IT'S a bright, sunny morning in Wivenhoe.

On my short walk from the King George V car park to the delicatessen cafe I can count on one hand the people I pass.

There's a woman walking her stocky black Labrador, a man carrying what looks like a rather heavy bag of shopping, and someone I used to go to school with.

She asks me what I'm doing back in my home town and I tell her I'm here to see one of the country's most respected and important writers.

"What are they doing in Wivenhoe?" she asks.

"She lives here," I reply.

Of course the good people of Wivenhoe could be forgiven for not knowing A L Kennedy now lives in the estuary town because she's only been here since June.

Her move came about through necessity and chance, a need to move out of 'toxic' London, and a random Tweet sent to her by a Wivenhoe resident.

She says: "It said 'I bet you wouldn't do a reading in Wivenhoe' and I replied 'I might'. So I checked the place out and it looked rather nice. It also wasn't very far out of London so I thought 'I could probably do that'.

"The lady who sent me the Tweet is now my next door neighbour and on the day of the reading she came to pick me up from the station and then handed me over to the bookshop.

"It was quite a bizarre night and I ended up doing lots of readings in the end. I've read stuff to Wivenhoe that I've never read to anyone else before."

Born in Dundee, Alison Louise Kennedy had spent most of her life living in Glasgow before she moved to London in 2012.

Literally allergic to the city, dosed up to the max on steroids and antihistamines, she had been looking for a place to move out for some time.

"A few of my friends had suggested Kent," she adds, "the rolling green fields, but I just wasn't feeling that. Also I didn't really want somewhere that was, by its close proximity to London, a bit of a commuter town.

"In the end I had a good look around here, saw what was going on, and I thought this is the place for me.

"It took a while for the house I wanted to come up, and because of your ridiculous legal system I had to wait ages before I could actually move in, but since then it's been great."

Frustratingly so because despite the move and the nature of a writer's job being based wherever you lay your laptop, Alison still has to make regular trips to the capital.

"I go up a couple of times a week," she grins, "which is not so bad, unless of course you have to do it at the weekend, but then it can be a little heartbreaking when you walk along the Quay and catch people canoeing up the Roman River - never to be seen again!"

There's a twinkle in her eye as I experience for the first time the dark humour she is so well known for.

Up until then it had all been very light as we talked about her love for her new home, a fascinating new radio documentary on migraines she's currently working on and how she got into writing.

Through the theatre as it happens.

"I think a lot of people start off with an arts exposure of some kind," she reveals, "and that's how it was for me. Then I had a go at being a drama student, which is where I started writing audition pieces for people, and then plays. It's actually not too much of a jump from there to writing short stories and that's how it began."

To be precise, the gorgeously titled Night Geometry and Garscadden Trains, which went on to win a hatful of awards and firmly established Alison on the nation's literary map.

Novels soon followed including her Costa Book of the Year winning Day, the story of a man who returns from the Second World War and then appears in a prisoner of war movie.

Her latest is Serious Sweet, which as well as detailing an unbearably moving love story, paints her former home in a fairly unflattering light.

Long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, it's a story about two decent, damaged people trying to make moral choices in an immoral world, ready to sacrifice what’s left of themselves for honesty, and for a chance at tenderness.

"I had decided to write a London novel way before I had decided to move out," she says. "London is exceptional with lots of different exceptional people living in it. But it's sick. It's obvious, even to the people who live there. Young black Londoners talk about the struggle. It's now nothing more than a third world capital designed for billionaires.

"I got out because it was making me ill but I knew I had to do it quickly because there would be a cascade. It's happening already. That's when places like Wivenhoe become out of my league."

So will Wivenhoe get a novel of its own at some stage?

"Possibly," she smiles. "I certainly wouldn't try and write about it or use the people here for a book but it would provide a pretty good backdrop.

"With all the water, you could set a good murder here. Lots of places to hide a body or two."

That's not quite the Wivenhoe I know and love but whatever she does with the place, I'm very proud A L Kennedy is now in it.

A L Kennedy is appearing at the Firstsite art gallery in Colchester tomorrow from 2.15pm. It's just one of the events which makes up this weekend's Place, run in and around the town as part of the Essex Book Festival.

For more details go on-line at www.essexbookfestival.org.uk