

As a foreign correspondent for Reuters, best-selling novelist Fiona Neill worked with Salvadorean refugees in Nicaragua, learnt to make jewellery in the Andean mountains of Peru and travelled all over writing reports on civil war refugees. She ‘surfed’ down the side of an active volcano, survived revolutions and serious illness and even life as features editor of Marie Claire. Her new book – Beneath the Surface – is a gripping tale of secrets and lies set against the backdrop of the fenlands in Cambridgeshire.
On this episode we cover:
Her column Slummy Mummy in the Saturday Times
Getting a book deal
Her novels becoming darker and darker
The domestic comedies in having young children
Dysfunctional families and adolescent mental health
The remote, desolation of the Fens north of Cambridge
The disturbing storyline in her new book Beneath the Surface
Moving to Latin America to ‘all the places you shouldn’t visit’
Life in Chile under the fascist dictatorship of Pinochet
Disappearances and government repression
Getting tear-gassed
Accidentally tear-gassing herself (!)
Living with El Salvadorian refuges in Nicaragua
A melting pot of left-wing ideology
The everyday reality of no electricity, little water
Working in a handicraft-painting workshop in Nicaragua
The sad sight of the migrant caravan heading for the US
The gang violence they are escaping
How the gang violence was actually a US export
Colombia and the cocaine wars
The heart-breaking image of the father and daughter washed up in the river
The adrenaline-filled job as a news journalist
Heading to Costa Rica rather than staying in the UK recession
Researching way different populations were internally displaced
Working for Reuters in Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia and more
Being lucky as international reporters rather than local journalist
Moments of fear that happened quickly
Being in a car chase during an election
Being at the centre of a fascinating period of history
Visiting isolated communities of Mennonites in the Belize jungle
The Mennonites originally coming from Northern Europe
Pig’s trotters and sauerkraut for breakfast
London not being the easiest city to live in
Moving back to London to work at Marie Claire
Taking a year to come down from the adrenaline of news reporting in south America
Going to Paris for the day to see an Alexander McQueen show
Marie Claire covering illegal abortion in Tibet
The days when we were all obsessed with magazines
Moving to work at The Thames
How writing makes her feel balanced
Returning to Nicaragua with her husband and three children
How Nicaragua has it all – beaches, mountains, biodiversity
‘Surfing’ down the side of an active volcano
How London is an exciting place to bring up kids
London being ‘ a really, dynamic, energy-giving city’
Her books being very much UK based at the moment
The punk scene in deepest Norfolk
Lisa’s obsession with seeing Nick Cave sitting outside his Brighton beach hut (well, Hove, actually…)
Having a specific playlist for every book she writes
How music travels with us wherever we go