Journal Entry: Norwich Crime Festival, RJ Ellory

On March 30^th, I attended the final event of the Norwich Crime Festival featuring author RJ Ellory. This event took place at the Millennium Library in the Audio/Visual section again. This event was on the smaller side with less than thirty people in attendance. Unlike most of the past audiences, however, there was a good mix of elderly, middle-aged, and student aged people. I saw the most people looking like students in attendance at this event compared to previous events. Everyone was dressed in casual wear.

This event was unique compared to the past events I attended. Instead of mainly discussing his works and reading from them, Ellory spoke about his life and his on and off career as a writer, in turn lecturing the audience on what makes good literature. Ellory told the audience about how eventually became a published writer. He started off writing twenty-two novels, none of which were published. Finally, after more than 600 rejections and spending 12.5 thousand pounds, Ellory decided to give up writing. He did not pick up a pen even to write a postcard for eight years. One day, when sat at a computer at his job, Ellory began to write again and wrote his twenty-third book, which eventually got him published after a long fifteen years. After the publishing of this book titled, Candlemoth, Ellory was contracted for thirteen more books with his publisher. I believe Ellory chose to speak about his hardships in order to give the audience hope that if they do not give up, they will eventually succeed and become published like him. Ellory also spoke about why he chose to have his novels take place in America, saying he was greatly influenced by American literature and American-related things, including the Ku Klux Klan, Hollywood, and Marilyn Monroe. He also said he was interested in having his books take place in different U.S. states, but he only visited America when he did book tours. This indicates most of his research must be done indirectly while living abroad. Also, the fact that his books take place in America may mean his books receive more of an American audience, a possible reason why so few people may have shown up to his event in England.

After speaking about his journey to success, Ellory lectured the audience about what makes “good” writing “good.” He said that the best work one can do is write something they personally would want to read, not something they think other people would want to read. He said people should always write for themselves first, then friends, followed by money. If people ever get to the stage where they are writing for money, they should stop as they should only be writing out of pure passion, not greed. He also said people need to be able to work collaboratively as that is what needs to happen after one is published in order to have a very successful book. While Ellory was speaking, the audience was very engaged with many people taking notes about what he was saying in relation to writing a good piece of literature. Ellory was very well spoken and entertaining during his lectures. The time seemed to flow by quickly. He was very passionate and was dedicated to giving advice to help others. This was demonstrated when a woman asked him about authors that write similar work to his, and he offered to exchange email addresses in order to email her a list of authors and books he thought she might enjoy. No other speaker was that personal with audience members.  Then again not many audience members seemed as interested in the speakers as the audience for Ellory was. All of the people who asked questions asked about his career, with some being writers, but not all, being writers. This was interesting to me: I wondered why a non-writer would be so interested in Ellory’s career and choices. Almost everyone else who spoke to Ellory complimented his work, indicating they were all familiar with it.

Also at the event was a Waterstone’s table with a representative selling copies of Ellory’s works that could be signed by him after the event. Unlike past events, almost every single person that attended stayed after to either speak to Ellory or purchase one of his books. This shows that this audience consisted of true fans of both Ellory and his work, and were intrigued by him as a person. In all of the past events, very few people stayed after to meet the authors. I am curious as to what makes Ellory and his books so amazing that almost every person in attendance would want to spend more of their time after the event ended to further speak to him.  I may just have to read one of his books to find out.