Jill Dawson is an award-winning poet and the author of several novels, including
Fred and Edie, which was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, and
Lucky Bunny.
From her Q & A at the
Guardian:
How did you come to write Lucky Bunny?
I've long been interested in writing about the appeal of risk-taking, destructive behaviours such as relationships with dangerous men. When I was living in Hackney about 20 years ago, before I'd published my first novel, I tore something out of the Guardian about a 
traffic-stopping funeral that had gone through London of a major woman thief. She'd had condolences from the Krays and one of the great train robbers attended in person. I then read The Profession of Violence – the biography of the Kray twins by John Pearson – and lots of other books about London's underworld. They rarely mentioned the women, except to say things like (describing a terribly bloody murder in Stoke Newington) "a blonde cleaned up the place". So I started to think about women who belonged to this criminal underworld and what their role might be.
What was most difficult about it?
I wanted to write a novel that read like a convincing memoir by a criminal – a boastful romp – and at the same time, underneath, was something else.
What did you most enjoy?
I loved, as I always do, reading...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue
