Tony Parsons starts work as writer-in-residence at Heathrow Airport
Novelist and journalist Tony Parsons has today begun his role as writer-in-residence at Heathrow Airport.
For the first week in this new role, Parsons has moved into a hotel at the airport.
He will spend his time wandering through the airport, talking to travellers and staff while in search for inspiration for his first collection of short stories which will be called Departures: Seven Stories from Heathrow.
Parsons said: “Airports are places of extreme emotion where people come and go and experiences begin and end.
“Often when we travel we find ourselves in such a hurry to get to our end destination that we fail to appreciate the individual stories and moments happening before us.
“Having grown up reading Arthur Hailey's novel Airport it feels like an incredible opportunity to live at Heathrow and write about the people whose lives are touched by it.
“I am looking forward to sharing these experiences and to reviving the airport fiction genre with my first short story collection.”
Five thousand copies of the book will be given away free to passengers before going on general sale through HarperCollins from October 2011.