I swear I made you up - Apology to Vellanoweth, by Roz Morris
It’s a funny thing, releasing a novel. You think you’ve made everything up, then someone informs you that it’s not as fictional as you’d hoped. And moreover, you got it wrong. Th e other day I had an email to say that the fusty village where I’d set the action in My Me mories of a Future Life was not spelled Vellonoweth but Vellanoweth. ‘No it’s not,’ I replied, thinking my correspondent had a cheek. ‘I made it up.’ ‘It’s near Penzance,’ he said. Oh dear. It was. I honestly had no idea the place existed. My Vellonoweth, with an o, was inspired by a stand-out surname I spotted in a magazine. It embodied everything I needed for my setting - a fusty, sleepy hell full of dreary people. If I used a real town I couldn’t take it to the stifling depths I needed. But it turns out there is a real Vellanoweth. So I may have some apologisi ng to do. Here it is. 1 I’m sorry I gave you a terrible amateur dramatics society, which was performing a musical they’d written themselves abo...