Deborah Smith
Deborah Smith
Deborah Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 35 novels in romance and women's fiction. Her books include 21 series romances under her real name and under two pen names. Her bigger novels include Miracle, Blue Willow, Silk and Stone, A Place To Call Home, When Venus Fell, On Bear Mountain, Charming Grace, Sweet Hush, The Stone Flower Garden, Alice at Heart, Diary of a Radical Mermaid, The Crossroads Cafe, A Gentle Rain, and Solomon's Seal:...
country students korean
All of which suggested literary translation, and Korean seemed a good bet - barely anything available in English, yet it was a modern, developed country, so the work had to be out there, plus the rarity would make it both easier to secure a student grant and more of a niche when it came to work.
reading long together
I suspected learning a language would be both useful and enjoyable (I love memorising lists of things), and would get rid of the embarrassment of being monolingual at 21. I'd been obsessed with reading for as long as I could remember, the only thing I'd ever thought I might want to be was a writer, but I was much better at crafting sentences than at stringing plots together.
dream past reality
There's no linear narrative - the structure is more like a series of variations on a theme (how identity is shaped by language), with the past constantly bleeding into the present, dreams into reality. And the language, while incredibly lyrical in places, also has this underlying dissonance, the sense of it having itself been translated.
lying bed flattery
Flattery is a lie covered in a bed of flowery words.
closure people protesting
People protesting the closure don't live in the area.
constantly express opposition patriotic people unjust
It's important for people to constantly express their opposition to unjust policies. It's our patriotic duty.
inspirational ocean insperational
There’s something very freeing about losing the anchors that have always defined you. Frightening, sad, but exhilarating in a poignant way, as well. You’re free to float to the moon and evaporate or sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. But you’re free to explore. Some people confuse that with drifting, I suppose. I like to think of it as growing.
might excited should
Instead of fearing what might happen if I failed, I should be excited about what could happen if I succeeded!
people getting-older looks
Happy people look young. You’re really afraid of getting older, aren’t you? You should only be afraid of getting less happy.
years london firsts
I taught myself the first year course while I was on the dole, then moved to London to do an MA at SOAS, which led straight into a PhD.
believe wish
Wish it, believe it, and it will be so.
memories pieces might
The hardest memories are the pieces of what might have been.
water guarding depth
We are all bodies of water, guarding the mystery of our depths, but some of us have more to guard than others.
class skills literature
I did my BA in English lit, and hated the restriction - I'd always read more in translation than not; coming from a working-class background, what I knew of as British literature - the writers who made big prize lists and/or were stocked in WH Smith, Doncaster's only bookshop until I was 17 - seemed incredibly, alienatingly middle-class. Then in 2009, just after the financial crash, I graduated with no more specific skill than 'can analyse a bit of poetry'.