One Apple Tasted: Josa Young

I'm so thrilled. I am hosting my very first author visit. I've been rushing around in a bit of a novice's panic, dusting and tidying; there's a bottle of virtual champagne chilling in the fridge and some rather tasty canapes, too (no sausages on sticks at my blog, oh no.) and Josa Young has just arrived, so come on in...

Josa Young is an experienced journalist, having worked on several British glossy magazines such as UK Vogue and She. As well as a novelist, she is also an internet content consultant.

One Apple Tasted tells the story of ever-optimistic Dora Jerusalem, newly arrived in 1980s London. She is "features assistant to the assistant features editor" at Modern Woman, a fashionable glossy, where she meets the louche and gorgeous Guy Boleyn who comes from a very different world. But this is not just a boy meets girl story; the novel moves between the 1980s and 1950s Home Counties and World War Two through a breathtaking trip to the Himalayas. Described by novelist Julie Myerson as a "funny warm, touchingly eccentric and irresistibly readable", One Apple Tasted is a story about love, friendship and the moments that change the course of a life for good

Welcome to my blog. Josa.

Thank you for inviting me; it is a great privilege for me to go visiting.

Could you tell us the inspiration behind One Apple Tasted?

I was working for a slimming magazine as features writer, and my mind did drift a bit when finding new ways to describe the life-changing effect of losing a lot of weight for the nth time. Not that these women were not inspiring – their determination was fantastic! I had been on an Arvon Course, with Beryl Bainbridge as one of the tutors not long beforehand, and she had really encouraged me to feel I could write a full length novel, having read some of my short stories. So, realising I would have a four week gap between editorial contracts, I dreamt up a plot so I
would be ready to start writing when I landed in front of the word processor (as it was in those days). The plot and characters were fully formed in my head, and the first draft was
there in five weeks (I was asked to start on a pregnancy magazine a week later).

Most people who visit this blog are writers as well as readers. I believe your path to publication took eight years via many rejections and a self-publishing attempt. That rings an awful lot of bells here because I and most of my visitors are writers as well as avid readers. Could you tell us a bit more?

It was much longer than eight years in fact from first draft to final publication. So long that when I was invited to upload a manuscript to see how the Authorhouse system worked, I thought
this might be impossible as it was saved on a floppy disc. I was writing about the various ways to get published for a women's magazine at the time. Luckily I found someone to convert it, and
sent off the old version on a modern disc. It was when it came back to me as online galley proofs that I could see what kind of edit it needed. So I started to take it all a bit more seriously
and did some further drafts, uploaded them to Authorhouse, where it just sat there as at that time I had no intention actually of self-publishing the final version. But it did mean that people,
armed with my password, could read it in a nice professional PDF online and get a good impression. Lorne Forsyth, who was relaunching independent publishers Elliot
& Thompson at the time, was one of those people and decided that One Apple Tasted would fit his first list well. The publisher Mark Searle took over, and OAT comes out today, 7 August 2009.

You recently wrote a great feature for the Daily Telegraph--More sex please. we're grown-ups. I agree with you that women prefer to read about deep passion a relationship rather than glamorous young people notching up multiple partners and orgasms Have you had much feedback?

I had some fantastic feedback, both in person, and on the site from women and men wanting to read about passion that actually meant something. And some from another version of that piece
published on the Huffington Post in the US that was less positive and ended up with a debate about porn. I felt that the commenter had not read the piece at all, and was just riding a
hobby horse!

In that article you describe writing the first draft in a freezing semi-abandoned building in Bayswater, London. What was all that about?

The Royal Society of Literature, now warmly ensconced in Somerset House, was at that time in some large dusty rooms in Hyde Park Gardens. The library was never used, and had a broken
window, so when I needed somewhere quiet to bash out my novel, Maggie Fergusson, secretary of the Society, kindly invited me to write there. It was February and freezing!

Tell us a bit about your main character, Dora. How much Josa Young is there in Dora? You have experience of working for Vogue magazine. Are we to assume Modern Woman magazine is Vogue with names changed to protect the innocent (or guilty)?

Dora is definitely not me, although as with most first novels – 'me' is a jumping off place. Her background and foreground are very different, as are the experiences of her family in earlier
generations. And her confused view of love and marriage is not mine either – I was a far more relaxed young woman. The only resemblances are university, career and dark hair (and some
anxiety of body size!). Modern Woman is wholly British magazine. Vogue originated in the US. Similar functions are required for the publication of magazines, and I drew on my experience of
these for Dora's day to day work.

Is it fair to say that One Apple Tasted is typical women's fiction? Some say that this is an overcrowded market. Would you agree?

I am not sure OAT is all that typical. I think one of the reasons it took so long to be published is because it did not fit neatly into any particular genre. It is women's fiction all right, but fellow novelist Isabel Wolff has compared it to a Virago Modern Classic, and I think I hark back to an earlier time when novels were not so rigidly defined. I packed a lot in, because it interested me to do so, and because I was finding a lot of modern fiction thin and insubstantial. 'Too much detail' was a common theme in my rejection letters. My current publishers were able to see beyond that to what they felt was a compelling and entertaining story. I have had terrific feedback from a wide range of people, from young women to older men, all commenting on how satisfying they found the book – which is what I was aiming for.

And achieved! Thank you, Josa, for dropping by on your tour.


One Apple Tasted is published by Elliott & Thompson.