Jackie Cornwall was Costa Women's 'Featured Woman of the Week'.

For anyone who isn't in the Costa Women network, here's the interview for 'Featured woman of the week? about Jackie, which was published yesterday:

Costa Women

Social and Business Networking Community for Women living in Spain

Introducing … Jackie Cornwall

Lets just right in and ask why Spain?

I love the culture, especially the culture of Andalucía – as a theatre person, I appreciate the colour and drama of Carnival, and all the processions and parades. Flamenco is a special interest, and I watch and listen whenever I can. I love Spanish people – I have four Spanish sisters and a whole adopted Spanish family – and find them warm and sympathetic in rather the same way as my Welsh compatriots. The language is beautiful and I like the pace of life, the small shops, the manageable size of the town where I live. And I can’t pretend that the weather doesn’t make a huge difference. I enjoy hot weather and feel comfortable on all but the most sweltering days. 

How did you choose Vejer de la Frontera where you now live?

Like most stories, it’s complex! My father loved Spain and after he and my mother divorced, he married a Spanish woman and moved to Valencia, where I now have four Spanish sisters.

My mother didn’t take this well, and for a long time, I felt it would be a betrayal to spend time in Spain, so though I travelled in many countries, I didn’t visit here.

My youngest son, Seth, was in his first year at university when I talked to him about this. I loved Flamenco and wanted to come to Andalucía, but… Seth said my mother wouldn’t know where I travelled to, so I told her I was off to Italy and booked a flight to Malaga. I travelled to Granada, Seville and Cadiz and had a wonderful time. After that, I visited Spain frequently.

In 2003, I decided that I wanted to leave the UK. I was fed up with the weather and disappointed by the politics. I came to Estepona with my family for a holiday and one day I took the car and drove off to have a look at Conil. I found it a bit disappointing (too much like the seaside town where I grew up) but on the way back to Estepona, I noticed Vejer at the top of the hill. I drove up and decided that I would be very happy to live here.

It wasn’t just the beauty of the place, it was the smiles and friendly remarks which greeted me. I instantly felt at home.

At the time, I was looking for a place in Montpellier in South-Western France, another of my favourite places, but having seen Vejer, I decided that I would be equally happy here. I returned a few months later with Seth and bought the flat I live in now.

I’ve never regretted choosing Vejer and now I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Before Spain

I had worked in a College of Further and Higher Education as a lecturer in English and Drama; a teacher and theatre director in Turkey and a sixth-form tutor in Cardiff. I also taught on the first UK undergraduate Gender Studies course. When I bought my flat in 2003, I was working with disadvantaged young people in Cardiff. Shortly afterwards, I began to work freelance as I devoted more of my time to writing, and was able to divide my time between Vejer and Wales.

In 2007, I accepted a job as Drama teacher at the Edron Academy in Mexico City. I worked with 12 fabulous teenagers and when I returned to the UK in 2009, I continued to work with some of them towards entry to drama school. In April 2010, I moved permanently to Spain.

How did you start your writing journey?

I learned to read very young and was enthralled by this exciting and imaginative means of communication!

When I was five, and fascinated by the natural world, I was given a book called ‘Enid Blyton’s Nature Lover’s Book’. It was my first experience of poetry and I loved this musical way of writing. I immediately began to experiment with verse and when I was six I wrote my first poem. It was called ‘The Swift’.

I wasn’t really satisfied with my poem, and I went on working on my skills. I continued to write verse and won prizes for poetry and other writing, but my family were not really literary and didn’t encourage my desire to be a writer, though they were keen for me to get a good education. I believe now that young people should always be helped and encouraged to follow their talents, but I had no mentor and nobody to encourage me and really, I didn’t know how to proceed.

I left home at the age of 18 and married shortly afterwards. I soon had a large family to care for. My writing career stopped for a long time, but the idea of writing again never went away. I studied English and Drama at university and went on to lecture in these subjects, always learning more about the craft of writing.

I started to write again in my thirties when I was asked to create a play for a festival, and then, at the age of 41, I went to work in Turkey. There, I met a poet called Simon Pettet, who encouraged me to get back to writing, and I started to write poetry again.

Back in the UK, my plays found an audience and between 1998 and 2008 I wrote for radio and the stage, while also reading and publishing my poetry in magazines.

Since coming to live in Spain, I’ve focused on non-fiction and writing novels. My book on the history of Vejer was published in 2011 and in 2013, I published a collection of poetry, ‘The Dancer You Were Waiting For – Poems 1991-2013’. In the summer of 2013, I published ‘A Summer in Flamenco’ in collaboration with Adrián Brenes Ureba and Kelly Lawlor. A Spanish verson ‘Un Verano de Flamenco’ is also available.

I also write two blogs – ‘Vejer de la Frontera day by day’ which gives timely information about the town I live in and ‘Flamenco from the Inside’, a continuation of ‘A summer in Flamenco.’

I now teach writing online and I also comment on and edit other writers’ books.

Publishing a book of Vejer History - tell us more

I’d written several plays and other items with historical content, and the first thing I did when I arrived here to live permanently was search for a compact and readable history of the town, and I found that there wasn’t one, I realised that I would have to write it myself.

I did my research in the town library, using some large and impressive tomes which I had to translate from the Spanish, and I supported this local research with more general writing about Spain, some of it in English. I also used the Internet.

