On 10 February 2020, we welcomed our first guest speaker of the year. Karl Vadaszffy, Karl's writing pen name is now A.J. Park. He had his first Crime Thriller novel The First Lie published last year. By day, Karl is Head of English at St Michael's Catholic School in Watford.
The journey to being accepted by one of the UK's largest publishers has taken Karl ten years of hard effort and determination. Diligently working and correcting his drafts, Karl wrote and published the following books as Karl Vadaszffy:
The Missing (2013); Sins of the Father (2014); Don’t speak; and most recently writing as A.J.Park, The First Lie in 2019.
Karl discussed the influence other writers and books had and continues to have on his writing and listed the following in particular:
The Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes
Haven’t they Grown and Little Face by Sophie Hannah
A fellow writer and poet who has inspired and supported Karl is the award winning Sophie Hannah. Karl turned to crime fiction as a direct result of Sophie's encouragement. Other writers who have inspired Karl include Quentin Bates, William Ryan, and Adrian Magson.
Karl provided us all with tremendous insights into getting published and kindly took a number of questions from the floor. There was an excellent discussion on the success of crime writing; but also Karl's other work including article writing for various magazines.