Gracie Hart, author of 'The Baker's Girl' - Saga novelist talks about being a proud Northerner, perfect drafts and writing fiction in history
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
Gracie Hart is a saga novelist, her stories focus on a family's troubles through history. She loves writing of the late-Victorian era, and immerses herself in the place and time that she's looking at.
Her new novel, out in paperback, is 'The Baker's Girl'. It tells the story of Meg who needs to keep her family together. Her mum is ill, her sister in school, and she is the breadwinner... and indeed, the breadmaker. She finds a job with Ted Lund in the local bakery, and in the face of his mismanagement and mistreatment, has to turn the failing business, and her family around.
We talk about what writing saga fiction means to her, also what her fans expect from a Gracie Hart story. You can hear how the idea came from her own family's business and an idea off the telly, and why her first drafts need to be near on perfect.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along. It's a brand new episode of writer's routine this week, |
| 0:12.4 | chatting to Gracie Hart, who writes saga novels. Now, Gracie is Leeds Through and Through. |
| 0:19.6 | And we talk about her love for the north of England and why she |
| 0:22.6 | sets novels there. Also, you can hear how perfect her drafts need to be and whether that's changed. |
| 0:28.6 | Now she's been published, a fair few novels. And we talk about why she loves writing one specific moment in history. |
| 0:35.6 | The Gracie Heart books are always Victorian, |
| 0:39.6 | either coming up to the turn of the century |
| 0:42.0 | or just after the turn of the century in Edwardian times. |
| 0:46.3 | But mainly they're Victorian. |
| 0:48.8 | And I enjoy writing about the Victorian times. |
| 0:52.4 | They were really hypocritical, to be honest. |
| 0:56.7 | You know, they enjoyed as much sex and rumpy-pumpy as anybody, |
| 1:01.6 | but they always overshadowed it. |
| 1:03.9 | You know, they always swept it under the carpet. |
| 1:06.2 | So it's quite funny reading about it and what they got up to. |
| 1:09.5 | There is more on the way with Gracie Hart in this week's Writers' Routine. |
| 1:20.4 | Yes, welcome along, it's Writers Routine, the show where we take a look inside the working day, |
| 1:25.4 | the working life, and space space and maybe a touch of the |
| 1:28.0 | brain of some of the world's best authors. My name's Dan Simpson. Thank you very much for being there. |
| 1:33.6 | If you'd like to get in touch with the show, use the contact page over at writersroutine.com. |
| 1:38.0 | They all come through to me. It is very easy to find. This week we're joined by Gracie Hart. |
| 1:43.9 | Now, Gracie writes family sagas. So these are |
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