The book took about 9 months, sometimes working many hours a day, but finally, it was ready for the printer. Rebecca Cornwall designed a cover and after a few false starts, I found a printer and ordered my first hundred copies.

We held the book launch at La Janda language school: it was a very popular event and we sold lots of books. Since then the history has sold about 400 copies. This year, it will go onto the Internet for the first time, and by popular demand, it is currently being translated into Spanish.

Thoughts on self-publishing?

Self publishing is now a mainstream activity and I believe almost half the books published in the UK are self-published. Commercial publishers have very high expenses and when they publish a book they take a big risk. It’s difficult for them to publish minority or niche titles and when they do, the rewards for the writer are very small. You have to sell enormous numbers of books to make any money.

With self-publishing, you are able to keep more of the profits for yourself, but you will sell fewer books. Although it’s difficult to make a living this way, you can earn useful sums of money to augment your income.

There are two big problems with self-publishing. The first is advertising and distribution and the second is quality control. It’s wise to find a proof-reader with an eagle eye whether you pay them or not, and you have to be endlessly inventive about marketing and promoting your book.

Although I wanted to print all my books locally, in the end it wasn’t possible and I have changed to printing by CreateSpace, a branch of Amazon which also handles distribution.

Actually, the Vejer book didn’t create promotion problems – so far it has only appeared in Vejer, which is the most logical place really! We’re now promoting our book ‘A Summer in Flamenco’. It will be serialised in three parts in the Olive Press, starting this Saturday, and we’re quite excited about that.

What is your next writing project?

At the moment, I’m tidying up some loose ends, and hope to have both versions of the Flamenco book online by the end of February, as well as the English-language Vejer history. During March, I’m taking a holiday in Australia, and when I return, I’ll be working on the rewrite of my novel The Three Witches ready for publication in June or July. It’s the first of a sequence of novels dealing with life on the frontiers of Europe and Africa, of inner division, and of the narrow line between respectability and criminality and yes, it’s set in a place very like Vejer!

Producing books must be like giving birth!  You have a large family, thoughts and tips on leaving children and grandchildren in another country for the members who feel the pull of the family.

Well producing books isn’t so painful, but it takes longer! At least with babies you know you’ll end up with something – with writing you’re never quite sure.

My family is one of the great achievements of my life and something I’m really proud of. They are all highly-qualified professionals with great jobs. The pull of the family is something I’ve had to think about. I delayed moving to Spain while my mother was alive, but I’m not sure that I was doing her any favours. My children are spread over the globe and always moving on, so it wouldn’t matter where I lived, I still wouldn’t see much of most of them. I feel guilty because I don’t help my daughter more with her seven-year-old, but I go back to the UK a couple of times a year and we have a good old yak! She also comes here when she can, and I’ll be seeing two of my sons and their families when I go to Australia.

Sometimes I envy the traditional Spanish abuela, who has all her grandchildren around her and a big say in how they are brought up, but that’s not the case with British families. Email, Facebook and Skype mean that you can be connected whenever you want – you just have to make the decision to think positively and use the resources you have. My family are fantastic and I miss them every day, but I also have close friends here.

You are also Director of Teatro Otro Mundo. How did you start that project?

I was having a glass of wine with my friend Aline when she said she fancied doing some acting. I suggested a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it took off from there. It took about a year to bring the production to the stage and the final production was, as it turned out, the world’s first-ever flamenco-Shakespeare fusion show. It was a fantastic success, but the problems were immense.

Teatro Otro Mundo is a theatre group which works to bring classic theatre to our part of Spain and we have also held workshops and campaigns to increase the scope of the theatre. We’re now seeing more classic theatre in Vejer and it is very popular.

Aline, by the way, is now employed with a theatre company, so we achieved our original aims. Another of our first-time actors studied acting in London after the show and others have gone on to other local groups.

Plans for the next production?

Yes, we’re hoping to do a production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s ‘Bodas de Sangre’ this winter.

You have obviously thrown yourself into life in Spain – any advice you can give for new arrivals?

I think some British communities are very different from this one: I can’t really speak for what it would be like further east, or in more British-dominated areas.

Don’t expect everything to be perfect at first – give it a year or so to iron out the wrinkles. Learn to speak Spanish so that you can hold a proper conversation. Be open-minded and avoid negativity at all costs. Accept that you are never going to achieve that perfect fusion of Southern warmth and Northern efficiency and make a decision to enjoy every day. That should do for starters!

And now you are starting a new group for members to meet up - Costa Women La Janda?  Tell is more.

There isn’t much more to tell at the moment. We’re in contact but haven’t held a meeting yet for reasons I could best describe as ‘political’. Our next move is to get together and plan a schedule of events and regular meetings and I think that will happen next week.

What do you do to relax?

I sleep, I watch films (I’m a film addict), I listen to music, I read books, I travel, I walk, I go out in the evenings to see plays or music shows: most of all I talk to my friends, often over a meal.

If you were a fictional character who would they be and why?

That’s easy – I’d be the heroine I created; Katarina de Breton. She’s tall, she’s cool, she’s clever; her hair is red and wavy; she’s an international lawyer with a past in violent revolution; she was trained by the SAS, she lives in a castle and you can meet her in July 2014!

Where do we find out more about your books?

You can find my books on Amazon; follow me on Twitter or Facebook or ‘like’ my blog pages  ‘Flamenco from the Inside’ and ‘Vejer de la Frontera day by day’.

Diamond Eyes website will be up and running later this month.

Thanks Jackie Cornwall