My late husband had written a novel about Zimbabwe and Ireland, unusually for him as he generally wrote academic books. We needed some advice on publishing, editing etc. and one day he said “Perhaps we’ll meet a stranger on a train who might help us”. Naturally I was very dubious.
A while later we were in England and travelling on the Northern line from King’s Cross to York. An attractive lady fell into conversation with us and told us she was an author who had won prizes for her work in children’s literature. She carried a duffel bag full of her novels and showed me one of them. I read some pages and it was brilliant, about a teenager living in Stalinist Russia. I memorized her name, Ann Rice, on the cover.
We chatted for over an hour and she gave us valuable advice on publishing before we arrived at our destination. Later, when we were passing a book shop I went to enquire about her. To my amazement, the only Ann Rice was a writer of horror stories, quite unlike the lady we had met.
I have never been able to explain this encounter.
By Fiona Atkinson