My Story
Clare Harvey is the acclaimed author of four novels. Her first book, The Gunner Girl, won both the Exeter Novel Prize and the Joan Hessayon Award for debut fiction.
Clare was born in North Devon. Her family moved several times whilst she was growing up, and she spent part of her childhood living in Mauritius.
After finishing school, Clare took a diploma in fine art at Plymouth University, followed by a degree in Law at the University of Leicester. She also has postgraduate qualifications in print journalism and English tuition, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Nottingham.
Clare is currently working on a PhD in creative writing at Coventry University. Her thesis follows her passion for rediscovering the often overlooked experience of women in history and reworking their voices into fiction.
Writing a Book
As the ‘trailing spouse’ of a serving soldier in the British Army, Clare has lived all over the world. She worked in journalism, public relations and English tuition, before finally realising her secret dream of becoming a writer.
Starting
“I started writing The Gunner Girl when I discovered that my mother-in-law had been a teenage soldier in the Second World War. This sowed the seeds for a deep and lasting curiosity into the way wartime changed young women’s lives and the incredible resilience they demonstrated in the face of danger. There are so many stories, still waiting to be told…”
Planning
“I love stories that have a strong sense of place. I was still an army wife when I wrote The Gunner Girl, and living on an army barracks, so the sights and sounds of military life readily suffused into the pages of the book. When I started to set stories further afield I felt I had to go and visit the locations.
Writing
” After the inspiration and the planning is done, there’s the strange concoction of panic and joy that fuels the writing process itself. All writers have their own favourite writing rituals. I like to write longhand, in fountain pen, untethered from the desk/laptop combo. I’m happy to write anywhere, but I find I’m most happy working in bed, with my dog beside me…”