Literary Birthday – 2 January – Mo Hayder

Happy Birthday, Mo Hayder, born 2 January 1962.

Five Quotes

1. In most crime novels the violent act, usually the murder, is the engine. Take that away and there is little left to drive the story along. So I do get a little cross with authors who aren’t precise about the violence they’re using to create tension because I feel they’re being dishonest with their readers. If people don’t like the blood and violence in my books, fine, they can always close the cover and put it aside and maybe read a romance instead.
2. I do spend a lot of time justifying my writing in a way I suspect I wouldn’t have to if I were a man.
3. I would LOVE to write children´s books. I would like to be like Roald Dahl, one of my favourite authors – he´s so twisted he´s just brilliant. But I think I´d have to write under a different name.
4. In retrospect I see that I was probably always totally suited for this job (bit of a dreamer, bit of a loner and a desperate need to control) My best advice to a fledgling author is: if you think it will be fun and easy to make a living writing then you are really kidding yourself. You have no idea what hard work it is. Most people give up when they work out how tough it is.
5. I do read a lot about criminals, and I speak to the police a lot. I’ve taken inspiration from real life, too, and most of my characters come from some amalgamation of different people I’ve met or read about. But at the same time, a lot of it comes from that creative ether that writers draw on without really understanding how they do it.

Mo Hayder is a British author of crime and thriller fiction. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, film-maker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator, and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia before becoming a full time writer. She has an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University UK.  She has written nine novels, including the titles Birdman, Tokyo, and Pig Island.

by Amanda Patterson

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