Beginner’s Pluck: Sarah Freethy on keeping her creative side open
Author Sarah Freethy
Encouraged by her mother and elder sister, Sarah became a fanatic reader at age eight.
“We’re like a coven,” she says. “We still share and discuss books.” Loving art, drama and writing equally, Sarah found it hard to choose a career.
“My degree led me to the BBC hub at Pebble Mill in Birmingham, and then I moved to London and worked for lots of independent companies. I’ve been writing for TV for 30 years.”
To keep her creative side open, she blogged, painted and did photography.
She worked on various topics, and documentaries, and also on script consultancy for dramas.
“I’ve done whole screenplays but have worked more with existing drama.”
During the lockdown of 2021, Sarah decided it was time to take fiction writing seriously, and she penned her debut which started with her interest in the Bauhaus.
“I wanted to unpick the decade in Germany where everything changed.”
1971/ Poole, Dorset, but from four, lived in Milton Keynes.
Stantonbury Comprehensive; Birmingham University, Cultural studies.
Easton, just outside Winchester.
Partner Philip. Daughter, Esme, 12, and a lurcher, Martha.
Full-time writer. “I still work on scripts, and I’m doing consultancy on another TV series.”
“I’d like to have been an artist, who was more talented than I am.”
Hilary Mantel; EM Forster; AS Byatt Siri Hustvedt; John Irving, and Tove Jansson.
“It’s another historical novel based on art but set in fascist Italy.”
“You don’t have to find writing easy to complete a novel. Writing, for me, is hard work, but the editing is occasionally delightful.”
www.peonyandpraxis.com
@sarah.freethy
Max, a Jewish architect falls for Bettina, an avant-garde artist, but its 1929, and Berlin is changing.
Max ends up imprisoned in Dachau, where he is set to work fashioning the exquisite porcelain pieces the Nazis so admire.
Is there a way for Bettina to help him?
In the war’s aftermath, Bettina buries her past, and after her death in 1993, her daughter, Clara sets out to discover her identity and uncover her mother’s secrets.
A fascinating, compulsive novel showing the effect of Nazism on art.
