Fertile Imaginations

Esther Freud, Tracy Chevalier
Tracy Chevalier and Esther Freud are two of our finest novelists and are both contributors to Reader, I Married Him – a soon-to-be-published anthology of stories inspired by Jane Eyre. They talk about the creative process, their stories, writing historical fiction, and their latest novels, At the Edge of the Orchard and Mr Mac and Me, with documentary maker Olivia Lichtenstein.
Esther Freud trained as an actress before writing her first novel, Hideous Kinky, which was made into a feature film starring Kate Winslet. Her novels include: Peerless Flats, Summer at Gaglow, The Wild, The Sea House, Love Falls and Lucky Break. She lives in north London and Suffolk.
Image c. Emily Green
Olivia Lichtenstein is a BAFTA Award-winning documentary-maker and former editor of BBC’s Inside Story. Credits include Broadmoor for ITV and Melvyn Bragg: Wigton to Westminster for BBC2. She has written two novels: Things Your Mother Never Told You and Mrs Zhivago of Queen’s Park.