FIFTEEN novels down the line, Joanne Harris has become a household name – in no small part thanks to the Oscar-nominated adaption of her bestseller Chocolat. But no amount of success or acclaim has been able to shake her dread of the blank page.

Over the years, she has devised shrewd ways to evade writer’s block– namely by always juggling several projects at once – but the sense of trepidation never lets up.

“I live in fear of being blocked in some way,” admits the Yorkshire-born author. “I find that the rhythms of my writing mean that I come to a point where I have to give it a rest, some thinking time or research time and during that time I will work on something else. I’m always working on two or three things at a time so I’m never in a situation where I cannot progress.”

Born to an English father and French mother, Harris read modern and medieval languages at Cambridge before following in her parents’ footsteps and becoming a French teacher at Leeds Boys GrammarSchool. An ardent story teller, she would fit writing around teaching and raising a young child. Her novels’ growing success prompted her to take a sabbatical and eventually give up teaching altogether to write full-time.

In many ways her work pattern has remained virtually unchanged and it’s a constant race against the clock to slot writing time in her diary.

“I’ve never really felt that I had the luxury of as much time to write as I wanted to,” she says. “When I was a teacher, my time was very constrained and being a full-time writer I’ve still not got very much time. I’ve got all sorts of things to do which are really not directly connected to writing books. It still feels like having a full-time job and writing in your free time even now.”

Her experience moulding the young minds of a select few inspired Gentlemen and Players in 2005, a dark thriller following eccentric Latin master Roy Straitley at the exclusive St Oswald’s Grammar School.

A decade on, Harris picks up where her character left off in the sequel, Different Class, which she will promote at the Literature Festival tomorrow.

“Pretty much all my books are about the effect that the past has on people because I think we’re the combination of all the things that have happened to us. Different Class is another story where the past comes to interfere with the present,” she says.

Delving into her own teaching days for inspiration is not a decision she took lightly. But after releasing the acclaimed Chocolat and a series of period works, she was satisfied enough time had passed to safely revisit that chapter of her life.

“I was always going to write about it at some point because it’s an interesting community. I didn’t do it straight away because I wanted to get some distance from actual teaching."

Harris is already onto the next project(s). She is toiling away at a sequel to The Gospel of Loki and compiling a volume of short stories she initially posted on Twitter. She has embraced social media as a tool to engage with her readers and explore new ways of spinning tales and she has also recently started performing songs based on her Twitter stories with her band.

Having survived more than 15 years in a highly competitive industry, she credits her basic need to write, regardless of gain or recognition, for her longevity.

“So many people tell you how difficult it is to break into publishing and how difficult it is to make a living from it when you do, that you don’t expect anything to happen at all."

“You just have to enjoy what you do. The love of it will keep you going, so why would you stop?”

Joanne Harris will be at the Central Library on May 11 at 7.30pm. To book go to swindontheatres.co.uk.