Writer Wednesday: Sarah Rees Brennan
Originally published at finding my words. Please leave any comments there.
I’m happy to welcome author Sarah Rees Brennan. Find out about her latest book, what elves have to do with her edits, how ballet led her to become a writer, and more…
1. First things first… a name and bio:
Sarah Rees Brennan was born and raised in Ireland by the sea, where her teachers valiantly tried to make her fluent in Irish (she wants you to know it’s not called Gaelic) but she chose to read books under her desk in class instead. After college she lived briefly in New York and somehow survived in spite of her habit of hitching lifts in fire engines. She began working on The Demon’s Lexicon while doing a Creative Writing MA and library work in Surrey, England. Since then she has returned to Ireland to write and use as a home base for future adventures. Her Irish is still woeful, but she feels the books under the desk were worth it. Sarah’s newest book is Unspoken, a Gothic mystery.
2. Where are you from and what’s your favorite thing about where you live?
I’m from Ireland, and my favourite thing about where I live is the weather! (Just kidding, the weather is the worst. It’s the leprechauns.)
Okay, just kidding again, everyone knows leprechauns are extinct. My friends and family, I think. Home’s about people, though if my friends and family would get with the program and move to Aruba…
3. Tell about your latest book. What made you want to write it?
I saw several stories where people reading each others’ mind was romantic, and I thought it sounded terrible, so I wanted to come at it from the other end. In Unspoken, out in September, my heroine has had an imaginary friend her whole life, and when he turns out to be real she’s both shocked and upset… and a bit afraid, because a stranger knowing everything about you is scary.
4. Where can people find your books?
http://www.amazon.com/Sarah-Rees-Brennan/e/B0027N9K2W/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1344293542&sr=8-2-ent
5. What are you working on right now?
Edits of Untold, the sequel to Unspoken. Edits, man. You are just reading a book you wrote, going ‘Did EVIL ELVES mess this up in the night?’
6. What inspired you to be a writer?
My mother, when I was six. She said ‘Baby, you’re terrible at ballet. Maybe you should find something to do indoors… away from other people…’
7. Who is your favorite character in your stories? Why?
That’s like picking a favourite child! In that, you totally do it, but you can’t say. I always presumed I was my parents’ and they were just being tactful like that…
I don’t have a favourite, but Kami, the heroine of Unspoken, was a lot of fun and very easy to write because her thought and speech processes, her goofy sense of humour, were so much like mine.
8. What is your favorite comfort food?
Chocolate. Cheese. (If only, considering my sedentary lifestyle, I could round off the ‘c’ words with ‘celery’…)
9. What character from your stories was the hardest to write?
Nick Ryves from the Demon’s Lexicon series. Someone who doesn’t like to read? Who can get inside a mind like that? Is someone like that even human?
10. What’s the biggest challenge about being a writer?
Feeling the fear, stress and uncertainty, and writing it anyway!
11. Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
I forget who said this first, but it is very true: ‘Writers write.’ Don’t worry about it-just do it, and keep doing it, and trying to do it better.
12. What books have most influenced your writing?
Pride and Prejudice, which taught me about conveying things like attraction or annoyance without spelling them out, and Diana Wynne Jones’s books, which taught me to ground fantasy in reality.
13. What tools are in your writer’s tool-kit?
The Tiny Drill of Perseverance, the Wrench of Procrastination, the Hammer of Inspiration and the Nails of Just-Get-It-Done.
14. Where can people find out more about you and your books?
www.sarahreesbrennan.com
15. What question(s) did I forget to ask?
Meaning of life, favourite cheese…?
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If you are a writer interested in participating in Writer Wednesday, please send an email with a short biography to ww (at) ambersistla (dot) com.