The bestselling novelist talks to Fanny Blake about discovering Carcassonne and the inspiration for her latest novel, The Burning Chambers (Mantle)
Kate divides her time between Chichester, where she lives with her husband, playwright Greg Mosse, her mother-in-law Rosie and a grumpy old West Highland Terrier, Mish, and Carcassonne, southwest France. Their children, Martha, 28, and Felix, 25, live in London and come home when they can.
I don’t remember wanting to be a writer when I was a child but my mum says that I was always writing things.
Apparently I wrote plays and made my friends make their own costumes but I’ve blocked all that out.
Growing up, I thought I was going to be a violinist.
I got a place at music school then realised in the nick of time that I wasn’t really good enough to be anything more than an orchestral player so I went to university to read English instead.
My first job was in publishing. However I started to write non-fiction then I turned to fiction.
I was very proud of finishing my first two novels but they’re not very good. I hadn’t yet found my voice. Then when I went to Carcassonne and fell in love with the voices of that medieval city and that part of France, I found the voice coming from within.
Greg and I went to school together but lost touch.
This story is from the June 2018 edition of Woman & Home.
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This story is from the June 2018 edition of Woman & Home.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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