Claire Allan is the author of Rainy Days and Tuesdays. Her book is a hilarious, yet pointed look at motherhood. Her contemporary fiction has become a favorite of many and readers anxiously await her second novel. I had the chance recently to speak with Allan about her writing.
Jill Hart: Hi, Claire! I’m curious, how did you get started writing?
Claire Allan: I’m a journalist by day; I work for a local newspaper here in Northern Ireland called The Daily Journal. I’ve been working as a journalist for about 10 years. I actually started creative writing, always liked writing when in school. When I was turning 30, which was 1 1/2 years ago; I just decided I really wanted to write. It was kind of a now or never type thing and at the same time a friend of mine passed away. She had brain cancer and she passed away like six months before I turned 30. We had always chatted about one day we would write this book - she loved writing as well but she never got the chance. It sort of inspired me on to think that, well, if she didn’t get the chance to, who am I to throw the chance away? So, I started writing Rainy Days and Tuesdays.
Jill Hart: I love the book, it was absolutely fabulous. It’s so open, honest and fun. This is silly, but I love the fact that she goes on medication. Nobody talks about it. I really liked that part of it. It’s just completely honest and entertaining. It was somewhat like reality and yet it was an escape because it was someone else’s life.
Claire Allan: Exactly. A big thing for me; anything I write I like to be really, really brutally honest about it. In my writing as a journalist, I write a weekly column which you can read on the blog – I upload every week. I’m always really honest about my life and what’s going on. People at work tell me I can’t believe you have written that in the newspaper. I even wrote at one stage how many stitches I had with the episiotomy when I gave birth.
People will relate if you are honest and you are talking from a real place. Maybe as a journalist, I speak to a lot of people and tell them very human stories. I’m used to really telling the nitty-gritty so it was important to put that in the book and there is a lot of humor in it as well. There is a lot of humor in every aspect of life, every tragedy, every tough situation and I like to reflect that so it’s not just dragging people down all the time.
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