Ann Cleeves is chatting to me from her kitchen table in Northumberland‘s Whitley Bay where she writes her famous novels Vera, Shetland and more recently The Long Call series, all now iconic TV detective dramas adored by millions around the world.
Not that she knows how her books are going to end when she’s writing: “Thats the fun. I don’t need to know who’s done it, just what happens next,” the famous crime writer grins.
‘I don’t need to know who’s done it when I’m writing. just what happens next’
But then, mid interview, Ann suddenly develops a violent fit of coughing and everything goes quiet. Hello? It seems terribly ironic that her silence could be misconstrued as something far more sinister, something we laugh about when she returns still spluttering. “My tea went down the wrong way,” the renowned author chuckles.
Warm, chatty and open, Ann Cleeves seems as far removed from the horrible murders from which she makes her living as possible, and yet her zest, work ethic and compulsive writing show no sign of abating.
I mention her kitchen table because it will no doubt feature in Ann’s upcoming appearance at The Oxford Literary Festival with Val McDermid on March 16, entitled Some Places Cry Out For Murder, where the famous duo will discuss the evocation of place in their work.
‘I can’t imagine waking up in the morning without anything to do’
As Ann’s latest book The Raging Storm, the third instalment in the DI Matthew Venn series (The Long Call), published on March 14, is set in North Devon where she grew up, Vera in Northumberland where Ann now lives, and Shetland where Ann fled after dropping out of uni and where she met her beloved husband Tim, it seems a fitting premise.
“One of the things that makes me stick out is concentrating on what I know, and that’s Shetland, North Devon and Northumberland,” she reiterates.
‘I felt a bit out of it at university I suppose, and it felt a bit indulgent to be discussing poetry all the time’
So how did someone as dedicated, articulate and literary decide university wasn’t for her? “I was at Sussex University in Brighton which was full of students studying theatre and politics, so very trendy. Having grown up on the North Devon coast, I just felt a bit out of it I suppose, and it felt a bit indulgent to be discussing poetry all the time,” she shrugs.
“I just wasn’t very happy there so I left, because you don’t need to be at university to read.” Ann hasn’t looked back since, proving that university isn’t for everyone, moving to London instead to work with kids in care.
And then Ann had a chance meeting in a Putney pub at a leaving party. “They were heading off to be assistant warden in the Fair Isle Bird Observatory,” Ann remembers. “I said I wouldn’t mind spending a summer in Fair Isle and he said that if I was serious they were desperate for an assistant cook.
‘I couldn’t cook but I got the job anyway, even though I didn’t even know where Fair Isle was’
“I couldn’t cook but I got the job anyway, even though I didn’t even know where Fair Isle was. But I was 20 years old and wanted to have a bit of an adventure. It was the perfect opportunity.”
And so the die was cast, falling in love with Shetland from the minute she arrived. “I absolutely loved it, even though I was ill on the mailboat on the way there because it was very stormy and the sea was really lumpy. They served me a date cake and that was the end,” she remembers gleefully.
“But when I arrived it was spring and there were puffins and chaffs everywhere, and the islanders were so lovely and would tell us Shetland stories and legends over tea, lunch and of course whisky,” she smiles.
It was on Fair Isle that Ann chanced upon avid bird watcher Tim Cleeves, and a spell was cast that lasted until her husband’s death in 2017.
Ann, however was not a keen ornathalogist, so when they moved to a nature reserve on Hilbre Island, at the mouth of the Dee Estuary, where Tim worked for The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Cleeves began to write. The rest as they say is history, albeit a slow progression, taking an assortment of jobs while her first novel A Bird in the Hand, was published in 1986. In fact, she didn’t take up writing full time until 2006.
‘you don’t need to be mean to people, there are always other ways to get your message across and make things happen’
And yet Ann Cleeves’ achievements are still jaw-dropping – author to more than 35 critically acclaimed novels, selling over six million copies worldwide, garnering millions of TV fans and becoming a winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger, while still enjoying every word that she writes.
“I just sit in my kitchen thinking about things and making stuff up, and I just love it. So while I don’t think of myself as prolific, I write a book year. I can’t imagine waking up in the morning without anything to do,” she says.
Her recent announcement that there would be no more Shetland novels, plunged fans of DI Jimmy Pérez (us included) into a period of prolonged mourning. But instead Ann is steadfastly concentrating on her new foray – The Long Call series, of which there has been one TV series so far.
So why kill such a revered series as Shetland with so many fans? “Well there are only 23,000 people who live in Shetland and there have been eight books. There can only be so many different things that happen there,” Ann says in exasperation. “So it was definitely time.”
‘I wanted to write about something else – a different community with different problems’
“And besides I wanted to write about something else – a different community with different problems. Because to understand people you have to understand what preoccupies them. In Shetland that was fish, sheep, and weather, while in Devon it’s different; the price of houses forcing the locals out for example, so I still listen out wherever I go. Most authors are good at eaves-dropping.”
“I also kind of knew Venn before he even arrived. He’s a rule-keeper, and more vulnerable than you’d expect. He has a very sexy kindness and knows how he would like to see the world, so questions everything.
‘to understand people you have to understand what preoccupies them’
“Because you don’t need to be mean to people, there are always other ways to get your message across and make things happen,” she says.
When she’s not writing and appearing at literary festivals, including the Bay Tales Festival which she introduced in Whitley Bay, and Shetland Noir, you can find her pottering in her garden: ‘The snowdrops are out and there is frogspawn in the pond,” she tells me.
Ann is also heavily involved in her charity Reading For Wellbeing. “Not everyone can afford books. Reading for pleasure is so important and shouldn’t be related to status or income,” she explains.
It aims to provide an escape for people going through a tough time. “One of the biggest problems is loneliness, and reading is such a great way of meeting other people though the Community Reading Worker projects in the North East,” she says.
So how does Ann feel then about leaving her kitchen table to appear at Oxford Literary Festival on March 16? “I don’t mind public speaking, and Val McDermid is an amazing speaker so it will be grand,” she pronounces. And with that my time is up, Vera and Venn ready and waiting in the wings as always.
Some Places Cry out for Murder, with Val McDermid and Ann Cleeves, chaired by Alan Johnson is on Saturday March 16, 6pm at The Sheldonian. Book here
Oxford Literary Festival runs from March 16-24. Go to https://oxfordliteraryfestival.org for more info.
The Raging Storm is published by Pan Macmillan and available from all good bookshops or online. Find out more here
