Alan bradley books in order

Interview

Alan Bradley discusses his first novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - the first of six planned books set in England in the 1950s, starring 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce.

With the publication of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, you've become a 70-year-old-first time novelist.

Have you always had a passion for writing—or is it more of a recent development?

Well, the Roman author Seneca once said something like this: "Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms – you'll be able to use them better when you're older." So to put it briefly, I'm taking his advice.

I actually spent most of my life working on the technical side of television production, but would like to think that I've always been a writer. I started writing a novel at age five, and have written articles for various publications all my life.

It wasn't until my early retirement, though, that I started writing books.