Reading Lark After Dark would like to welcome author, Tracey Sinclair, to the Dark Nest today.
After Dark: When and why did you begin writing?
Tracey: I’ve written ever since I was a child – I remember being about 10 or 11 and having a huge cardboard box full of notebooks where I kept my stories, so it’s been a passion since I was young – I can’t remember when I started, just that it’s always been something I’ve loved. My first short story was published in a magazine when I was 17, and since then I’ve had a steady stream of work published in magazines and anthologies. My first novel, Doll, came out in 2005.
Tracey: I actually wrote a short story to cheer up a vampire-loving friend – I wanted to write something that was fun and contemporary and set in London, where I live, and peopled by characters I liked and could relate to. Then I sort of fell in love with those characters and couldn’t stop writing about them! I also wanted to write something based in the area I was working in at the time – Smithfield, which houses a beautiful old meat market in a setting that dates back centuries (it’s where William Wallace, the hero of the film Braveheart, was executed and used to have a giant plague pit, so it’s got a colourful history!). It’s such an inspiring setting, I felt I had to use it.
After Dark: Which of your characters are you most like?
Tracey: I’m actually very like Cassandra Bick, the heroine of Dark Dates – not as tough, obviously, probably not as brave and tragically without the smoking hot love interests, but other than that we have a lot in common: we’re a bit geeky, a bit snarky, not very domesticated, and not particularly fit. The resemblance is deliberate – I didn’t want to write about someone who was like Buffy (much as I love Buffy), with lots of powers or a super fit body. I wanted to create a character who you could imagine cracking open a bottle of wine with!
