Fiona Snickers | Spire

Kim Hunter
Jun 1, 2017
2 min read

Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutes

Photographs from the event on Facebook

As a first-time book launch attendee at Love Books in Melville, I was surprised and gratified at the number of people who fit into the store! Fiona Snyckers is the author of several books, with Spire being her latest. Gus Silber (journalist / author) took on the role of interviewer for the evening and asked the most interesting questions of this beautiful writer.

The inspiration for this story came from a news snippet on a rescue of some gravely ill people from the base at the South Pole. This sparked the idea of isolation for long periods of time under extreme conditions. Polar madness is a condition experienced by people living in places which have extended periods of light or dark. Because of the extreme conditions, people live together, but isolated from others. This idea caused the author to examine her past to find the times she felt lonely in order to make the emotions experienced by the characters, real. Writing is a lonely occupation, but this author revels in it. Her preferred method of writing is by dictation which is sent to a typist for transcription. Ms Snyckers noted that she does not read anything new while writing a first draft, only old favourites so that there can be no unintentional interweaving of the stories.

This book was posted daily in chapters on FaceBook – a new technique for this author. She noted that there was a mixed reaction to this – some couldn’t wait for the next chapter and others just wanted the complete story. It also challenged her to write a chapter each day with an ending that kept the readers itching for the next instalment. It has resulted in a book with short chapters for a quick reading experience with lots of suspense.

When asked about the amount of detail used in this book, Ms Snyckers noted that she actually added more technical detail because the story demanded it. Previous experience has shown that less technical detail usually works better and so the initial amount of detail was scant to preclude the removal of thousands of words during editing.

Although Spire is a stand-alone novel, there is a connection with her previous book and the one currently being edited. ‘Now Following You’ introduces three sisters, the second of which features in Spire.

A wonderful evening overall in a cozy venue.

Watch the launch: