Interview with Megan Wynne, Author of The Spirit of Loughmoe Abbey
Inspired by the most hated girl in Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers Series, Gwen fails at boarding school until she befriends a ghost.
You mention having ADHD in your biography. How did your own experiences influence Gwen's feelings of being different and struggling in traditional academic settings?
My own feelings and experiences of having undiagnosed ADHD were a huge influence on how I wrote Gwen’s experiences of school. I found secondary school muddling, scary and boring. I was anxious much of the time because of how huge I perceived the work load to be. I remember not being able to sleep because I was so worried about having to complete a project. All my classmates boasted about how many pages they’d written and I worried that I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t know I had ADHD when I was twelve years old (I only found out two years ago at the age of 53!), and it was a huge help for me to receive the diagnosis. I finally understood why I find certain everyday things more challenging than other seem to. It was very interesting for me to write about Gwen’s difficulties at school as it helped me to understand my own ADHD. I was able to separate out the ADHD traits from own personality. For example being late for class, losing things, getting lost, needing space to be alone quiet, having trouble sleeping, finding comfort in animals. All of these aspects of myself (and Gwen) are due to having ADHD.
Gwen initially feels "useless" at everything until she discovers her unique gift. How important was it to show that everyone has different types of intelligence and abilities?
I think this is very important, especially for those of us who are neurodivergent. I received a lot criticism as a child due to my inability to organise and prioritise tasks, my untidiness and lack of focus. However with ADHD comes great pluses: I am creative, sensitive, good at art, can come up with many ideas and see the big picture. The world is full of all sorts of people. If we were all good at the same things there would be no variety. I love how some of us are good at doing things and others are better at coming up with ideas or sensing things. It has taken a long time for me to appreciate my gifts, and I think it’s terrible important that we all do, even if (or especially if) our gifts are different to the majority of people’s gifts.
The school exists somewhat outside normal time and space. What drew you to create a magical educational setting rather than a purely realistic one?
I am extremely interested in magical realism. It is far more interesting for me to write about a magical world alongside our real one. Ever since I was a child I was fascinated by fairy tales. To me they existed alongside the actual world that I lived in. I was terribly disappointed when I found out that fairy tales weren’t real. I had thought they were historical fact. The world became grey to me after that but when I began writing fiction I realised that I could create magical worlds, just as others had created fairytales. For that reason Gwen doesn’t go to an ordinary boarding school. She needed to be somewhere special with an otherworldly element to it.
I’m always fascinated by the different ways in which authors world build. The Bell Tower serves as a portal between worlds. How did you go about creating this thin veil?
I grew up spending my childhood summers in Glendalough, a glacial valley in County Wicklow where monks lived hundreds of years ago. The ruins of their monastic site remain there today; there is a tall round tower, a roofless church and small stone buildings. It was amongst the ruins, that I imagined monks praying over and over and causing the veil between this world and the next to fade. There is something very special about that place. I feel that their prayers changed the atmosphere, bringing us closer to God and whoever is on the other side. I am drawn to such places and often visit old monastic sites and graveyards. I imagine the lives of the monks and their devotion to a spiritual life.
The ending suggests Gwen will help other students communicate with spirits. Are you planning to continue this series, or is this more about giving her a happy ending? (Sometimes, the happiest endings are the ones in which we can see our much-loved main character continuing on happily.)
Yes, I am planning to continue writing a series about Gwen. In fact I have begun writing book two already. Gwen is haunted by the grandmother of her least favourite classmate, Delphine. She travels to France with Delphine to sort out a family mystery. I have planned three more books in the series in which Gwen communicates with spirits connected to her classmates. Gwen is an interesting character. She has lots more to learn and I don’t want to let go of her yet.
How did you approach writing the fire sequence and its aftermath? The way reality seems to shift and heal is quite complex.
I didn’t plan the fire sequence or its aftermath. As I neared the end of the book, the writing began flowing from me like a river rushing down a mountainside. At the time I was on an artist’s retreat at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in the midlands of Ireland. https://www.tyroneguthrie.ie/ The retreat centre is an Anglo-Irish House that sits on a hill surrounded by trees overlooking a lake. I have visited this centre many times and it was the inspiration for Gwen’s boarding school, Loughmoe Abbey.
I’d been staying at the retreat for about a week when the words began pouring onto the page. I had no idea what was happening but I trusted the words would bring the story in the right direction. It felt wonderful to feel the story gushing out of me and I am very pleased with how the book ended. The same happened when I wrote the end of my previous novel for children, The House on Hawthorn Road. I didn’t plan the ending, it came to me in a rush of inspiration as I was writing. The end of story revealed itself to me in an unexpected and magical way. That is the most exciting thing to me about writing.
Book Two in the series is coming next. In this novel Gwen is haunted by the grandmother of her least favourite classmate, Delphine. The grandmother’s spirit won’t leave Gwen alone until Gwen helps Delphine to save their family chateaux in France.
Where
can we find you?
You can find me at my website www.meganwynne.com
Instagram @meganwynnewrite
Facebook
@meganwynnewrite
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