Those that regularly follow my blog, you'll know that from time to time I like to interview authors that've really touched me.  Usually either fiction or non-fiction stories about life abroad.
Jessica Bell, an Australian author I befriended here in Athens shared with me her excellent poetry "Fabric" whilst Sonia Marsh discussed her book "Freeway to Flipflops" with me - one family's brave story of a year spent living in Belize.
Then I became interested in authors who focused on writing about Greece. Dario Ciriello kindly shared with us his interview about "Aegean Dream" - a year on the Greek island of Skopelos.
Sara Alexi wooed me so much with her fiction novel "The Illegal Gardener" and I felt privileged to receive an interview from her.

Now it is the turn of Paul Dillon, an English author living in Los Angeles, author of "The Magic in the Receiver" a fiction novel intertwining three timelines and fully explores the 1953 Kefalonian earthquake told through the effects on two families.  Paul kindly agreed to answer some more in-depth questions about this novel.
Your debut novel is based in Kefalonia, successfully intertwining 3 stories into one and showing us the harsh reality of the 1953 Kefalonian earthquake.  You are British and live in Los Angeles, what inspired you to base your novel in Kefalonia?  Have you ever spent any great length of time there?
Many readers have asked whether I lived on Kefalonia - unfortunately not. I spent seven days there, with my children, in the summer of 2009. My kids grew up in the UK but spent vacation time in the US. Sometimes we’d take trips to Europe—we’ve visited several Greek Islands over the years. The kids were all-but grown up by 2009 and I had the feeling that Kefalonia might be our last trip together. In that regard, the island has a very special meaning for me.

Kefalonia did weave her magic spell over me, and it would be a great place to fall in love, but the story is fictional. Having said that, everything we write contains elements of personal experience. The more we pour ourselves into our work the more we draw on our past. The original story idea does have a tenuous link to reality: I did have lunch in Fiskardo, at the quayside taverna where the protagonists meet. There was something supremely relaxing about that afternoon. My children and I sat at the very table described in the book – there was even a girl, behaving in the same manner as my female MC. I seem to remember thinking “I wonder what her story is?” There was no love-thunderbolt though—don’t think I was even vaguely attracted to her. It was the moment, the place … the way I felt, that dragged me back to that spot to start the story. What is Love? The novel is about love and its existential nature rather than a love-story. On a side note, I remember being hopelessly in love, many years ago, on the island of Corfu but that’s another matter. Suffice to say, love and the Greek Islands go hand-in-hand.

I did quite a bit of research into the 1953 Ionian earthquake and tried to describe events as accurately as possible. There are some interesting accounts of the rescue efforts online and I even managed to track down a copy of the long out-of-print Time after Earthquake by Evan John. Being a writer is so much easier in the Internet age. J


LOL - maybe it’s because I live in Los Angeles. No, I don’t have a thing for earthquakes.

There’s sure to be a Japanese novel in my near future - hopefully it won’t involve a disaster. Although I’ve lived in Los Angeles for the past seventeen years, the strongest earthquake I’ve ever felt was in Tokyo - but let’s not tempt fate.