‘Oceans of silence beneath the words’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Orna Ross

My guest this week says her first novels were fuelled by nostalgia and the past. She wrote them while living in a small market town in England, and harking back to her former homes in California and Ireland. Her soundtrack connects her back to those places and their people. Traditional emigrant songs that remind her of stoic characters in her family, while the gay anthem of La Cage Aux Folles is symbolic of friends in the LBGTQ community and her themes of loyalty and personal autonomy. There’s also a special place for the BBC shipping forecast, which she used to listen to in bed as a child, finding poetry in its strange names.  She is Orna Ross – and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.

‘I write about love and hope’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Kim Cleary

My guest this week says she writes about love and hope – and that her writing is in thrall to songs about finding or losing love. She describes her novels as urban fantasy for anyone who longs to discover they are extraordinary, and her musical companions are a soulful, heartfelt ensemble – Joni Mitchell, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Leonard Cohen. She is Kim Cleary, she has published her first novel Path Unchosen, and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.