Time to meet an ex-Hurtwood student who has come a very long way, both literally and metaphorically, ready to share her invaluable experience with our students since leaving us early in the new millennium. Prepare to be impressed and entertained by the twists and turns of a lively career, ultimately turning her joyous love of books into a successful career as a book editor and – finally – novelist. Her path is unconventional, brave, intriguing and illuminating. Her first novel to reach – finally – print, ‘The Silence in Between’, has already garnered superb reviews, made The Times best-seller list, and been nominated for the highly prestigious Waterstone’s Debut Novel award. Luckily for us, Josie, who lives and works in Singapore at present, squeezed in a sneaky visit to Hurtwood in between nationwide promotional marketing to catch up on happy memories and offer very wise advice indeed for our next generation of writers.
So – school, exams, A-levels: what’s it all for? Surely the aim is to turn talents into earning a living from doing what you love? This is something that Josie Ferguson (née Bonde) certainly seems to have nailed. Her path onward from the Surrey hills has been as global, convoluted and as fascinating as the route that brought her to the school itself a couple of decades ago. Swedish by birth, she grew up in a draughty old Scottish castle, spending family summers on an idyllic and isolated island back in Sweden, and by 16 was dreaming of a career as an actor/singer. It is soon clear that Josie makes things happen. Feeling constricted by the restrictive academic nature of her all-girls secondary school, she wanted to pursue the creative arts more enthusiastically. She also wanted ‘to meet boys’ (no apologies needed for that surely?) and that box was happily ticked with her arrival at Hurtwood for the last two years of scholastic education. The irony, she generously points out, is that this decision shaped her ambitions as well as her academic outcomes in marvellous ways. She positively bubbles with enthusiasm for the ‘amazing two years’ she had here: the friendships, the relationships with teachers who encouraged her to achieve A-levels (in Media, English and Theatre) way beyond her expectations. Like so many aspiring performers, she rapidly learned the quality of the competition. In Josie’s case, she found herself in a group alongside Emily Blunt and Jack Huston; the experience was extraordinary as well as revelatory, and she found herself drawn more clearly towards writing, recalling the satisfaction of writing the script for her A-level Theatre performance. She is generous in her praise of all that she learned during her two years on the hill, and relished what she recalls as, for the first time in her education, being treated as an equal, and being invited and enticed ‘into the conversation’. Coming from a family of readers and writers, Hurtwood fed this love of language and new possibilities emerged. Embarking on a prestigious English degree at Edinburgh, however, proved unrewarding for a number of reasons, and lured back to Sweden, land of her birth, by both family and cultural ties, as well as educational possibilities, she spent the next six years qualifying as a clinical psychologist, with specific focus on CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). Bringing together mind, motivation, the psyche, choice, she found it totally fascinating and illuminating, but moving back to London, (lured by love it seems) she realised once again that she was not totally committed to a working career as a therapist, particularly as she would need to consolidate more qualifications.
Her heart and mind were still focused on words, language, writing: a novel had been taking shape in both her imagination and practice since leaving Hurtwood. Publishing: was this the longed-for career? There is a pattern emerging here: unafraid of change or hard-work, open for adventure and ready to acknowledge responsibility for her choices, she jumped into the ill-paid world of words and print, accepting unpaid internships (managed between paid jobs by banking up holiday). Josie absolutely loved it; she had found her tribe. Paid work followed, as a book editor, specifically of cookbooks and sex books (an odd combination, and surely one for further conversation over a glass of wine?) she had found her métier, and rather fortuitously, a husband. A fellow free spirit, they were soon off to Singapore for more exotic and (importantly) warmer climes, enabled workwise now as a freelance editor, as she remains to this day. Josie now had a career, one that she loves to this day and has her jumping out of bed each morning. But she was also writing, writing, writing and a novel had been brewing all along. Time to take that forward.
How did she turn the ‘antsy teenage’ writing of her early years into the publishing gold of The Silence in Between? Her advice resonates with pragmatism and good sense, and it begins and ends with one word: perseverance. Working now in publishing she knew the intense challenges in getting into print and steadied herself for the rejections that followed thick and fast, as she produced not one – but three novels. Self-publication was not an option she favoured, aware that professional marketing is so central to success. Forced ‘to suck up’ the rebuffs of returned scripts and unfulfilled promises from agents, but encouraged by winning accolades, and ultimately acquiring a superb agent, she clung on, determined not to give up on writing. The turning point proved to be commitment to a writing course with the prestigious Curtis Brown.
Working as a team now, with other writers, sustained constructive criticism from her peers was added to her working practice. She admits that this was initially challenging, but sees it now as invaluable feedback, and it remains part of the great pleasure and routines of her working life. With a brilliant agent now on board, one who understood the quality of her work, she soon found her fourth novel snapped up by one of the most prestigious publishing houses, Penguin. Finally, all that discipline, the research, the sustained craftsmanship, the self-belief, had paid off, even though, as she already knew, it would be over a year before the printed book would hit the shelves. By that time, June 2024, it had been shortlisted for Waterstone’s Debut Novel nomination, and has been expertly marketed and glowingly reviewed. Josie’s world has spun on its head. The book itself? It’s a rollicking good read: set in Berlin, it centres on a mother separated from her baby by the overnight horror of the wall that divided east and west. This narrative is paralleled with the build-up to WW2 and the fall of Berlin; it is dark material deftly, beautifully handled, inviting insight and collective sympathy and understanding rather than simple horror and revulsion. This is enjoyable and compelling reading, illuminating and entertaining, a reminder of how good it is to get stuck in, and like many of its enthusiastic readers, I would most heartily recommend it.
Time to ‘fess up’: as Josie’s English teacher at Hurtwood, I am unashamedly biased. Imagine then my delight when out of the blue her book arrived on the doorstep, bringing back happy memories of her willowy, enthusiastic love of life and literature, and ultimately, hard work. Reading it was an unadulterated pleasure, with admiration balanced by pride and awe at the way she creates character, atmosphere and enlarges sympathy, without hectoring or ever (dare I say it?) boring, the reader. This is reading as great storytelling, great entertainment, pass-it-on enjoyment. It also suggests to me the potential for a fantastic film adaptation. Who knows what lies in the future? But it has been great fun catching up with this bit of Hurtwood past. Thank you, Josie: for writing such a great book, for having many more (great) books in the pipeline, and for sharing your experience with such humility and generosity of detail and spirit, with our own student creatives, and with James Mac (details) Thanks for your time and your generous praise for Hurtwood. And thanks most of all for the wisdom and encouragement that you have offered to a new raft of young writers and Musers. Write on, I say, write on.
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