Featured Interview With Alfred Read
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m from Portsmouth, England, which is where I currently live, although I’ve also been known to reside in London and also Bristol. I live with two horrifying entities that I’ve been told are actually “domestic cats”.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
That’s going way back, possibly to the early ‘90s. I can remember reading the Lord of the Rings as a kid and enjoying it so much I didn’t want it to end, so I intentionally left the last page unread so it never would end, at least for me. My initial writing forays were political and journalistic, which ultimately led me to work as a journalist, although this ended with the pandemic (a lot of journalists were out of work then) where I decided to try my hand at writing historical fiction.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite genre (or the genre I seem most likely to read) is science fiction, particularly the novels of Dan Abnett. He’s one of those writers who manages to be succinct but also vivid, which is something I hope to imitate. Given that his stories are usually set in the Warhammer 40K universe (where there’s war and yet more war) he still manages to create characters that seem authentically human (assuming they are really human to begin with) which, in my opinion, speaks to some real skill and depth on his part.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
England’s Martyr is essentially an attempt to create an accurate piece of historical fiction that drops the usual pro-viking, anti-Christian tropes and tells a story that I feel is more faithful to the realities of the epoch. It’s largely told from the English perspective (hence the name) and tries to engage with the desperate environment they would have faced in the early 11th century, where repeat invasions and bungled leadership have brought the nation to the brink. It also introduces a certain actually existing English hero, Edmund Ironside, who I feel hasn’t got anywhere near the level of attention I think he deserves. I hope to finish telling his full story in subsequent books, as, like “Hereward the Wake”, he’s another legend of this country that many people know little about. That should change.