First-time novelist Tish Delaney isn t sure if she ever really wanted to write a book. She seems genuinely bemused that national magazines, newspapers and veteran authors such as Roddy Doyle are praising her debut, Before My Actual Heart Breaks, which has just been published. I used to write short stories - I ve written hundreds of them, she says, chatting via Zoom from the home she shares on the Channel Island of Alderney with her partner, artist Neil Paterson. One day, Neil said to me, All these short stories… you do know that what you re actually doing is writing a book?
First-time novelist Tish Delaney isn t sure if she ever really wanted to write a book. She seems genuinely bemused that national magazines, newspapers and veteran authors such as Roddy Doyle are praising her debut, Before My Actual Heart Breaks, which has just been published.