“How did you come up with that idea?”, “Is your main character based on anyone you know?”, “Why did you pick that setting?”. These are common questions authors get asked. And whilst, of course, a novel is for the most part the result of an author’s imagination, the building blocks often begin with little snippets of material they have come across in real life – places they’ve been, people they’ve met or merely passed on the street, things they’ve seen. I think we all, at some point in our lives, have come across a crumpled note on a piece of paper, a dishevelled stranger sitting on a bench, a rusty gate, a three-legged cat, a lone tree in a field of corn and thought “There’s a story there” or “That would make a good setting for a book”.

Well, this month, Susanna Kearsley has launched a Tumblr page, Farthermost Corners, posting pictures from her travels around the world to give readers a glimpse of the bits and pieces that proved to be inspirations for her novels. From The Middle Pier in Eyemouth Harbour pictured below (The Shadowy Horses) to a fountain in Chinon, France (The Splendour Falls) to a black and white cat she came across in Belgium (The Firebird – out January 2013),  now you can see how a writer  draws from everything around them.

It’s like we’ve been given access to behind-the-scenes footage and I look forward to seeing more pictures and discovering more of the building blocks that helped create her memorable stories.

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager