helena frith powell

  • Lifestyle
  • Women
  • Beauty
  • France
  • Contact

Blog from the Emirates Festival of Literature

29th October 2013 by Helena Leave a Comment  

From the Author’s Desk… Helena Frith Powell

logo
We asked authors from our previous Festivals five questions and here are the answers:

How did you enjoy the LitFest experience?
I absolutely loved it, the quality of authors and events was fabulous. One of the disadvantages of living in the UAE is that you can sometimes feel quite far away from the literary world and the festival brought it all to our doorstep, a great achievements and great fun.
What current projects are you working on?
I am working on a novel, it is about some thirty-forty somethings whose lives fall apart and they find themselves sharing a rambling house in London living a student-style existence.
Describe a typical day in your life.
A typical day begins with yoga and ends with football. At least during the football season. I am a Chelsea fan and watch every game if I am not in London to see it live. I try to do yoga every day and then I sit at my desk writing, or editing or working on whatever I am working on. In the cooler months I play tennis a lot and go for walks. During term time I will skype the children at some stage during the day (they are all at boarding school in England).
What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you as a writer?
The first time a publisher approached me I thought he was either some kind of vanity publisher or a pervert. I had been trying to get published for years and then this man suddenly wrote to me, via the Sunday Times where I had a column in 2002, saying how much he loved the column and had I ever thought about writing a book? Thought about it? I’d thought of little else for years. Anyway I was convinced he was utterly dodgy so asked a friend of mine who is a literary critic to check him out. Turns out he was neither a pervert nor a vanity publisher and I am with him to this day.
What helps boost your creativity?
Reading, talking to friends, wandering around London or going for long walks close to our house in France. It is in the middle of nowhere and I get ideas as I stomp around the hills.


Filed Under: blog --> Tagged With: emirates, festival, literature

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

© 2023 Helena Frith Powell
Website by Web Inclusion
/* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:3em; -webkit-transition: all 0.8s; -moz-transition: all 0.8s; -ms-transition: all 0.8s; -o-transition: all 0.8s; transition: all 0.8s; margin-top:-100%; padding-top:100px; padding-bottom:50px; margin:0; } .scrolled .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:1.2em; padding-top:30px; padding-bottom:20px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .HFPA-section{ width:100%; background:#eee; } .HFPA-Image{ background-position:center right; background-repeat:no-repeat; height:276px; width:100%; -webkit-filter: grayscale(100%); /* Safari 6.0 - 9.0 */ filter: grayscale(100%); } .HFPA-Text{ padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .footIt{ background:#222; padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */