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INTERVIEW: An ADHD Diagnosis in Her Fifties Helped Alice McVeigh Write Fiction Again

Writer's picture: Christina BoydChristina Boyd

 

Welcome to the Tuesday Author Interview with Christina Boyd for the Who, What, When, Where, and Why.

 

CHRISTINA: Alice McVeigh has been a published author since 1998 but only became known to me when her novel, Susan, about Jane Austen's Lady Susan as a young lady, was released in 2021. Ever since, I've followed her social media to see what other Austenesque works are up her sleeve. I was delighted to learn her Warleigh Hall Press Jane Austen series won First Place for historical book series in the 2023 Chanticleer International Book Awards. Her short story Pride and Perjury is a finalist for 2024 Chanticleer International Book Awards. (Yes! The very same award committee that my own unpublished novel Woman in a Painting is a finalist in Contemporary and Literary, Somerset Award.)


What is your current project or latest release?

 

ALICE: The boxset of my first three Austen-inspired novels and the fourth Austen-inspired novel (not yet in the boxset), Pride and Perjury. I'm promoting them simultaneously, but my Darcy still outsells all the rest. Probably, it always will! 

 

Pride and Perjury book cover
Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories inspired by Pride and Prejudice (Warleigh Hall Press Jane Austen Series)/ Published May 30, 2024

CHRISTINA: Oh yes. Take it from me. Of my five multi-author Austen-inspired anthologies, The Darcy Monologues beats out all the others in sales. However, Elizabeth: Obstinate, Headstrong Girl is hard on its heels.


Which of your own novels is your favorite?

 

ALICE: I always say my "Cinderella” novel, Harriet, a new variation on Emma. It's got nothing to do with the Cinderella story, really. I just call it that because it's relatively unappreciated. It's really Emma, in terms of plot, but viewed from unusual points of view, alternating between the enigmatically elegant Jane Fairfax and little Harriet Smith. A number of reviewers have mentioned, correctly, that Jane and Harriet would have been a more accurate title, but I fell for a cover portrait of Harriet and have never yet found a Jane I like. Still looking!


CHRISTINA: I love, love, love when writers write a backstory or parallel story to canon. I'll have to check out your Harriet story. Canadian author J. Marie Croft wrote Miss Bates's story in my anthology Rational Creatures (published in 2018), which I think you might be interested in. British author Caitlin Williams wrote Harriet's story in that same anthology.


Why is Harriet your favorite? 

 

ALICE: Because it's so creatively interesting. Normally, I try to stick to Austen's idea of what is, after all, when all is said and done, her creations. I love to put them in different situations and to mix characters from her different novels together because, though she never did, many other authors do.


However, Harriet Smith was so boring in Emma, as Emma's dim little sidekick, that I longed to perk her up. It also occurred to me that, most probably, many pretty but poor young women would have fancied their chances of flattering the "queen of Highbury" in hopes of making a profitable match for themselves.


So, I chose to make my version of Harriet smart enough to choose to appear dumb, the better to flatter the famously self-satisfied Emma Woodhouse. This still strikes me as a pretty ace idea. But a lot of readers just got confused. And there's a twist near the end that's a little daring, as well (no spoilers here!) So, even though it was a finalist for the prestigious Forward Indies' 2022 “Book of the Year,” won a gold medal in the Historical Fiction Company book awards, etcetera, etcetera, I still think of it as my "Cinderella" book and support it wherever I can.


It’s also the novel I dedicated to the friend who changed my life by telling me in my fifties that I had ADHD. Initially, I refused to believe it, but once I was NHS-diagnosed and medicated, I found that I could write fiction again. I owe Heather Rowson such a lot!

 

CHRISTINA: I am so glad your book won all those awards and that helped validate your efforts. Learning you have ADHD in your fifties is remarkable. I cannot imagine how you must feel now, looking back and comparing past work and experiences.


