What are you most looking forward to at the 2016 Festival?
The chance to meet readers and writers. The Festival is unique in the way it gives writers a chance to spend time together, and that’s inspiring and creative. A couple of conversations I had the last time I was at the Festival were catalysts for the new novel I’ve just finished writing. When did you realise you wanted to be a writer? I’ve always loved writing, even as a small child, but the ambition to write a novel began in London, when I joined a writers’ group which met each week in the basement of Nomad, a travel bookstore. What book do you find yourself re-reading most often? The Leopard, by Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? My ‘day job’ was working as an art consultant, curating collections and exhibitions, and before that I worked for an arts festival in the UK. I’d always planned to set up an arts centre with a programme of visual, literary and performing arts. And finally, we have a number of aspiring writers attending the Festival. What one piece of advice would you give them? Read. Read well, and widely. Write every day. It’s as simple and challenging as that.
The chance to meet readers and writers. The Festival is unique in the way it gives writers a chance to spend time together, and that’s inspiring and creative. A couple of conversations I had the last time I was at the Festival were catalysts for the new novel I’ve just finished writing. When did you realise you wanted to be a writer? I’ve always loved writing, even as a small child, but the ambition to write a novel began in London, when I joined a writers’ group which met each week in the basement of Nomad, a travel bookstore. What book do you find yourself re-reading most often? The Leopard, by Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? My ‘day job’ was working as an art consultant, curating collections and exhibitions, and before that I worked for an arts festival in the UK. I’d always planned to set up an arts centre with a programme of visual, literary and performing arts. And finally, we have a number of aspiring writers attending the Festival. What one piece of advice would you give them? Read. Read well, and widely. Write every day. It’s as simple and challenging as that.