Author Emma Haughton talks to us about her latest novel The Dark and her favourite thing about being a writer.
Emma Haughton grew up in Sussex; after a stint au pairing in Paris and a couple of half-hearted attempts to backpack across Europe, she studied English at Oxford University then trained in journalism. During her career as a journalist, she wrote many articles for national newspapers, including regular pieces for the Times Travel section.
Following publication of her picture book, Rainy Day, Emma wrote three YA novels. Her first, Now You See Me, was an Amazon bestseller and nominated for the Carnegie and Amazing Book Awards. Better Left Buried, her second, was one of the best YA reads for 2015 in the Sunday Express. Her third YA novel, Cruel Heart Broken, was picked by The Bookseller as a top YA read for July 2016.
The Dark, Emma’s chilling new thriller for adults, was published by Hodder in August 2021 and is also available on our catalogue.
I worshipped George from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series when I was young. I collected all the books and would read them in one sitting. I guess those novels gave me my taste for mystery and adventure. And an as yet unfulfilled desire to have an island all of my own. One day…
I’ve always written one way or another. I have little holiday journals from when I was four or five; later on, I got into keeping a diary. As an adult I became a journalist, but didn’t try fiction for many years - I was too scared I wouldn’t be any good at it!
I confess I don’t really have a routine, which is probably why I find writing tough going most of the time. Organisation isn’t my strong point, and I’m easily distracted. But I did a ton of research for The Dark – the most I’ve ever had to do for a novel - and managing all that information was challenging. I read books on Antarctica, and watched every documentary I could find, but most useful of all were the personal blogs of the people who go out to spend a year on the research stations - their first-hand accounts of their experiences out on the ice were invaluable.
My first foray into fiction was a picture book, written when my children were very young. As they got older, I suppose YA seemed the next step. I remember thinking writing for teenagers would be easier than writing an adult fiction, which turned out not to be true at all! As teenagers never visit Antarctica – at least not to my knowledge – I knew this would have to be an adult novel. It also embraces some pretty dark themes that are better suited to adult rather than YA thrillers.
Big Brother in a cold, dark, impossibly remote location. No, seriously, it’s essentially a ‘locked room’ mystery with a cast of thirteen characters who have to endure eight months completely alone in one of the most hostile environments on earth, much of it in constant darkness with no hope of rescue if something goes wrong. Not surprisingly, tempers fray and Kate – the emergency replacement for the station doctor who dies out on the ice - begins to realise her colleagues are keeping some very dark secrets.
It’s set in a completely different, but equally challenging environment – the Sonoran desert in Mexico. As with The Dark, the heat and landscape play almost as large a role as the characters.
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg – the novel that made me fall in love with cold and bleak landscapes.
Writing in bed, and not getting dressed until lunchtime.
I can speak guinea pig, dog, sheep, horse and chicken. I have an under-rated talent for mimicking animals, which very occasionally comes in useful.
