Visitors were asked to write a short story on modern celebrity. The winner would get star billing on the Steffi site as well as having Andrew Crofts as a mentor to help work up the story into a novel, find an agent, publisher and so on.

Finalist: The Purple Peignoir
By Sue Clark

“A RETURN TO REAL SCANDALS”

Sue Clark has a varied writing background, everything from national and regional journalist, (Observer and Oxford Mail), to radio and TV comedy scriptwriter, (Weekending, News Huddlines, Smith and Jones, kids’ show Giggly Bits, sketches for David Jason and Lenny Henry). For many years she freelanced but she is now a copywriter for a PR and design agency.
    Admitting to being ‘a shade older than Madonna, but way younger than that Helen Mirren’, Sue lives with her husband in Abingdon, an Oxfordshire market town. She has three grown-up children.
     ‘I’d love to write a comic novel,’ she admits. ‘I’m drawn towards black comedy and big characters. Last year I reduced my PR working week to give more time to my “other” writing. My goal is to have a novel published – and eventually reduce my PR working hours to zero. I’d love to wake up knowing that a substantial chunk of the coming day is absolutely clear, so I can write for however long I want without having to think about anything else.
     ‘I have two “works in progress”, Eloise Slaughter’s story and an Oxford-based crime thriller. I’ve also submitted short stories to women’s magazines, currently gathering dust in “to be considered” piles. It’s so hard to get ideas considered by publishers that even a rejection seems like an achievement.
      ‘I’m lucky enough to know a few writers and I admire them hugely for their talent, dedication and tenacity, and – what has surprised me most – their generosity to me, a struggling scribbler. Thanks Lesley, Maureen, Jane and Roger. I hope I’m as helpful when I’m a published writer.’
     So, what writers have influenced her?
     ‘I’d like to say Jane Austen and Henry James,’ she says, ‘but in truth I’m more likely to be reading people like John O’Farrell, Kate Atkinson and Iain Banks. “It was the day my grandmother exploded” beats Jane Austen’s famous first line every time in my book.
     ‘Inspired by the film No Country for Old Men I’m having a go at Cormac McCarthy. His prose is so spare that when he plays a blinder (like describing the sky as ‘aching blue’) it stops you in your tracks.’
      What does she think of today’s celebrity world?
      ‘Bring back the old days of celebrity, I say. You knew where you were with old school celebs like Hugh Grant, Jason Donovan and Robert Downey Jr or, going back a few years, Dean Martin, Christine Keeler, Diana Dors and Lady Docker. When they made the papers it was because of a real scandal not just because they’d flashed a photographer or forgotten to retouch their roots.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not longing for the days when so many scandals were swept under the carpet, all leading men had to be straight and no-one admitted to a drink or drugs problem. I just think a scandal should be a scandal, not a publicity stunt – like Britney shaving her head.
     ‘If it’s true that our current celebrity culture is a function of having too much time and money, then it follows that leaner times should make us less materialistic and shallow. But I have a feeling we’re hooked and will crave the distraction of candyfloss celebs for a good while yet.
     ‘I’m interested in the comic possibilities of the spread of reality culture – the feeling the public have that they somehow “own” and can decide the fate of what and who they have created, (e.g. the Ross/Brand outcry). How will it end? With TV phone votes to decide which bank we prop up and whose home is repossessed?’
     Sue’s story, The Purple Peignoir, was inspired by the realisation that the sexy flower children of the sixties are now saggy pensioners.
     ‘I imagined what could have happened to one of the less successful, more pretentious of the divas. If it grew into a novel I can envisage the story taking the form of Eloise’s memoirs of the sixties, Carnaby Street, Swinging London and all that. A scandal all but ruins her and she withdraws from public life. Over the years her looks, money and celebrity drain away and she’s left isolated, eccentric and agoraphobic until she happens upon the teenager Russell, who becomes her only companion and untrustworthy amanuensis.
     ‘If it became a film Julie Walters would be perfect as Eloise at various ages, particularly as I see her as having a Black Country twang when she loses her temper. Dame Judy, on the other hand, has the required well-upholstered build and does “bitter” so well (Notes on a Scandal). The boy needs to be edgy and sly and slowly blossoming. If Andrew Garfield or Ben Whishaw can do comedy … or Dev Patel?’