WRITER Sarah Frank­lin was interviewed at a ‘meet the author’ event in Coleford on Friday (March 23).

Sarah Franklin, who grew up in the Forest of Dean, returned to her roots to be interviewed by BBC Radio Gloucestershire’s Jo Durrant about her writing and career.

The Woodcroft-raised writer’s critically-acclaimed debut novel Shelter, published last year, is set in the Forest and was inspired by the recent campaign to stop the government sell-off of local woodland.

The University of Gloucestershire, Glouc­estershire Libraries and Radio Gloucestershire hosted the talk at Coleford’s Main Place, and was followed by the free workshop on writing book reviews, as part of the £3m Forester’s Forest Lottery Heritage Programme

After reading about plans to sell off parts of the Forest, Oxford Brookes University publishing lecturer Sarah turned to another period of threat for her debut novel, the Second World War, when the Forest served as a sanctuary and timber resource.

Her story weaves together the experience of local Foresters, an Italian prisoner and a woman brought to the Forest in the newly-formed Wom­en’s Timber Corps.

The story of loss, identity and new beginnings – centred on the experiences of the independent, wilful Connie – are told against the turmoil of the changing forest.

Sarah, who was a pupil at Tutshill Primary and Monmouth School for Girls, is also a promoter of literary events, judge for the Costa Book Awards and writes for the likes of The Sunday Express and The Guardian.

Currently penning her second novel, also set in the Forest, she said: “The concept that my formative landscape could be sold off randomly was just unfathomable.

“I wrote about it for The Guardian and realised that this, maybe, was the book I needed to write. It is brilliant to go home to chat about books: it is literally all I wanted to do when I grew up. It is still all I want to do.

“It’s the best landscape in the world to grow up in because it gives you so much freedom. I passed my driving test not long after the Sculpture Trail started being built, and one of the first things I did was drive up to Beechenhurst with friends so that we could take our own obligatory ‘band album covers’ beside the Big Chair. I’ve got one of the photos on my desk still, so even though the chair itself no longer exists, I get to see it every day. 

“After exams, we’d come up to Wenchford to sunbathe and wade down the stream. I took my own kids back there a couple of years ago... I think it’s so magical there that I gave the characters in my book a picnic scene in Wenchford.”

Drawing on her experience in the publishing world, Sarah also coached people at the two-hour book review workshop in how to assess books they read.

Jo Durrant is familiar with the tradition of Forest authors from her work on BBC Radio Gloucestershire’s programme on Leonard Clark and more recently, Winifred Foley.

She is currently researching and recording a series that illustrates the influence of women’s writing from the Forest of Dean over the last two centuries.

Roger Deeks of the Reading the Forest Project said: “Sarah is a passionate advocate for the Forest of Dean and the latest in a long list of Forest authors inspired by the place.”