Anna Wilson - Author
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Congratulations to Anna Wilson, our Woman of the Month for September.
Anna is a writer, based in Penzance, who has published over 60 books, poems and essays for both adults and children. Her children’s series, Vlad the World’s Worst Vampire has been translated into thirteen languages. Her picture book Grandpa and the Kingfisher was shortlisted for the Wainwright Nature Prize in 2023.
Her memoir: A Place for Everything – my mother, autism and me, is about her mother’s late diagnosis of autism at the age of 72. It has been reviewed as “a seminal work in this area” by the world expert in autism in women, Professor Tony Attwood and was featured on BBC Woman’s Hour. Anna shared her experience with us at Hypatia, back in March 2023.
Her latest book A Story of the Seasons is published by Nosy Crow and the National Trust in 2024.
As well as writing, Anna teaches creative writing. She was an Associate Lecturer at Bath Spa University and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Exeter Penryn. She is running a - now fully subscribed - community reading group at Hypatia under the Reading Round project. The project is funded by the Royal Literary Fund.
Please join us in congratulating Anna on her wonderful achievements, and we look forward to her inspiration here at Hypatia.
@acwilsonwriter on Instagram and Threads
Royal Literary Fund profile: rlf.org.uk/writer/anna-wilson
1. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Publishing my memoir A Place for Everything. Autism in women was not very well understood when my mother was diagnosed in 2015, so it was difficult to find a publisher who was interested.
2. What motivates you to do what you do?
I am motivated to write simply because I can’t not write. It has always been the way I make sense of the world, ever since I started keeping a diary when I was 7. I am motivated to teach by the great joy I receive from people when I see that “light bulb” moment or when a student gets a publishing deal.
3. What do you owe your mother?
Gillian was a stickler for spelling and grammar and loved the rigour of language-learning. She pushed me to do well academically and I owe my editorial career to her as well as a love of languages in general. I read French and German at university and went on to learn conversational Spanish. Mum’s true love was Latin, but even though I didn’t study the classics after O Level, her passion was handed down to me in the form of a fascination with how many western languages work.
4. Which women inspire you and why?
My grandmother. She had to leave school at 14 to become a dressmaker. She was a very creative woman, so spending time with her involved lots of craft activities, including making miniature gardens, cutting out paper dolls and making clothes from paper for them, baking cakes, sewing… All these activities have found their way into my non-fiction books for children.
5. What are you reading?
I have just finished Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore whose beautiful lyrical writing I have admired for years. This was her first novel after years of writing poetry and books for children. It is set in 1917 and is about D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda and their friendship with a local (fictional) girl Clare Coyne who becomes an artist. It covers topics such as shellshock and xenophobia and is very moving. I need a break before picking up anything new!
6. What gender barriers have you had to hurdle?
I did not even think about this until I was 16 when I went to a mixed school and came slap-bang up against incredibly confident young men who would talk over me in class and laugh at my opinions. Until then I had had a single-sex education and been raised in a family of strong women with a father who was gentle and encouraging and never made me feel anything was beyond my capabilities. Suddenly I was forced to realise that I would have to speak up or be silenced if I was going to work with and compete against men. In the workplace I have been frustrated by how male writers have often been paid more than women, even when it comes to running workshops in schools.
7. How can the world be made a better place for women?
I would have to echo previous women who have been interviewed by you – it needs to be safer. The #metoo movement shone a light on too many stories – it was shocking to hear that we all had experiences to recount which we had not dared speak about before – and there have been too many more recent examples in the media of violence against women.
8. Describe your perfect day
Get up as early as I can, walk the dog down to the coast path, come back and have a coffee and write, then meet friends at Rising Embers sauna in Newlyn, dip in the sea and have another coffee while chatting and laughing with the wonderful women I have met in Newlyn and Penzance. Write more in the afternoon and end the day with a glass of wine and a good book or a drama on the telly.
9. We’ve noticed there really aren’t many (if any) statues of women around Cornwall – who would you like to see remembered?
Laura Knight. I know she was not Cornish and I know we are already lucky enough to be able to see her work in the Penlee Museum, but she was a remarkable artist who evoked the glory of the West Penwith landscape in ways that still stir the soul to this day and her portrayal of women is always raw and true. She had stiff competition from her male contemporaries, yet in 1936 she was the first woman to be elected a Royal Academician since the eighteenth century. That alone merits a statue, surely?
10. Give us a tip?
Writing is like swimming in the sea in winter. Sometimes it is easy and glorious, sometimes the very thought of it leaves you cold. But the more you practise, the better you get at it. So just dive in!
