Interview and Giveaway with C.J. Flood

C.J. Flood

Chelsey Flood is in her twenties, and graduated from the UEA Creative Writing MA in 2010.

She has won several prizes and awards for her writing, including the Curtis Brown Award, and also received funding from the Arts Council to complete Infinite Sky. She blogs as a member of the Lucky 13s and at cjflood.blogspot.co.uk, and tweets as @cjflood_author. Infinite Sky is her debut novel and she is currently working on her next book in Bristol.

Books

Infinite Sky (2013)
◆ Goodreads ● Amazon ● The Book Depository ◆

Reviews

Confessions of a Readaholic

Find Chelsey

Blog ● Twitter ● Facebook ● Goodreads

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Hi Chelsey! Thank you so much for stopping by for our Books That Glow: YA & MG 2013 event to answer some questions about yourself and your book Infinite Sky :)

Describe Infinite Sky in 3 words.

Forbidden love tragedy.

How did you come up with the idea for Infinite Sky?

It's hard to say exactly, as it took a long time to evolve. I wrote thousands of words before I got to the actual story. But the key was definitely when I decided to bring a family of Irish Travellers into the mix.

Did you always want to be an author? What made you become one?

I suppose I always wanted to be an author, but I didn't really think it was a route open to me. I would have been a bit embarrassed to declare it as my ambition, I think. I thought it was a bit like saying you wanted to be a model, or something; it revealed that you thought a bit highly of yourself.

And I became an author partly because I wasn't very good at anything else, and partly because of my obsession with reading.

As Infinite Sky is your debut, what was the road to publishing like?

Looking back on it now, it all seems like glorious fun, but at the time, I was often quite anxious. It took a fairly long time for me to get a deal (I published my first short story eight or nine years ago) and of course, I didn't know I was ever going to get one, so I used to be worried about failing. (I still worry about this, of course.)

What is the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Oooh, what an excellent question. I really like peanut butter and salad cream on toast, which people find weird. Though actually, I haven't had that for years, so perhaps have grown out of that now. Also I used to eat beans on toast with mint sauce quite a lot. And banana and marmite on toast, but that is actually just delicious. You must try that on if you haven't already.

That does sound quite yummy. I love bananas, and I love marmite, so why not?
Name the 5 closest things to you... GO!

Laptop, pen, pencil, phone, notebook. (Boring!)

PICK THIS OR THAT:

Theatre or Film? I feel treacherous, but film. SORRY THE THEATRE. (I know, I'm torn between the two as well!!)

Cake or Ice Cream? Ice cream. Cake can really get out town as far as I'm concerned.

Love Triangles or Insta-Love? Love triangles, because they are an actual thing.

Early Bird or Night Owl? Aspiring early bird/reluctant night owl.

Sweet or Salty? Salty.

What's a song that fits your novel?

Eric Claption's Tears In Heaven.

Name one amazing book that you've read recently.

The Shock of The Fall by Nathan Filer.

When you're not writing, what can you be found doing?

Sleeping, listening to music, drinking beer, playing table tennis.

Who are some authors who have inspired you?

For this book: Emily Brontë, Meg Rosoff, Jane Austen, Dodie Smith, Antonia White, Roddy Doyle, Shane Meadows, S. E. Hinton, Barry Hines.

A lot of authors I love! What can we expect from you next?

I'm writing another novel along the same-ish lines as Infinite Sky. It is so far untitled, but it is about a teenage girl's search for her missing brother, a soldier recently back from Afghanistan. It is about friendship and adventure and heroism, and it will come out with Simon and Schuster in 2014.

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Thank you so much once again to Chelsey Flood for answering questions about her newly released novel, Infinite Sky! If you haven't seen my review, you should know that I LOVED this book and is definitely worth the read! Absolutely fabulous :) Here's a little bit about it:

Iris Dancy’s free-spirited mum has left for Tunisia, her dad’s rarely sober and her brother’s determined to fight anyone with a pair of fists. 

When a family of travellers move into the overgrown paddock overnight, her dad looks set to finally lose it. Gypsies are parasites he says, but Iris is intrigued. As her dad plans to evict the travelling family, Iris makes friends with their teenage son. Trick Deran is a bare knuckle boxer who says he’s done with fighting, but is he telling the truth? 

When tools go missing from the shed, the travellers are the first suspects. Iris’s brother, Sam, warns her to stay away from Trick; he’s dangerous, but Iris can no longer blindly follow her brother’s advice. He’s got secrets of his own, and she’s not sure he can be trusted himself. 

Infinite Sky is a family story about betrayal and loyalty, and love.

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C.J. Flood has a very exciting giveaway for both writers and readers alike!! Thanks to her, one lucky person can win...

A Critique of 3,000 words

or

An Agent Query Letter

or

A (bespoke) Short Story

Something available for both people who love to write or love to read...or both!

Rules:

• Open internationally!
• This giveaway ends at the end of this month (28/2).
• Winner has 48 hours to reply to the email, or another winner shall be chosen.

Enter in the rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!