Tracey Mathias grew up in Cardiff, South Wales. She studied history at University and, as a writer, she's fascinated by stories which set individual lives against a bigger historical background. Tracey worked as a teacher and in various office jobs, travelled, and studied anthropology, before starting a family. She now lives with her husband, three children and a tabby cat in north London, and has been writing since my youngest daughter started school about 12 years ago. Her first books were a middle grade fantasy, Assalay, published in Germany in 2009-11 by Oetinger. (She's currently self publishing an English edition, and volumes one and two – A Fragment of Moonswood and The Singing War – are already available). Tracey's UK debut is Night of the Party: a YA love story and political thriller, set in a near future, dystopian England. It’s published by Scholastic UK.
Our chat with Tracey…
I stopped writing in the sixth form. I was doing English A level and I felt overwhelmed and discouraged by the gap between the brilliance of what I was reading and the clunky awkwardness of what I could write.
That stop lasted a long time. Apart from some short stories in my twenties, I wrote nothing until about thirteen years ago. Then a number of things fell into place at once. Working for a music summer school I ended up writing last minute song lyrics; it was a playful job and it gave me a rush of my old pre-A-level English enthusiasm for writing. I thought of the pivotal point of a plot and lay awake for a week, dreaming it into a children’s story. My youngest daughter was due to start school in the autumn; I would have a few free hours each day. I had what I like to think of as motive, means and opportunity: a renewed impetus to write, a plot, and time. In the course of that school year, I wrote what would become the first volume of the Assalay trilogy, A Fragment of Moonswood.
I always re-read childhood books with trepidation, because some of them just don’t have the same magic when you revisit them as an adult. I’ve re-read all of these, though (some many times!) and still enjoyed and admired them.
That said, I would advise anyone starting out to cultivate both stubbornness and humility. Know the heart of your story and be fierce in sticking to it, but take advice; find wise comrades whose intelligence and honesty you trust, and listen when they tell you why the story that you’re trying to tell isn’t working.
After withdrawing from the EU, Britain is governed by the Party, and everyone born outside the country is an illegal, subject to immediate arrest and deportation. Failing to report illegals is a crime. Zara is the only one who knows how her friend Sophie died. But Zara’s an illegal. She can’t tell anyone her secrets. Not even Ash, the boy she loves. The boy who needs to know the truth. As the country prepares for an election, Zara must make an impossible choice.
Sound good? You can read an extract on Tracey's website.
Twitter: @traceymathias