Clan Destine Press Blog — Natalie Conyer

Natalie Conyer's tale for The Only One in the World takes place in Poland. We asked Natalie what was the best part about writing "The Adventure of the Disappearing Village" for our Sherlock Holmes anthology. What is the most unexpected tidbit you learned while writing your story? Growing up, my brother and I were told bedtime stories about Chelm, a village whose inhabitants are very foolish. They get up to all sorts of crazy things, like trying to float millstones downstream, or to capture the moon in a glass of water. MoreNatalie's story:an editor's eye view from Narrelle M Harris...

Natalie Conyer and Atlin Merrick share thoughts on writing, in their She Said/She Said series, entries alternating between Improbable Press and Clan Destine Press. ATLIN: Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! That advice is offered often by the privileged, to those with far fewer advantages. Except here's the thing: the phrase was originally coined as an indictment, it was meant to show that it's impossible to pull yourself up by your own feet. I feel it's the same with the absolutely bonkers advice of 'write what you know.' That advice has led to copious "literature" by white English professors...

By Natalie Conyer Winning the Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction for my first book, Present Tense, feels…it feels very…it's…I'm trying to think of the phrase! An out of body experience! That's it, that's what it feels like. Even though my impostor syndrome is up and running, I'm truly gobsmacked. When I was writing the book, I didn't give any thought to who was going to read it, I just wanted it to be authentic in terms of the South Africa I know, I didn't think of awards. Getting the award I feel incredibly thrilled, but I have...

By Natalie Conyer Does where you read a book affect your understanding of it? I ask because of a conversation I had with a friend. We were discussing books, and I said I was reading Olive Kitteridge. She said she’d read it but hadn’t enjoyed it. After a pause, she added that she’d been in Bali at the time, and perhaps that had affected her evaluation.I’m not sure about this. I know that context – place, time, state of mind – becomes part of the reading experience, and that it is forever entwined with what you’ve read. For example, years...

A sneak book peek into Clan Destine Press' award-nominated Present Tense by Natalie Conyer. "The mountain didn’t care. It was there before they came and would be there after they left, long after the lights of the city it held in its arms had flickered and died. All they could do in the meantime was to live beneath it as best they knew how." Natalie Conyer: I like this quote because it tells me something special about Cape Town, where my book is set. One of the main features of the town is Table Mountain, and that mountain, it just...