Simon Stephenson

Simon Stephenson is a writer and screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles. His first book was a memoir called Let Not The Waves Of The Sea about the loss of his brother Dominic in the Indian Ocean tsunami. It won the Best First Book award at the Scottish Book Awards 2011. Simon's first novel Set my heart to five was published in May and is available from Suffolk Libraries.

Who were your first literary heroes as you were growing      up and when did you realise that you wanted to write?

I was the kid who had read the entire children's section of the library by the time I was eight - so the honest answer is 'all of them' - but the first book I adored from the grown-up section was Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.  From an early age I was always writing, but it wasn't until I went to university that I really began to work at it by entering every short story competition I could find.

Your new book Set My Heart to Five is set in 2054. Were you a fan of Sci-Fi novels before you started writing the book?

I was, but perhaps not to the extent that committed sci-fi readers often are.  I read many genres, and so for me sci-fi novels are a piece of the puzzle rather than the whole.  The writers I admire most are often people like Kazuo Ishiguro, where each book is very different from the last and genre is an opportunity rather than an obstacle.

As a screenwriter did you have to adapt your style to      write a novel or did it unfold in cinematic terms as you wrote it?

A good question!  My hope with Set My Heart To Five was to tell a story which would give the reader the same experience I get from watching an old movie like 'Forrest Gump': laughter, tears, and an emotional release.  So I'd say that the book is deliberately structured a bit like a film, and the test of whether or not I can adapt my style will have to come with the next book!

Where did the idea for Jared come from?

I was living in San Francisco at the time, a city so obsessed with tech that it sometimes felt there may already be androids walking its streets, and my own day job was at a movie studio known for the profound emotion of their films.  I therefore spent a lot of time thinking both about the future and how movies generate emotion, and those are of course two big component parts of a screenwriting android.  The more human part - Jared's yearning for connection, yet awkwardness and inability to get it right - is something I definitely relate to, and likely comes from a more personal place.

Your love of film runs though the book. What are the  films that have influenced you most?

Again, the honest answer here is probably 'all of them!  Still, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and so the movies of that era will always hold the most powerful sway over me - things like Forrest Gump, Thelma and Louise and The Shawshank Redemption.  I think what they all have in common - aside from being big studio movies - is that they had heart by the bucketload.

Can you share anything about what you are working on at      the moment?

My current job is writing the screenplay for a potential film adaptation of Set My Heart To Five.  I have been around the movie business long enough to know never to get excited until the cameras are rolling - and even then to keep the champagne on ice - but it is still a thrill to be working on this.

What is the best advice you were ever given?

'Nobody knows anything' is the first line of legendary screenwriter William Goldman's book about his experiences in Hollywood, and it is as true today as it was back then.

Can you tell us one thing your readers may not know about you?

My first book was a memoir called Let Not The Waves Of The Sea, and - long titles aside - it is very different from Set My Heart To Five.