Rosanna Amaka, author of 'The Book of Echoes' - Debut writer talks creative places, plotting, and a novel 2 decades in the making
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2022
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our first guest of 2022 is Rosanna Amaka. Her debut novel is 'The Book of Echoes', which tells the story of 16 year old Michael, always in trouble, who falls in love with Ngozi, a young Nigerian immigrant. It was shortlisted for The Author's Club First Novel award, also the RSL Christopher Bland Prize, and the HWA Debut Crown Award.
It's a story Rosanna has tried to get published for 20 years, and she reveals the secrets to how it finally happened.
We talk about the creative buzz of the area she wrote the novel in, and how that affected things, also how the story drove her to write on, and why it's told through the eyes of the spirit of an African Slave.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along. It's a brand new episode of writers' routine, the first one of a brand new year. |
| 0:14.1 | And this week we're chatting to Rosanna Amaka. Her debut is The Book of Echoes. It's a story 20 years in the making. |
| 0:23.0 | Now, we talk about how the place where she wrote it hugely affected how she wrote it. |
| 0:28.6 | Also, what changes she made to the story across two decades of writing it |
| 0:33.7 | and how she got on with storytelling through the day and what really drove her. |
| 0:39.5 | If something really exciting is happening in the story and I just can't wait to get back to it, |
| 0:45.0 | that's what propels the speed of my writing more than, you know, |
| 0:52.2 | or whether it's something that needs to take time to, |
| 0:55.3 | you know, that you need to develop and grow and stew, then it's more what's happening in the |
| 1:01.2 | story that actually dictates the speed of how I write. Oh, the speed at which I write. |
| 1:07.5 | There is more on the way with Rosanna Amaka in this week's writer's routine. |
| 1:16.4 | Yes, welcome along, welcome back. |
| 1:18.5 | My name's Dan Simpson. |
| 1:19.5 | Thank you for being there. |
| 1:20.7 | This is a brand new episode for a brand new year in writers' routine. |
| 1:25.5 | Thank you for bearing with us to a sparse December and thank you for new |
| 1:31.6 | Patreon backers. It was a very nice holiday post-Christmas New Year bonus treat. Really appreciate it. |
| 1:37.9 | A very pleasant surprise. This is the show where we take a look through the working day, |
| 1:43.0 | the lives, the ideas, the plots, |
| 1:44.8 | the plans of some of the world's best authors. |
| 1:48.0 | Now, this year, you've got interviews with memoirists, memoirists, those who write memoirs |
| 1:55.1 | they're coming on. |
... |
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