Shinie Antony
Q Why do you write?
It is a question I ask every time I write and I still have no answer.
Q Your favourite word? A balcony overlooking the lake in front of my house.
Q Your favourite word? Imagine.
Q Do you have a writing schedule?
No schedule whatsoever. Writing happens pretty much when it happens. Sometimes for days on end and sometimes nothing for months. I guess writing schedules itself.
Q Ever struggled with writer’s block?
Writer’s block is this warm non-feverish place where all re-writes, re-reading and edits take place. It is when you stop to look at story so far.
Q Do you keep a diary? No. But if I see a diary lying about I will read it.
Q What inspires you to write? Do you have a secret trick, or a book/author that helps?
At some level the urge to write is a mystical thing. In the sense that it is not easily identifiable. Nothing about why you write what you write the way you write it is transparent. Mostly I write when I am pissed off. Else, to voice what feels pre-lingual.
Q Best piece of advice you’ve ever got?
Read.
Q Coffee/tea/cigarettes — numbers please — while you are writing.
Buckets of coffee!
Q Which books are you reading at present?
The Vegetarian by Han Kang.
Q Who are your favourite authors?
Sebastian Barry, Anne Enright, Shashi Deshpande, Shakespeare...
Q Which book/author should be banned on grounds of bad taste?
None. Today’s bad taste is tomorrow’s bland.
Q Which is the most under-rated book? Mine?
Q Which are your favourite children’s books? Anne of Green Gables, Pollyanna, Jataka Tales.
Q Which classics do you want to read? The scriptures.
Q Who is your favourite literary character?
Cinderella’s slipper. How did it not turn to rat or rubble at the stroke of midnight?
Q Which is the funniest book you have read? Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.
Q Which is the most erotic book you have read? My biology textbook.
Q Which book do you wish you had written? A cookbook. Whenever I cook it is obvious I’ve neither read nor written one. But one day...
At some level the urge to write is a mystical thing. In the sense that it is not easily identifiable. Nothing about why you write, what you write, the way you write it is transparent. Mostly I write when I am pissed off.