Robert Parker is a new exciting
voice, a married father of two, who lives in a village close to Manchester, UK. He has both a law degree and a degree in film and media
production, and has worked in numerous employment positions, ranging from
solicitor’s agent (essentially a courtroom gun for hire), to a van driver, to a
warehouse order picker, to a commercial video director. He currently
writes full time, while also making time to encourage new young readers and
authors through readings and workshops at local schools and bookstores. In his
spare time he adores pretty much all sport, boxing regularly for charity, loves
fiction across all mediums, and his glass is always half full.
His latest book is the
crime/thriller, A WANTED MAN.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK
Thank you for this
interview! I’d like to know more about
you as a person first. What do you do
when you’re not writing?
All sorts! I have two young kids and a third due any time
now, and they keep me very busy! Aside from trying to be as active a father as
I can be, I box regularly to raise money for Cancer Research UK,
training 6 days a week. After 3 fight camps in a row, I’m having a little break
from the fights themselves at the moment but I’m still training. I’m aiming to
step back into the ring in March 2018.
When did you start
writing?
When I was 6, I remember wanting to write books and stories
and would do so any time I could. I then picked up scriptwriting when I was 17,
before coming back to writing prose at 29. That’s when I started writing
novels.
As a published
author, what would you say was the most pivotal point of your writing life?
The first conversation with Linda Langton, my agent. Changed
everything in an instant, and hers was the first voice in the publishing
industry that told me there was something there in my work and that I should
keep writing and press forward. I’ll never forget it.
If you could go
anywhere in the world to start writing your next book, where would that be and
why?
Somewhere with water. It just drags my blood pressure right
down, as soon as I see it. Give me anywhere with a big quiet lake or river and
a decent pub and I’d be very happy.
If you had 4 hours of
extra time today, what would you do?
Be cheeky and ask for another 4! There just isn’t enough
hours in the day for everything I want to do in life, but I’m going to push it
has hard as I can.
Where would you like
to set a story that you haven’t done yet?
New York. I’ve
been once and was so seduced by the variety, the sense of opportunity, the spirit,
the scale. I am enamoured by it, but I’ll need to go a few more times before I
can write about it – I full underqualified to commit everything that New
York is and represents to page!
Back to your present
book, A Wanted Man, how did you
publish it?
It was published by Endeavour Press, after I originally
self-published it 4 years ago. I’ve rewritten it over 40 times to get to this
stage, to get a publisher to say yes!
In writing your book,
did you travel anywhere for research?
It is set in Manchester, UK,
my home city, so aside from living there and interacting with it daily, I
luckily didn’t have to do anything special. I think it’s an amazing city that
lends itself so wonderfully to storytelling, so much so that every location in
the book is real, and only the odd street name and pub name has been changed.
Why was writing A
Wanted Man so important to you?
I’m not precious about any of my work, but I’m very
influenced by certain topics which play a big part in the story of A Wanted
Man. I’m very inspired by the works of our armed forces, and the sacrifices
they have made in recent combat in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
I respect them hugely, and I often wonder what it would be like to go to war,
grow up during said war, then come home to a country that is much changed. I
felt like telling a story like that was important to me, because I feel like a
lot of people take their sacrifices for granted.
Where do you get your
best ideas and why do you think that is?
A very simple answer is ‘life’. It might sound a bit grand,
but just ‘living’ tends to supply all the inspiration I’m after. If you’re
looking for inspiration: Just live a good varied life, day to day. Go out and
embrace stuff, do things you’ve never done before, go places you’d never
picture yourself visiting. The world is mad enough all by itself.
Any final words?
Never give up. Whatever it is you want to do, you can do it.
You’re the only voice that says you can’t. Ignore it, and get at it. Two hands.
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