Jenny Knight in conversation - Event Report

It was a sunny and pleasantly warm Sunday afternoon and we were in the book tent, or Librarium, to meet the last author on the programme for this year's FolkEast Festival.

Held for the second time at the Sotterley Estate, the festival is a wonderfully relaxed and spacious event of music, arts and crafts. 

I was here to interview local writer Jenny Knight about her first novel 'Wild Moon Rising', the story of a woman seeking to find a new route in life at the end of her marriage, estranged from her son and at an age when society overlooks all that she has to offer. 

It's been a long road to publication for Jenny and in addition to telling us about the inspiration for the novel, she gave a candid and entertaining account of her wide-ranging working life. She's been employed as an actor, storyteller, teacher of creative writing and editor, and she's worked in prisons, farms, pubs, factories and the music industry as well as having spent time in Somalia and Kenya for the UN and Comic Relief.

She's won awards for her short stories and just as she thought she'd found an agent and a route to publication for her first novel, Covid struck and everything stalled.

It was becoming part of the 'Common People' project with the bestselling and award-winning novelist, Kit de Waal that Jenny found her 'big break'. 

'Wild Moon Rising' has proved a great talking point through its issues of friendship and desire, art and nature, and a 'coming of age again' post menopause and marriage break-up.

Jenny urged anyone seeking to become a writer to do so because they love writing, not in a pursuit of any 'fame' or 'fortune', or just for being published. And she says that it requires resilience and determination to stay the course. She was an inspiring and entertaining speaker.