Questions and Answers

Why do you use a pseudonym?
I’m not a big fan of pseudonyms as they can make life a bit complicated. But I share my real name, Patricia Kay, with my mother. She wasn’t all that keen on me writing under this name in case people thought that she’d written the books. There are sex scenes in a couple of them and the first book was pretty critical of sectarianism in my hometown, where my mother is a well known figure and served as a local councilor. Northern Irish politics being what it is, she was (understandably) nervous about being associated with the book. And I didn’t want to use my married name, Gibb, as it just didn’t feel right.

So I had to invent a pen name. If my last child had been a girl we were going to call her Erin, so that seemed like a good choice. But when I did a search on Erin Kay on the internet, it linked to a porn site! So I had to add an “e” on the end. As it turns out there’s an American writer of woman’s fiction called Patricia Kay so it’s just as well I didn’t use it. Phew – sorry, that took so long to explain.

You have young children. When do you find the time to write?
I write when Ryan Liam are at school. And I also work most nights and often at the weekends too, when Mervyn minds the children. It means that my writing time is “bitty” which isn’t ideal – I work better when I can get good long stretches of time to really go for it but that rarely happens. When I'm under pressure to meet a deadline Mervyn takes the kids off to Ireland to visit family. I do (almost) nothing but write solidly the entire time they are away and write in a few days what it normally takes me three to four weeks to write!

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
I thought I did, but now realise it's just procrastination. My main problem is squeezing the time to write into a busy family lifestyle.

Do you have any pets?
We have a Border Terrier called Murphy. We got him as a puppy in 2006 and training him was hard work. But he's turned out to be the best dog in the world and I really mean that. He is so obedient and well-behaved, wonderful with children and so good natured. I think we've been very lucky. I like cats too - I used to have two long-haired smoky blue cats called Bonnie and Clyde - but can't have one now due to the dog. Murphy would try and eat a cat!