If you were to revise any of your books, which would you choose and why?


illustrated woman with cello and four separate professional images of Alice
Alice McVeigh, author. (Image from her official novelist website)

ALICE: Good question! Because I've only recently done this. Which books? Well, back when I was young, I was incredibly lucky. I was offered a three-book contemporary fiction contract by Orion/Hachette, a “big-five” publisher. However, they dumped me after publishing my first two novels because I failed to deliver the third – for which I can’t blame them. Though I was suffering depression from a zillion failed IVFs, I still let them down.


Meanwhile, our final IVF worked, and then I was too happy to care! But once Orion let my first two novels drift out of print, I retrieved my copyrights from them and completely rewrote both. Both were inspired by fascinating musicians in the various London orchestras I used to play cello with. They’ve always been vibrant, and sexy and true… But so overwritten! I’ve improved so massively as a writer since I was young! All that overwriting rubbish got ripped out of the all-new second editions.


So now, While the Music Lasts and Ghost Music are two lean and brilliant contemporary novels. The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph loved them even in the first editions, but I'm so proud of them now. You live and learn…how to write better!


CHRISTINA: What a blessing that IVF worked. I am sure the baby made all the rest matter very little. And how wonderful you were able to rewrite and improve those books all these years later.

 

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?

 

ALICE: A professional cellist. Throughout my whole life, music and writing have fought over me. 

I started writing at age four (terrible poems, mostly), but when I was twelve, the same year I finished writing my first, truly appallingly written novel, my family stopped living in American embassies in Asia and returned to the U.S. There I finally got hold of a cello and spent the next ten years utterly infatuated with classical music. But once I was a professional cellist and performing around the world with London orchestras, I began to feel strangely restless and bored. Suddenly, I longed to write novels again. That's when I won - and lost – my major publishers, Orion/Hachette. 


The good news is that I also finally had the baby I’d always wanted. And because I wanted to be there for Rachel, I stopped rushing around the world with orchestras and moved into ghostwriting, which taught me a huge amount about other writers' voices. So, I learned a lot from that experience, as well.


I didn't return to writing my own fiction until I was, in my fifties – MEGA-LATE – diagnosed as 110% ADHD by the UK's National Health Service. Now medicated, I find that I can write for myself again and play cello, though I've quit playing professionally. Best of both worlds at last!


But to return to your question, there was never anything else I ever wanted to do professionally—just cello and fiction.


CHRISTINA: I love that you are able to do what you love and that your ADHD diagnosis and medication have helped you to become a better writer. I'm sure the diagnosis has helped you in so many other aspects of your life. Thank you for being so open about your mental health. I appreciate your candor in sharing this incredible journey—best of luck with your next project and at the CIBAs. I’ll cheer for your book at the awards banquet…and if you go, I look forward to meeting you. Let’s sit together!


Smiling white woman wearing sunglasses at sunset in front of the sea and holding her cello.
Alice McVeigh, award-winning author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice McVeigh has been published by Orion/Hachette in contemporary fiction, by UK's Unbound in speculative fiction (as Spaulding Taylor), and by Warleigh Hall Press in her current Austenesque series ("McVeigh's celebrated series" - Publishers Weekly).


Her recent novels have been honored in the UK Selfies Awards at the 2024 London Book Fair, placed as runner-up in General Fiction for Writer's Digest and Foreword Indies' "Book of the Year," won Kirkus stars, and been quarterfinalists in Publishers Weekly's BookLife Award. 


Alice spent her childhood in Asia in various USA embassies, her teen years practicing cello in McLean, VA, and her entire adulthood in London. She has long been married to Professor Simon McVeigh, with whom she shares one daughter, two long-haired dachshunds, a passion for tennis, and a second home in Crete.

 

4 comentários


J "Joy" Dawn King
04 de fev.

This was an incredible interview. You certainly know how to persevere, Alice. All the best to you!


Joy

Curtir

Alice, I'm so glad you have been able to find and spread joy through writing, music, and your family!

Curtir
Convidado:
04 de fev.
Respondendo a

Thanks, Christina! I have been very very lucky. Shortly after having our only child I got excited to think I was pregnant again. I WASN'T. Instead, so many of my chances had gone on IVFs that I'd run out of eggs. Rachel really was a miracle child.

Curtir

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