Q: How long did you carry the idea of “The Lost boy” around with you before you started to write it? Was there a particular moment when you knew you just had to do it?
Stevie: I had the core of the story in my head for 30 years. When I was rather lonely and living by myself in 1989, I used to tell myself a tale about meeting the man of my dreams in the most extraordinary circumstances through time travel. It was my way of consoling myself that there was someone and something better for me beyond what I was experiencing at that moment. The story stayed with me and eventually in 2009 I overcame my own self-imposed limitations and started to write the book. The trigger of this was a very sad time of my life as one of my dearest and most beloved friends Katy was diagnosed with Leukemia and passed away shortly afterwards. The book reflects much on great love and loss and although Katy’s character is not in the book her death greatly influenced my writing by putting me into a highly emotional state.
Q: A lot of your book is set in the London of the past. How important is the researching or the history of these times and places to you?
Stevie: It was very, very important for me to get the historical facts right, I felt that what makes the storey believable even though it’s a fantasy. The parts of the storey that deals with WW2 London are very accurate, for example the description of the Kennington Park bombing. I was fortunate enough to already have studied wartime London in a research project so had a lot of material to hand. Throughout the book I paid great attention to detail so very often even the weather is historically correct particularly the part that is set in the long hot summer of 1989. In other parts music that is played by club DJ’s in the 70’s and 80’s is absolutely correct for the period. Part of the book is set in Eva Peron’s Buenos Aries in 1948, the details of the air journey there and also the descriptions of Evita, what she wore and how she spoke and also of Argentina are accurate. I have had a life long fascination with Eva Peron and Argentina so again much of this context was familiar to me. Some of the period detail perhaps is more subtle than that but one of the things I particularly enjoyed writing about was the desolation of London Docklands during the 70s’.
Q: Spirituality and symbols play a large role in your writing, are they two things that have always interested you?
Stevie: Absolutely, I was involved for several years with a neo-pagan group and I have had my eyes opened to the bigger universe and my sense and understanding of matters spiritual. These are a key part of what makes me. We can eat breath, work, play, procreate and eventually die but without our spiritual self awareness then we do not have depth or breadth, we do not have resilience to fall back on when times are tough and we are not able to give back to the universe what is has so generously given to us. We can also have no sense of what else there is other than the hard tough material world or the amazing pathways that can be opened to us if we have an open mind and heart. Ultimately one of the main themes of the book is the spiritual path of the main characters, including the baddy!
Symbols are very important because they can be things that can tap into our subconscious and deeper more mystical selves. So for example in the Tarot cards, the various suites, Pentacles, Wands, etc. can operate on several levels They can look like a pretty picture of course, but equally they can awaken something in the mind of the Tarot Reader which enables them to guide the person that has come to see them. Symbols can set off an echo response in our minds tapping into our sub conscious mind without the need for words.
Q: You have many characters from all walks of life and places in this book. I am really enjoying the guardian characters of Iris, Michael and Olga. Can you tell us a little about them?
Stevie: I would love to. ! Well, starting with Olga, she’s a Trans Woman, who was previously a lorry driver from Canvey Island called Stan, and when we first meet her in 1972 she has adopted the name Olga Stanovic and is maintaining she’s some type of Eastern European Countess. In common with many in the era she’s prone to making hideous fashion mistakes and can be seen with lurid orange hair and hot pants. She is part of the drag troupe ‘Sally and the Slutz’ who perform mimed numbers in tacky Gay pubs in South London.
The thing with Olga is on one hand she’s extremely tough and would be your best ally in a fistfight but on the other has the biggest most loving open heart imaginable. She is a constant guardian to one of the main characters; Charlie and she can sometimes speak to him extremely firmly and bluntly when he needs putting on the right path, whereas at other times she pours out all the love and also practical and emotional support required.
Moving onto Micheal, Micheal has had a tough up bringing in Manchester and after fleeing ended up in even more trouble with the seamier side of Gay London. Most people would have been bitter after society treated them so badly but Michael is not like this, he wants to use the benefits of his experiences to help other people, wether if be working in a drug rehab centre or counselling young LGBT people. He is decent kind and generous. He has a black and wicked sense of humour including maintaining that two harmless old Queens he knew from the North had something to do with the Moors Murders. He also has the most bizarre taste and decorates his various homes with completely tasteless religious kitsch, for example a Virgin Mary hat stand. He is a bit of a paradox as he can sometimes be found snarling around butched up in black leather and at others up to his armpits in flour making a fruitcake or doing and Ena Sharples impression in a hair net.
Lastly Iris, Well Iris starts of the book as a young girl in the Blitz, and ends up in her 80s’ in the present day. In later life she is ever glamorous and even in old age has barely a grey hair. She will not leave home without putting on her best Chanel suit and doing her make up. She is fiercely loving, determined and at times capable of being tough, She carries her own inner wound and after a failed marriage to a useless husband refuses to settle down again and entertains herself with increasingly young and vigorous lovers. She has the sight and through her Tarot readings she sees the future and in her dreams she is told much of the storey that is going on with people that she loves and is shown how she must help. Now Iris is everyone’s favourite Aunt, she is very glamorous and my god you would want her on your side but she represents something else as well, and now I am going to become a little enigmatic as its up to the reader to decide but I think that more Pagan minded folk will see it first. !!
Q: Can you talk a bit about “Dreamland”?
Dreamland is actually a few relatively small sections of the book but has some of its most important narrative in it. Firstly Dreamland is of course about the places that we visit when we are asleep but it’s also a reflection of the sub conscious of the characters who go there. It is the interface between their waking conscious self and their sub conscious, which has been shaped by the events in their stories. It’s also the part where some of the characters sight is at their sharpest and they are shown things, in the past or future, which are important in unfolding events. When the book is being read I expect that some of the Dreamland sections do not make full sense the first time they are seen, but they carry clues and messages about what is going on and the sharp eyed reader will pick these up. When the book is read again or the Dreamland sections are re-visited the reader will see how they slot back in place with the conclusion.
Q: I’m wondering what your writing routine is like. Do you work at the same time and place each day or do you have a more fluid way of working? Do you have a favourite place to write?
Stevie: Completely fluid and random, like me!
For me it’s not so much the place, but the mood I am in. Some days, wherever I am I can sit at the keyboard and it’s a struggle to get anything out, other days I can write a chapter in an hour and it just flows out of somewhere …I’m not entirely sure where sometimes!!! I write a lot in my study in Dulwich, I’ve written on holiday I’ve even written a few words in airports, but I suppose if I were to pick an absolute favourite place to write, when the mood is in the right gear, is sitting by a peaceful beautiful spot on the Thames listening to a little weir, which is where I spend some of my weekends. On reading the book you will soon spot the influence that has had one particular section of prose.
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