'Switching on the writing light'

 

“My earliest, most impactful encounter with a book was when I was seven and awoke early on Christmas morning to find Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in my stocking. I had never been so excited by the sight of a book - and have possibly never been since!” – Sophie Kinsella

  

Born in England on this date in 1969, Madeleine "Sophie" Wickham writes under the loosely termed style  “Chick Lit” through her 10-book Shopaholic series, translated into more than 30 languages. Her newest in the series is 2019's The Christmas Shopaholic.

  

“When I had the idea for Shopaholic, it was as though a light switched on,” she said.  “I realized I actually wanted to write comedy. No apologies, no trying to be serious, just full-on entertainment. The minute I went with that and threw myself into it, it felt just like writing my first book again - it was really liberating.”

Kinsella's roots are in financial journalism but she branched into creative writing at age 24 with the best-seller The Tennis Party (re-released in 2012 as 40 Love).  Since then, she has written nearly three dozen novels, the latest being this year's The Burnout.

 

Glad she started as a journalist, she said journalism                     

is a good foundation.  “Being a journalist is good if you want to write books: it teaches you to get beyond the blank screen. My books have been described as froth, but there's scope to be witty and ironic about everything in life.”