from writers in your genre. It will save you a lot of heartache.
3) Don’t be disheartened by rejection. Easy to say, I know, but remember everybody gets rejected.
4) Believe in yourself. There will always be people who’ll not like your writing, but equally, there will be many others who will.
5) Don’t give up. A published author is one who has just got up after each rejection, dusted himself off and tried again. Remember: you only need one person to say yes, and they are waiting just around the corner. Don’t give up.