Author Spotlight no.81 – Trish Nicholson

Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the eighty-first, is of non-fiction and short story writer Trish Nicholson.

A writer and photographer as well as an anthropologist, Trish had careers in regional government, management training, university tutoring, research, and finally, travelling the world to work on aid and development projects. A compulsive scribbler, during those years her writings included a monthly column, and feature articles for national newspapers in UK and Australia, as well as books on anthropology, management and tourism. Trish enjoyed writing non-fiction, but she feared that the storytelling of her childhood was lost forever until she settled on a hillside in New Zealand twelve years ago, where she now writes full time and is a member of the New Zealand Society of authors.

Encouraged by a few wins and anthology publications, she is working on her storytelling skills which she believes are equally important for writing non-fiction. She applies this creed to her weekly blog posts which include stories, reviews, travel tales and photo-essays as well as posts on writing.

Last year, Trish signed up with Collca to write for their new ebook series, illustrated BiteSize Travel, which allows her to indulge her passion for photography. Masks of the Moryons: Easter Week in Mogpog, was released in December 2011; Journey in Bhutan: Himalayan Trek in the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon, was released on 20 April 2012.

And now from the author herself:

Aspiring writers are told, ‘write about what you know’, so I suppose I should be grateful for having had a varied life, but it wasn’t only travelling as an adult that broadened my experience, my childhood was survived against a background of constant change. By my teens, we’d lived in as many homes as I’d had birthdays. The downside, apart from favourite books being ‘lost in the move’ ­– a family catch-phrase and favourite explanation of all things disappeared – was being always the new girl at school and a perpetual ‘outsider’.  Much later in life I discovered this could be a distinct advantage to a writer.

With friends ‘lost in the move’ so often, I invented my own companions, having long conversations with them under the stairs, in the bathroom, behind the chicken shed, anywhere I could get away from adults’ flapping ears. Our squabbles and adventures were my first stories, told to my dog Sebastian who sat on the floor beside me, enthralled by every word.

But stories were soon knocked out of me at school: I learnt the hard way about genre and knuckled down to write essays on the industrial revolution, and the mating habits of dogfish. My choices at university ­– anthropology and geography with a side serving of psychology – brought further discipline with the need to check and cite authorities as well as generate original material, but I loved every minute of it; the pattern for my future was firmly laid.

While still at school I had sent a letter to New York: ‘Dear United Nations, I really want to work with people in foreign countries when I grow up. Please tell me how I can do this.’ Some kind soul on a long tea break replied to me, saying I should gain qualifications in almost any subject that I enjoyed, spend about 20 years gaining experience in that field, and then apply for overseas positions. And that is more or less what happened.

The ‘moving’ became a permanent feature of my life, going from university to various jobs in the UK, in Europe, and finally to the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, to a score of countries. I paused for a few extra years in the Philippines to complete a PhD in applied anthropology, but travelling and trekking anywhere I hadn’t been before became my practice when not actually working. Inevitably, ‘outsider’ status became permanent as well.

It sounds like a Zen mantra, but distance brings you closer. Detachment is essential for research, journalism, travel and other non-fiction writing; not that any writer can entirely avoid subjectivity, but being aware of it leads to better balance. In seeking ideas for fiction, too, detachment can enliven all your senses: outsiders notice more. People also talk to lone travellers more readily. Whenever anyone sits next to me on a bus or plane they inevitably tell me their life story – a writer needs to be such a fly paper; it makes for stickier stories.

I loved that, thank you, Trish. You can find more about Trish and her writing via…her website
http://www.trishnicholsonswordsinthetreehouse.com
(and she really does have a tree house). She is also on Twitter @TrishaNicholson.

Her latest travel book, Journey in Bhutan: Himalayan Trek in the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon, is available on Amazon US, UK, and other e-retailers, for further information and to read the Preface to the ebook go to
http://collca.com/jib
. Masks of the Moryons: Easter Week in Mogpog is available from
http://collca.com/motm
.

The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with mystery / suspense author Cindy Huefner Cromer – the three hundred and fifty-eighth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me.

