We sat down with Sarah Harman, author of All the Other Mothers Hate Me and a graduate of Faber Academy’s Writing a Novel course, to discuss her time at Faber Academy, the inspiration behind her debut novel and what it’s like adapting it for FX alongside the creators of The Bear.

You previously studied on our flagship Writing a Novel course with Nikesh Shukla. How valuable was the course to the writing of your novel?

The Faber Course helped me to take myself seriously as a writer and to accept constructive criticism on my work.  Nikesh was an incredibly patient tutor. The feedback I got during workshops ended up being really valuable in developing both the voice of the narrator and the overall tone of the novel.

Did you make writing friends during your Faber Academy course? How important has peer feedback been to your process?

Yes! I’m still in touch with several people from my course and from the parallel class. One of them just offered to throw my book release party! It’s been so fun to follow each other’s journeys and root for each other’s successes. Writing novels is a long-haul endeavour and it can be lonely, so I’m grateful to have friends for the journey.

All The Other Mothers Hate Me has been described as ‘an irresistibly witty novel about fitting in, starting over and the lengths we’ll go to for the people we love.’ Could you tell us a little bit more about the novel? What gave you the inspiration for it?

I’ve always loved stories about women behaving badly. (Ramona Quimby was my childhood hero!) I wanted to take a messy, complicated female protagonist and plonk her down in a twisty mystery. Like if Fleabag woke up in a Nancy Drew book.

My protagonist, Florence Grimes, is a washed-up girl band singer slumming around West London, until the day her 10-year-old son becomes a suspect in his wealthy classmate’s mysterious disappearance, and Florence is forced to investigate.  It’s kind of a winking nod to the ‘missing kid’ trope that permeates the thriller aisle. But it’s also a story about failure, and female friendship, and what it means to find the courage to start over when your life hasn’t turned out like you hoped.

Can you share your journey to getting published?

A few agents reached out off the back of the 2022 Faber anthology, which was encouraging. But at the time, I hadn’t even finished the first draft, and I felt strongly that I wanted to wait until I had a finished manuscript before querying. As a debut novelist, it was important to me to have the space to work out what this book actually was in the privacy of my own mind, before inviting other people into the creative process. It ended up being the right decision, because in 2023 a draft of All the Other Mothers Hate Me won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and that opened a lot of doors. By then, I knew what I was trying to do, and I found an agent (Hellie Ogden at WME) who was fully onboard with my vision and helped take it to the next level with some thoughtful notes. When Hellie sent the manuscript out, it quickly became a competitive 9-way auction. Which was awesome, but also totally overwhelming. I met with a lot of great editors, but when I spoke to Katie Bowden at 4th Estate, something clicked. She was super smart and but also really gentle with my newbie author feelings. Plus she was just, like, so cool. I knew I could trust her to help me make the book the best possible version of itself.

You’re currently working on a screen adaptation of your novel for FX with the creators of The Bear. What do you think makes for a good adaptation, and what are some of your favourites?

I feel so incredibly lucky to be working with the The Bear guys. A lot of Hollywood folks are wary of authors adapting their own work, perhaps rightfully so, but Chris and Josh and Coop have been incredible to work with and learn from. I’m so grateful for the development team at FX and Disney.

In my opinion the best adaptations are true to the original tone but don’t shy away from bold changes to suit the screen. I recently re-watched Gone Girl – Gillan Flynn wrote the screenplay herself and it was directed by David Fincher – wow! I’ve seen it a half dozen times but it still gives me chills. For TV, David E. Kelly’s adaptation of Big Little Lies is my gold standard – that book was good but the TV show was great.

Previously, you worked as a broadcast journalist and news anchor. Did your background influence how you approached your writing in any way?

As a journalist I was accustomed to writing on a deadline, and not waiting for inspiration to strike. Those were habits that really helped once I started working on a 90,000 word novel.

What was the most challenging part of writing this book?

The hardest part was just finishing the first draft! It was sooo tempting to start refining the prose or sharpening up the scenes before I’d fully fleshed out the plot. I had to force myself to focus on the story before I started tweaking things too much on a granular, sentence level.

Who are your biggest literary influences? Did any of these influence All The Other Mothers Hate Me?

I enjoy a twisty thriller, but I really love a book with a messy female protagonist and a first-person narrator, like in Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss or Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I also watch a lot of TV, which feels hugely taboo to admit as a novelist, but for me, good writing is good writing. I love the scathing social commentary that’s woven into Succession and White Lotus, and I tried to bring a touch of that to the page as well.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

The best piece of writing advice I have gotten is not to compare yourself to other people. I think that’s good advice for writing and for life. Comparison is the thief of joy – we’ve all got to run our own race. Forget what you see on Instagram.

What’s next for your writing?

I’m currently writing the TV pilot for All the Other Mothers Hate Me, which is an actual dream come true. And I’m sketching out another idea for a new novel that I can’t wait to get started on!

Writing a Novel is designed to support aspiring fiction writers to develop their craft over six months, with courses in London (at Faber’s HQ in Hatton Garden), Newcastle and online.

A six-month programme of seminars, sessions will cover all the essentials of novel writing – including character, story, structure, plotting, voice, dialogue, conflict and more.

Find out more about the next iterations of Writing a Novel.