AUTHORP ROFILE
FL EVERETT
MargaretJames talks to the journalist and author about plotting, planning and juggling different kinds of writing
Journalist and novelist F L (Flic) Everett considers herself lucky to have creative parents. ‘Mum was a playwright who wrote scripts for Play for Today, Crown Court and Coronation Street,’ she explaisd. ‘I grew up listening to her clacking away on a Victorian typewriter, and I learned plenty about the ups and downs of the profession. Dad was (and still is) a BBC Radio 4 producer, working on documentaries and The Moral Maze. They made me realise it was possible to write for a living.
‘I wrote my first crime story “Foiled” when I was seven, about a parlour-maid who killed the lord of the manor with a fencing foil. At school, Double English was my favourite subject, because it meant I could make stuff up for eighty minutes.
‘I started writing my first novel when I was twenty-two, but I’d just had a baby, and the need to earn a living got in the way. So I became a journalist instead, and for a long time I wrote about real life. But I never stopped thinking about writing novels.