Escaping Between The Pages: Why Pamela Cook Loves Writing Rural Fiction.

​There’s nothing like escaping – and one of the best ways I know how is by sitting down and writing.  Of course the best escape is a real one but when that’s not possible, disappearing into a virtual world, one where you can create your own setting, characters, events and emotions is, for me, the next best thing.

 
I started writing books set in idyllic country places is because I lived in the city – or at least, the suburbs  - but in my heart I wanted to be sitting on a veranda gazing out at the bush. Luckily I did get to do that fairly often, at our holiday home near beautiful Milton on the NSW south coast.  The time I spent there fuelled my engines – writing and otherwise – and gave me the inspiration for my first novel Blackwattle Lake.
​Since then I’ve written three more books, all set in or around country towns – my visit to the Queensland outback last year gave me ideas for my latest release The Crossroads.

---

 The setting is only one element. Creating strong characters, coming up with complicated emotional plots centered around family and relationships and being drawn into the story as I write all help me to escape in the same way I hope my readers do when they sit down with one of my books.
 
What do you do to escape when you can’t do the ‘real thing’ ?

​Pamela Cook is a city girl with a country lifestyle and too many horses. Her rural fiction novels feature feisty women, tangled family relationships and a healthy dose of romance. Her first novel, Blackwattle Lake, was published in 2012 after being selected for the Queensland Writer’s Centre/Hachette Manuscript Development Program. Her following novels were Essie’s Way (2013) and Close To Home (2015) and her fourth book, The Crossroads, is due for release in December 2016. An eclectic reader, Pamela also enjoys writing poetry, memoir pieces and literary fiction and is proud to be a Writer Ambassador for Room To Read, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes literacy and gender equality in developing countries. When she’s not writing she wastes as much time as possible riding her handsome quarter horse, Morocco.
 
Pamela loves to connect with readers both in person and online. You will often find her lurking in one of these places:
 
www.pamelacook.com.au
www.facebook.com/PamelaCookAuthor
@PamelaCookAU