Hill, Elizabeth Ann 1952-

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HILL, Elizabeth Ann 1952-

PERSONAL: Born January 8, 1952, in London, England; daughter of William Strawbridge Phillips (an insurance broker) and Mavis Florence (a shop assistant; maiden name, Collins) Hill. Ethnicity: "Welsh/Cornish." Education: Attended secondary school in Falmouth, Cornwall, England. Politics: "Center." Religion: Church of England. Hobbies and other interests: Gardening.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cornwall, England. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Severn House Publishers, Inc., 595 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Western Evening Herald, Plymouth, England, secretary, 1975-76; Stratton & Holborow (estate agents), Truro, England, secretary, 1980-84; Leon Robertson (antiques dealer), Penryn, England, bookkeeper, 1983-89; Cornwall Motor Auctions, Penryn, England, bookkeeper, 1990-96; freelance writer, 1996—.

MEMBER: Society of Authors, British Mensa.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

The Hidden Spring, Souvenir Press (England), 1987, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1989

Pebbles in the Tide, Souvenir Press (England), 1989

Bad Pennies, Mandarin (London, England), 1993

Fields of Clover, Mandarin (London, England), 1994

The Driftwood Fire, Mandarin (London, England), 1996.

The Kendrick Girls, Severn House Publishers (New York, NY), 1997

Remember Rachel, Severn House Publishers (New York, NY), 1997

Genevra, Severn House Publishers (New York, NY), 2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Tinder Box (tentative title), a novel set in the 1920s; a second novel, "a psychological chiller."

SIDELIGHTS: Elizabeth Ann Hill told CA: "I write purely to entertain, for the sheer pleasure of playing with the language and, with any luck, to make some kind of a living. As I recall, it was the only school subject which greatly interested me as a child. As an adult, writing is the only work to which I've given serious commitment.

"I find it impossible to write while sitting at a keyboard. I need an easy chair, a scribble pad, and a felt-tip pen, and I generally work for about four hours of a morning. Only when I have about thirty sheets in longhand do I put it on the computer. A book takes four or five drafts to complete, beginning with a short, experimental one and gradually expanding. The plot remains flexible, subject to substantial changes, until about the third draft, when the whole thing finally 'gels.' After that, it's a matter of fine-tuning.

"I'm seldom short of ideas; the difficulty lies in choosing between them. A surprising number come from music, from song lyrics or even instrumental pieces. The first hazy notion of Genevra came into my head one evening while I was listening to Vaughan Williams's 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,' which, of course, features in the story. Poetry also supplies images which I sometimes follow up; Tennyson's 'Mariana' poems were another source of the Genevra idea.

"As to author influences, there are many. H. E. Bates, Daphne du Maurier, Stella Gibbons, Ray Bradbury, Fay Weldon—the list is eclectic and very long. Theirs are the books I can open anywhere, read again and again, and still enjoy. That's the magic touch which I admire.

"I was twenty-seven when I started my first book, having won a prize in a short-story competition the previous summer. In a couple of years I turned out two short novels, Remember Rachel and The Kendrick Girls. They were apprentice work and I was learning the craft on them, but fortunately they had enough entertainment value to be published, and after that there was no going back. After The Hidden Spring, which was really a bit of black humor written for my own amusement, the next four books were all West Country sagas, one set in Victorian times, the others in the 1920s and 1930s. This brings me to Genevra. It was an idea which would not go away, a complete departure from the saga genre. I wanted to do it, enjoyed every minute, but my publishers at the time were none too keen on an excursion into the supernatural and turned it down. No matter, it had to be done. Anyway, it doesn't seem wise or realistic to tie oneself to a single genre.

"Character is always my fundamental interest, followed by colorful historical periods and settings. There are no messages, no axes I wish to grind. I simply know, from my own experience, the therapeutic value of a diverting story. I aim to provide those few hours' escape which everybody needs."