Making crime pay

But it’s been a long road, she tells Steve Pratt.

YEARS ago, Mari Hannah was a published poet – “silly little poems”, she dismisses them as – but a nasty incident while working as a probation officer led to her becoming a full-time writer. And one, now, with a deal with one of the country’s leading publishers.

The circumstances that caused her to give up work with the probation service weren’t pleasant. “I was assaulted at work and that ended my career,” she recalls.

“A physical injury meant I was off work for two years. I needed major wrist reconstruction, which was quite painful. I had such a weakness in my wrist that I had difficulty writing with a pen and started to work on a computer, which I found much easier.”

Her background – in community services, prisons and as a crown court liaison officer – led her to crime. Or rather, writing about it.

With her previous work and a former DI for a partner, she has all the background and research she needs to ensure the crime trilogy that she’s writing has the ring of authenticity.

Now this previous winner in the Northern Writers’ Award has signed a three-book deal with Macmillan to bring her North-East set novels with their heroine Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels to bookshelves.

She has nothing but praise and thanks for the New Writing North awards in setting her on the right path, with as yet unpublished novels sent to South Shields born movie director Ridley Scott and Robson Green’s company Coastal Productions as potential film and TV projects.

“I entered the awards two years previously and didn’t get anywhere,”

says Hannah, who lives in Corbridge.

“But I had good feedback with people saying ‘keep going and re-enter, the judges liked your stuff’. That really encouraged me to put something in again last year.”

She emerged as one of the winners, so perhaps it’s no surprise when she says New Writing North has been “a brilliant agency” to her.

As the 2011 Northern Writers’ Awards are launched, her message to aspiring writers is a straightforward one of “go for it”.

“For a new writer, it’s difficult to get over that initial embarrassment of showing your work to other people,”

she says. “Between the first and second time I entered, I was invited to a New Writing North networking event to meet agents and publishers.

Unless you get a connection with a new writing agency, those opportunities are few and far between. I don’t think I would ever have been in a situation where I could go networking with so many agents and publishers in one room.”

HANNAH was introduced to her literary agent, Oli Munson, at the event in July 2009.

By the time she won a Northern Writers’ Award the following year, her novel was already on the desk of her editor, Wayne Brookes, at Macmillan publishers.

Her first crime novel, The Murder Wall, will be published early next year in this country, followed closely by the second, Settled Blood. Two books in one year to “grow the addiction”, as Brookes told her. An earlier deal means The Murder Wall will be out in Germany first during this year.

Hannah has had help along the way. She entered another competition, the BBC’s End Of Story, in which writers had to complete a story begun by Rebus author Ian Rankin. “I didn’t win, but it inspired me to do other things,” she says.

“Then I won a place on a screenwriting course run by Northern Film and Media to write a feature film. I put in a crime pitch and they thought it was more television than film. So I pitched a rom-com and ended up writing that, but it’s not been produced yet.

Hannah also won a North-East Voices project from NFM and the BBC. “Writer Michael Chaplin was my mentor, so I got to work one-toone with him. Then I decided to go back and write the books I’d started a long, long time before.”

Hannah has set the Kate Daniels series in the North-East, all over the region in fact. “I know the area Northumberland police cover and those are my parameters. That’s where I get my inspiration from. I do like to go out and do site visits.”

Her background meant that crime books were perhaps inevitable. She joins a long list of female crime writers, although she points out they’re all different. Ann Cleves, for instance, is totally different to Val Mc- Diarmid.

“I read a lot and not just British crime writers. I was a crime reader before I wrote,” she adds.

Now Hannah’s a full-time writer.

“It started out as a pipe dream. But I’ve had so many people say, ‘keep going, you’re doing really well’ and I’ve sort of followed that advice.

Every year something bigger and better has happened. It’s been brilliant.”

NORTHERN WRITERS’ AWARDS

The 2011 Northern Writers’ Awards are open for submissions from writers of prose or poetry until April 21. Writers are invited to submit up to 5,000 words or up to 20 poems of a work in development, for a chance to share an award pot of £25,000.

The awards are open to any resident of the North-East (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and the Tees valley) writing fiction, narrative non-fiction, poetry or children’s books. The awards are supported by Arts Council England and sponsored by The Leighton Group.

More information and how to enter at newwritingnorth.com/awards

Miranda’s big day

BRIDAL boutique owner Miranda Marie Holland, from Eaglescliffe, is celebrating her first year in her business in style... by choosing the dress for her own wedding.

She’s tying the knot at Wynyard Hall Chapel in July.

“I am hoping to choose a dress from one of my own designers,” she says. These now include Donna Salado, Jasmine Bridal, Amanda Wyatt, Annette Carey and Lou Lou, so she’s not short of choice, and the range is still expanding. “My two sons, Ashley and Adam, are giving me away and my daughter Imaan and my fiance’s daughter Emma are my bridesmaids. His son Dan is best man.”

Miranda worked in engineering as an account manager for ten years prior to opening the bridal shop in Yarm, in February last year. “It was my fiance Rob who set me up in business and made my dreams come true,” she says.

As well as bridal gowns, Miranda Marie also sells bridesmaid and occasion dresses, tiaras and headdresses, veils, silk and satin bridal shoes and jewellery.

“Customer service is everything to me and I like to make my brides feel welcome and relaxed,” says Miranda.

“My brides travel from places such as Newcastle, Leeds, Lincoln, Wetherby and Manchester.”

Miranda Marie, 57 High Street, Yarm TS15 9BH. Tel: 01642-913551.

mirandamarie.com