In Conversation with Natasha Lester & Sara Foster

On Thursday the 30 of March 2017 I had the privilege of being able to go to my local library and seeing Natasha Lester and Sara Foster in conversation with each other. Basically what they each told us a little about their book, read a small section from it and then asked each other questions about their writing process etc with the floor opening up to audience questions for about five minutes at the end. The whole thing lasted for about an hour and it was an hour well spent.

Probably the most important thing I took away from this was the fact that Natasha and Sara have different writing processes, although neither really plot their books. It was confirmation for me that every writer is different and therefore if your process is working for you then don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.

Natasha is disciplined and she joked how that should be her middle name. She writes every day, except for when her children have two months off from school. Before her children have their holidays though she writes twenty thousand words and lets that ferment in her brain for the next two months. It allows the story to sort itself out in her mind and when the kids go back to school she is ready to write her latest novel.

Sara on the other hand writes in fits and starts. She laughed, telling an anecdote about how a woman tried to use her as an example for discipline. The woman had a little girl with her and asked Sara to tell the girl how she had to write everyday to be a writer, Sara told the truth, that she did not write everyday, but she did think about writing everyday. Not quite the point the woman was trying to make.

The books the two women write are also very different. Sara writes psychological suspense while Natasha writes historical fiction. I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Sara’s work, but she has five books published and that doesn’t happen by chance or poor writing. Natasha’s work I have read some of and she has several books published. I am currently reading her novel, A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald and I am in the wonderful predicament of finding the writing easy to read but the content makes me slow down a little bit so I can compare the story to today’s society and see how much it has changed. Or not in some cases.

Both women were happy to interact with the audience and it was lovely to see them appreciate the people that took the time to come and see them. Sara and Natasha are with different publishers but their latest novels had the same publication date and this combined with their personal friendship saw them do a few publicity events together, this being one of them. I wish them both every success with their latest novels.

To find out more about Natasha Lester’s latest novel, Her Mother’s Secret, click here. For more information on Sara Foster’s latest book, The Hidden Hours, click here. Both links will take you to the respective author’s website where you can find information on buying the novels as well as the authors’ other stories.