Debut author Christie Newport overcomes decades of pain to write book - BBC

Christie Newport signs copies of her book in a bookshop

By Duncan Leatherdale

BBC News online

Christie J Newport has suffered unimaginable pain and adversity for most of her life. But now she is celebrating achieving her childhood dream of becoming an author with the publication of her debut crime thriller The Raven's Mark.

Christie's pain had got so bad she didn't want to live anymore.

While her family were researching radical treatments for the rare auto-immune disease she first developed at the age of seven, she was researching an assisted suicide centre in Switzerland.

"I just couldn't bear it any more," the now 41-year-old says from her Northumberland home, adding: "I cannot even describe the pain. I was in agony constantly."

For the best part of 10 years she was unable to leave her bed except for painful trips to hospital.

It was not the life she had dreamed of.

She had wanted to be a writer ever since her father used to make up stories for her in her Preston bedroom.

The young Christie created her own tales which became the basis of games with her friends in the primary school playground.

But a list of her various illnesses, conditions and hospital stays would be longer than any book on the market.

Christie Newport holds a bottle of wine in celebration next to a poster of her large

It started with a cold sore and inflammation of her lips, which for a long time baffled doctors while also leading to bullying and self-esteem issues.

Her physical symptoms worsened, leading to inflammation in and around her body, from feeling like her lungs were being crushed to feeling like her brain was being pushed, and constant excruciating pain.

She had various failed diagnoses and treatments which caused their own issues before finally - years later - being successfully diagnosed with orofacial granulomatosis.

It is a rare condition made rarer in Christie's case by her unique panoply of symptoms that cropped up around her body.

Her immune system basically attacks itself, triggering the inflammation, with the problems exacerbated by other infections or stresses.

When she was fit enough she would still think of her stories, she said.

"It was a way of putting myself out of my world and into another one where I could control what was going on," she says, adding: "My stories were an escape."

'Felt valuable'

But for a long time she could not even read or write, her body in pain and unable to concentrate.

She spent a number of years on strong painkillers, and it was only when a doctor at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary weaned her off them she said she felt the fog lift.

Christie is not cured and still suffers pain, but says she is now capable of having a life beyond her illness too.

In 2015 her community raised £14,000 to send her for stem cell treatment in the US.

While the radical treatment brought a huge improvement in her health, the love and support she felt also had a massive impact.

"What people were willing to do for me restored my faith in humanity and made me feel more valuable," she says.

She finally felt able to write.

Raven branding

Christie attended a crime-writing convention where she says she "found her tribe", and went home more determined than ever to be a writer.

She immersed herself in courses and books about writing, eventually creating The Raven's Mark which won a publishing deal when she secured the Joffe Prize for Crime Writers of Colour.

It is the first in what Christie plans will be a series following Det Ch Insp Beth Fellows who finds a fresh murder is linked to a cold case from her past where victims were branded with an image of a raven.

Christie said she had always been drawn towards crime and psychological thrillers, finding the "extremes" of humanity the most interesting.

She likes mysteries, both creating and untangling them, and says crime books also offer chances to indulge in romance, comedy and psychology.

She writes according to what her body can do that day.

When she is fit she writes for as long and hard as she can, knowing that the next day she may not be able to leave her bed.

And when she can't write she thinks, adding with a wry laugh: "I have had a lot of time in my life where I can't do anything but think."

Thoughts often come to her as she is trying to sleep, characters start talking to each other, plot holes fill themselves.

She speaks the dialogue as she writes it, and jokes her wife of nine years and partner of 15 Amy has told her never to write in public.

"Amy says she can see when I am writing an evil character because of the faces I pull," Christie says with a laugh.

'Always light'

She and Amy lived in Whitehaven and the Lake District for a while before moving to a Northumberland farmhouse overlooking Holy Island three years ago.

Christie decided to launch The Raven's Mark at Berwick library where she conducts much of her research and previously ran a creative writing course.

She has many ideas for future books, including two historical psychological thrillers currently in production, but has no intention of writing about her experiences.

"I lived through it and it's not something I want to go back to," Christie says.

But she doesn't mind talking about it as, when she was suffering, she said she would have loved to have heard from someone like her who had overcome similar struggles.

"I want people to realise no matter how dark the days get you just have to hang on to the fact there will be light at the end of the tunnel, even if you can't see it yet."