Indie Author Spotlight – Ayla Page and “Rowan and the Oak Tree”
I’ve got a really outstanding indie author to introduce to you today – Ayla Page.
Ayla Page was born in West Yorkshire, England on the only snowy day of the year. She moved to Bournemouth on the south coast of England, in 2007 at the age of eighteen to ‘seek her fortune’. There she married and had a daughter before moving back up to Yorkshire in 2010.Now a divorced single mother, Ayla is reading Psychology at university with her eye on a distinguished writing career and the esteemed prizes that accompany such.
A harrowing short story about Rowan and her abuse.Can she escape the perpetual darkness she finds herself in?
Or will she succumb to a worse fate?Already an International Bestseller!
Love for a child through the eyes of a mother.Twenty-four poems on the painful and priceless moments of parenting.
Memories that many mothers will recognise, feelings that few can ignore; this short book is a poignant insight into the powerful love that can only be afforded by a mother.“Take your time to read this. Read it a little at a time. Like children, poems are flowers that need time to bloom and grow.” Tessa Kay
”A touching insight into the trials and tribulations of motherhood.” Alan Weir
Who is your favorite author?
What’s this, start off with a tough question so I find the rest of the interview less scary? That’s a hard one. I love Stephen King for his fine, dark mind and talent with words for painting a picture; I like to hope that I write like he does.
However I think he’s tied very closely with Jean Auel, author of the Earth’s Children series (or ‘The Ayla Books’ in our house) whence my name came. She’s another one who can paint with words. Not just pictures but entire landscapes. She conducted thorough research and this is evident in her writing. You could almost make the medicines Ayla makes, thanks to her detailed and dedicated descriptions.
How do you describe your writing style?
Well. I couldn’t describe it for you at all. I just put my fingers on the keyboard and brain-goo comes out and magically appears on the screen. But others have told me I have a very traditional, old fashioned and somewhat poetic writing style.
Use no more than two sentences. Why should we read your book?
Rowan In The Oak Tree is a story that needs to be read, not because I need or want the sales, but because people need to know that not every childhood is a happy one; children can and do suffer regularly. I wanted Rowan to highlight the pain that exists for children that happens under our noses; that it isn’t always in Third World countries that children are in danger.
Have any of your characters been modeled after yourself?
Rowan, I hate to admit, is modelled after a much younger me. Jasmine, the mother in my current Work In Progress, is also very loosely based on myself. But no one knows about that one yet so shh!
If you could exchange lives with any of your characters for a day which character would you choose and why?
I would possibly like to be ‘Puppy Peyton’. He is loyal and carefree and has the devoted and undying love of his ‘little madam’, Rowan. Though he, too, is mistreated, he loves Rowan, Rowan loves him, and nothing else exists for him. To live such a simple life seems so inviting!
What books have most influenced your life?
Stephen King’s Carrie was the first horror book I ever read. First Stephen King book I ever read. It’s also the one that inspired me. I wanted to write ever since I read that book. That and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. I read it as part of an English project, and liked it so much I bought myself a fresh copy a few years later. I identified with Holden Caulfield, possibly more than I should admit to having!
If you could select one book that you could rewrite and add your own unique twist on, which book would that be and why?
Ooh I’m not sure. There are several I would have liked to have ended differently, but most of I wanted the poor boy in Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom to see his mother punished for what she did to him and his baby sister, rather than being able to escape with her bad deeds.
Beatles or Monkees? Why?
The Beatles were overplayed in my childhood home, so The Monkees by default, I’m afraid!
Who should play you in a film of your life?
I think that Drew Barrymore (when she was a child, obviously) would have done marvellously in the role of myself as a child. She was fantastic in the film made from Stephen King’s novel; Firestarter. However, I think she’s too soft spoken and genteel to play the adult me, so that might need to go to someone such as Julianne Moore, simply for her part in The Forgotten.
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