Anne Corlett

Anne Corlett is a criminal lawyer by profession and has recently completed an M.A. in creative writing at Bath Spa University. Her work has been published in magazines and anthologies, and her short fiction has won, placed, or been short-listed in national and international awards. The Space Between the Stars is her first novel.

Recently I asked Corlett about what she was reading. Her reply:

What have I been reading recently?

The honest answer is ‘not enough’. My current novel is proving quite slow going due to a fairly complicated structure which seems to involve long periods of staring at the computer screen, muttering so if person X knows this in chapter 3, then why does person Y behave like that in chapter 7? As a result, I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking of all non-writing time as time wasted, when the reality is that if you’re going to write, you have to read!

Despite my reading dry patch, I did recently get through Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From. To be fair, not getting through it would have taken things to a whole new level of not making time to read, because it’s very short – novella length really. But despite its length, it covers a lot of ground, due in no small part to the unusually sparse style in which the story is told. The novel essentially consists of a series of short verbal ‘snapshots’, capturing the key moments in the life of the main character, whose experiences of new motherhood are set against the backdrop of a disintegrating world. This fragmentary style leaves much unsaid, which forces the reader to work hard to fill in the gaps, but also gives space for individual interpretation.

This was a compelling and bold novel, and the bathwater grew cold around me as I ploughed on to the end in a single sitting.

Visit Anne Corlett's website.

--Marshal Zeringue