6) You speak regularly on social issues in the Lords. You are also Secretary to the All Party Writers Group (APWG) and your maiden speech on entering the Lords was about literacy. What work do you feel needs to be done in these areas?

I feel very strongly about literacy. I think we need to encourage parents to read to their children; however, sadly some parents can’t read themselves. There are such a lot of people who can’t read, I think it’s something like seven million. People say they can, but what it actually means is they can read a headline in a newspaper, or they can go to the supermarket and use the self-checkout. But they can’t really read. And I think that’s pretty grim to be honest.

I suppose to an extent television, computer games, the internet and anything that is an alternative to the printed book and the written word must play a part. I find the internet quite useful but I’d rather write a letter.

7) Your friend PD James, President of the Society of Authors (SoA), last year urged Secretary of State for Culture Jeremy Hunt not to cut Public Lending Right (PLR) any further. How important do you think PLR is today?

PLR is very important, and a very good thing. I think it should primarily benefit young writers who aren’t established, and it does that because it’s limited to a maximum of £6,000 [per year, per author], which I think is entirely correct.

8) What more do you feel needs to be done to protect the rights of authors?

I have lawyers who look after my intellectual property so I’m very fortunate. What I like about ALCS is that they find what you are owed from all over the world, from all kinds of peculiar things which you could never find yourself. All those small amounts they find really add up.

9) Many of your novels are now available as
e-books. How do you feel about this? Do you think reading a book electronically will ever replace reading the hard or paperback?

I wish it were not so, but I’m afraid I think it will.


10) There is talk of Adam and Eve and Pinch Me and House of Stairs being made for TV. How much input have you had in the past with your adaptations and will you be involved with these new dramas?

What happens over the years is you get terribly blasé about it! I remember going to Beverly Hills, years and years ago, as there was talk of one of my books being made over there. And I was terribly excited. Of course I didn’t know at that time that everyone says how wonderful everything is, what a huge hit it’s going to be, how it’s going to be the best book adaptation since Gone with the Wind etc. I now realise they say that to everyone and it means nothing. I don’t believe it even when the contract is signed. I don’t believe it till I actually see it on the screen!

When they made the Wexford books for TV, I don’t think they expected them to be a success. They did some silly things, such as taking a short story and stretching it out to three episodes, or taking a long novel and squeezing it into an hour.

You’re told you have input and you see the scripts but it’s never your version of it. I think to myself ‘if they want my characters why can’t they use my dialogue?’ You correct the script to be more what you want, then it comes back and it’s been changed to what they want. It happened to me eight times once! It does help raise your profile though. I wasn’t known at all until the television programmes came out in the mid 1980s. And of course it has a knock-on effect on your book sales, which is why everyone wants their books to be on television, not because it’s going to show the characters that you created.

You never have any input into casting in any case, although (the late) George Baker as Wexford and Christopher Ravenscroft as Burden were excellent.

11) Any advice you would give to new writers in today’s competitive environment?

I do think people now have it much harder because it’s that awful Catch 22 situation where you can’t get published without an agent, yet you can’t get an agent until you are published. That wasn’t the case when I was first published. I mean you didn’t need to have an agent at all.

You do have to be disciplined though. Anyone who is self-employed has to be. I frequently re-write my books, often the beginnings. I always want to have a good opening that will grab people. It might not be sensationalist but it has to be interesting, to hold people’s attention and make them want to go on reading.

12) What’s your next project and when can we expect to see the next Ruth Rendell or Barbara Vine book hit the bookshelves?

I’m going to write a book for people who have only just learned to read themselves to read to their children, for the National Literacy Trust. It’s going to be about the cats and dogs in my neighbourhood and what they get up to, but it’s not going to be twee or anthropomorphic. But I don’t want to say too much about it yet so watch this space!

Ruth Rendell aka The Baroness Rendell of Babergh has been writing crime thrillers for over 40 years. Her latest book The Vault was published this year and is the sequel to her previous standalone novel A Sight For Sore Eyes.

Lucey Jarrett works in the Communications Department of ALCS.

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