What was it that you read that made you want to write your own fiction? Why do you think it had that effect on you?
Bright, brash and belligerent American comics … and it affected me because I was none of those things.
What was the first story you remember doing for the sheer joy of writing (ie. It wasn’t a school project or homework!) And how old were you?
A prodigy at the age of six, I penned a very English take on Godzilla. Unfortunately after an accident with the family staple gun it has been down hill ever since.
Who have been your mentors?
A life time ago I completed a Writing and Publishing Honours Degree combined with English Literature. One would assume that during that time I suckled from the wisdom of many old mentors; but all I left there with, was an aversion to Ivory Towers and navel gazing.
Mentors though are elusive things and pop up when you least expect them.
If I have any real world mentors they are a grey haired few and all are nurses of the Old-School. These folk role-modelled being kind and insightful human beings to the tee: traits sadly lacking in the hallowed corridors of the country’s universities.
Do you write for a living or do you have a day job?
The human mind needs a healthy balance between Art and Science. Nursing – anti-social as the hours maybe – feeds the latter and writing the former.
Where do you get your inspiration for stories and characters?
I chose this question because no one has ever asked me it before; and to be asked it surely grants me full writer privileges from here on out! Now though faced with the hulking spectre of this age-old cliché I feel obliged to answer truly.
Inspiration comes to me from the completion of anything, something, whatever that plays out in the shared imaginations of those I care for. For someone whose target audience has forever been friends and family Chinese Whisperings is a total departure. For me inspiration is the wonderous process of creating something out of nothing for those people. To now be sharing that process with strangers and a broader audience through Chinese Whisperings is humbling to say the least. I hope Something Mean in the Dream Scene measures up.
Chinese Whisperings invites you to kick back with your favourite beverage and Take Five with the Brisbane based author of Krappelin's Child Annie Evett.
The Red Book, Audio Trailer
