Mike Kernan interview
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
When did your love of books begin?
I learned to read before I started school because my father would run his finger along the text of comics and books in time to his voice. When I was four, my mother took me to the public library for the first time and I chose something by Beatrix Potter. She later told me we weren’t even home 30 minutes before I finished the book and wanted to go back to the library.
When did you start to have the wish to become an author?
I flirted with the idea from my late twenties and started working out plots in my head on drives home from work. But I wasn’t so good at writing them down - somewhere in my loft I have a bunch of manuscripts that rarely got beyond Page 17. As the cliche goes, life kept getting in the way.
How have you found the process for becoming an author?
When I first tried seriously with a book around the late 1990s, I found the engagement with agents and publishers grindingly slow and frustrating. I worked in daily newspapers where the response to any enquiry was, by necessity, measured in minutes. Two or three months between letters, then emails, drove me mad. After a year or so of this, I got a promotion and my full-time job became all-consuming so I abandoned the idea of trying to get published, though I did keep on writing.
The pandemic focused my mind. I have other health issues and wasn’t sure if I would survive Covid so I decided if I wanted to meet my ambition of having a book published, it was now or never.
I made no attempt to find an agent or publisher because I didn’t think I could afford the time. I published through KDP and found the process smooth and straightforward, even for someone not technically minded. I’m glad I did - sales and reviews have surpassed my expectations and I would recommend it to anyone.
What would you say to those wanting to become an author?
As the song goes, it’s later than you think. Do it now.
Tell us about your book/books:
My first novel, The Fenian, tells of two lovestruck teenagers who are part of a gang growing up and playing in 1970s Scotland. The couple are torn apart by sectarian divide then come back into each other’s lives 25 years later when they need to decide if they will risk everything for a second chance.
I can’t quite figure out the genre. On the face of it, The Fenian is a coming-of-age story but it’s also a romance, a gritty drama, a comedy and a tragedy.
The sequel, Stopping To Rain, will be out later this year.
My first non-fiction book, Fishing In The Sun (…and the rain, wind and snow), is a collection of quirky, funny and insightful stories on my other great passion. To explain the title, I write an angling column for The Scottish Sun.
What do you love about the writing/reading community?
I love the passion, the empathy, the willingness to open up - not surprisingly with great eloquence at times - and the pleasant realisation that not everyone in life is out to cut your throat.
If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?
Thank you for the feedback and the messages of support and sharing - you’ve no idea how much it means.
The response from readers has been the single biggest bonus of publishing books.
Where can people connect with you?
I’m on Facebook and Messenger - search for my name and you’ll see me holding up my books.
I’m on Twitter - @mike_kernan.
Email - mikekernan60@gmail.com
And here is my website.
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