The PINK SOFA welcome Liz Harris, Writer

Liz Harris

Liz Harris is another of the talented RNA writers I have met on Twitter. At first I was a bit in awe of her ... which I subsequently realised was because she used to be, like me, an English teacher. I soon discovered that she is a warmhearted fun-loving individual  - as all English teachers are! To mark Liz's visit, the PINK SOFA has been boning up on its Lit, and for reasons that will quickly become apparent, there are cocktails and chocolates on the coffee table. So Liz, over to you:

''As I lean against this luxurious sofa, Carol, I'm working on presenting myself with gravitas and as a person who's wanted to write since her moment of conception. Alas, I can't because I'm not. The gravitas is there - oh yes - but while I've always loved writing essays and letters, it was years before I connected the books I read avidly with the process of writing. Books just happened, I would have thought, if I'd thought at all.

Years passed by in which I devoured books of every kind, especially those by my favourite authors: first Enid Blyton - The Famous Five were Six when I read her stories - and then Jane Austen. Eventually, I left university with a Law degree, tucked Pride & Prejudice under my arm and set off to see the world.

I began in California, and ended there.

It was brilliant. I tried everything from cocktail waitressing on Sunset Strip to returning hired cars to their home location (imagine being paid to drive convertibles across the State, the radio blaring out, the wind in one's hair ... bliss!); from secretary to the CEO of a large Japanese trading company to 'resident starlet' at MGM. This would make a good novel, I mused at times, but I never thought of myself as being the person to write it.

Six years later, real life intervened and I returned to the UK, did a degree in English and went into teaching. During the following years, I wrote voluminous letters to friends until one day, a friend in desperation suggested that I write a novel. I took the hint. I'm now jumping almost eight years of writing steadily, trying to get published, to the publication by Choc Lit of my debut novel, The Road Back in 2012.

Liz's first novel

Nothing from the past is ever wasted. Patricia in The Road Back grows up in Belsize Park. Guess where I grew up? Ladakh, though, was new to me, but thanks to the internet, youtube and excellent books, I can close my eyes and see Kalden's village, the monastery suspended above the white houses, the distant mountains.

The second novel

My second novel, Evie Undercover, also published in 2012, and out on kindle, is set in Umbria, an area I know well. This time I used my local knowledge of the Law, and the novel stars a sex-on-two-legs libel lawyer, Tom Hadleigh, along with feisty Evie Shaw, the newest staff member of the gossip magazine Pure Dirt.

New novel

For A Bargain Struck, out in September, I dragged my heat-hating husband to Wyoming in order to complete my research into how a second generation homesteader would live in Wyoming 1887. It tells the story of Conn Maguire, who sent for a mail-order bride. On paper, Ellen O'Sullivan is everything Conn needs in a wife ...

To spend all day giving birth to new characters and situations makes for a
wonderful life. I can't imagine anything better than being an author. Many thanks for allowing me to share my pleasure in it with you and your readers, Carol.''

Wyoming Trails: Liz and bucking bronco! Yee-haa!

Liz can be contacted on Facebook, or @lizharrisauthor. All Liz's books are available on Amazon, kindle, Apple iTunes, Kobo and Nook

The Pink Sofa is truly inspired, Liz, and is thinking seriously, after your visit ends, of packing its copy of Upholstery for Beginners and setting off to see the world, following your example. In the meantime, it needs you to mix the cocktails and open the chocolates  ... there is a queue of eager people with probing questions forming on the landing.