Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

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this week is the writer Val McDermott. Crime fiction is her chosen genre

and the a subject she'd shy away from. She once described herself as a mixture of hard-bitten

cynical hack and Pollyanna. It would seem the two sides of her nature are perfectly

reflected in her formative years.

Brought up in a secure home by parents who were very happily married.

She was the first state school educated Scott to win a place

at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She was just 16. So far so perfect.

Yet after graduation, she chose tabloid journalism as her trade, and by all accounts fitted right in with the hard-working

balshi boosing culture at the time. On the subject of her considerable success

she is admirably concise. She says I think there are three elements to any literary career.

You have to have a modicum of talent. You've got to work hard and you've got to be lucky.

So I wonder Valmont Dammit, deadlines from publishers,

writers block, endless publicity tours.

How lucky do you feel day to day to be a writer?

Mostly I feel very lucky because it's the one thing in the

world I ever wanted to do and they pay me money for it so what's not to like? I don't

have a boss. I don't have anybody telling me what time I have to be in the office or

what time to knock off. I deliver a book a year,

...