Robert
Forrest-Webb Has died
He was not on the list.
Robert Forrest-Webb was a former national newspaper journalist who migrated to the kinder world of magazines and became executive editor of one of Britain's largest publishing companies. He retired from what he calls his personal 'last post' when the first of his novels hit the big time and sold out its first edition in little over a week. "But why write under your own name and three other pseudonyms?" People ask. "Because I really do enjoy writing. I hate being stuck in a rut, and I like variety of subject and style. It broadens the challenge and because readers identify subject with a writer's identity I need the pseudonyms."
Robert Trevelyan is Bob's 'swash and buckle' genre, but one of his other pseudonyms is that of a woman, Roberta Forrest. How does that work for a writer of very tough adventure novels and literary award-winning humour? "Ah," he replies. "That was an extra special challenge. My lady agent at that time claimed I'd never be able to write like a woman, but I did. And the book, 'The Lushai Girl', was runner-up in the Romantic Novelist's Association's 'Most Romantic Novel of the Year' competition!" And the David Forrest pseudonym? " He also wrote under the name David Forrest.
Different to the others, because it's for two of us! If you write comedy you need to be able to test the humour and broaden funny ideas. David Eliades, a fellow journalist, is the other half, and it worked well. We got a Disney film and a long-running musical out of it." Forrest-Webb's enthusiastic and imaginative writing has made him a successful and popular author.
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