Laura Barnett
Asucccesful journalist struggling to realise her lifelong ambition to become a novelist, Laura Barnett knew she had to make some hard decisions, writes Tina Jackson.
‘I wrote two novels before The Versions of Us – they still exist, on my hard drive, which is the modern equivalent of a drawer. And large segments of other books. It was always my dream and ambition to be a novelist, so I started writing when I was about five. I got a job in journalism and I guess a really difficult moment came when I got to thirty, and I’d shown my work to agents and they’d say, you write really well, but they’d have qualms about the whole book. And nothing was published. I’d had to accept the second novel wasn’t going anywhere. It was starting to feel more serious.’