You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. I also now have a new blog creation service especially for writers.

Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them)  on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are weekly episodes, usually released Monday mornings UK time, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.

 

Flash Fiction Friday 29: ‘The Jazz and The Blues’ by Mia Johansson

Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday and the twenty-ninth piece of flash fiction in this series. This week’s is a 713-worder by spotlightee Mia Johansson who brought us ‘On the Bridge‘ back in November.

The Jazz and the Blues

It was that year I was born. Was it a newsworthy event? Yes. I was born. Was it historical? Maybe. Cultural? I doubt it, but who knows. Astrological? It must have been since I was born. That means the planets and the stars, the whole universe was in harmony giving birth to ME.

How was it?

Sweat and pain and screaming and yelling. A lot of pain. It must have hurt a lot coming to an unknown place all alone, trying to make my way into the world. And all you see is a light, bright and colored like a rainbow. In fact it is a rainbow. The light. It has all the colors in it. It has everything you want. And something more, Life!

It was quite some time ago but I still remember it. Or maybe… Anyway ever since that day I have started to die a little. Every day we die a little. So strange, isn’t it? We are born to start dying. Every second until we finally remember the day we made the step into the unknown. But maybe that day, the final day, we’ll remember exactly that moment, The Birth. It is the moment we are (are we?) ready to be reborn and see the light. Again.

There was a lot of talking crap, wasn’t there?

“At least you’ve had a good morning, haven’t you?” my neighbor said to me this morning. I suppose he’s right, since nothing is personal or private or intimate anymore nowadays.

In fact I did have a good morning today. I managed to get up like every single morning since that very day when I saw the light. And it’s a miracle. Just think how marvelous life is; to feel the heart beating, the blood rushing into your veins and the sweat drops trickling-down all over your body. To wake up early in the morning and open your eyes wide into a fabulous new world full of the unexpected. Full of colors, of dance and movement. Of silence

Of Jazz

And Blues.

How was I? Naked. Pretty much naked. As I am today. As I was before and shall be tomorrow. I mean why should we need something so trivial, so useless as some pieces of thread to hide… what? Us from whom we are, to be sure that we’ll succeed and conquer that tiny spot, that short moment we’ve been given here, that we call life?

That morning I thought it would be as usual; shiny and warm. But it wasn’t. The wind started to blow and it was quite chilly. The train station looked like a spider net of railways and people. So many people! I’ve never seen so many in the same place. There were hundreds of them and all in a hurry making their own smelly tracks on the big hall floor, or waiting diligently for a train to arrive. Sleeping or reading, eating or just holding tightly their crying babies. Or maybe each other’s hands, listening to that thrilling, sensual music flowing smoothly through their own breathing haze. If it wasn’t for that music playing the moment I entered the hall room, that moment when I met him…

All that jazz…

I didn’t say a thing, I was just quiet. And waited.

It was the first time. The journey. Was it? Yes, it was, so I was both excited and worried at the same time. Everything was new for me; the places, the town, the road. The people. When I think of it I realize that I was so nervous and focused that day that in fact I don’t remember much of the trip. Who were those people on the bus, on the train? Don’t know. I have no idea. People. Just people. Travelling people. Like me. But I did manage to wake up every day since then. Every morning. Today too. And it’s a miracle, isn’t it?

Where am I? Here, I suppose. Still here, aware of the moment. At least I try. But seen from another perspective, from another side of the Universe, I don’t even exist. I am fiction.

How do I look? Still 25!

What am I doing? That was a damn good question.

Who am I with?

Well…

I still got the blues.

Thank you, Mia. You called it ‘twisted’ in your email and I agree – I love ‘twisted’.

Mia Johansson is a civil engineer living in Sweden, author of the fiction novel “Unfinished discussion about God – The diary of a time traveller” expected to be published 2012, and other short stories. She is an occasional photographer interested in the architecture of old and modern cities, street life, a good cup of coffee and jazz. I have just recently joined Google+ (late to the party, I know) and Mia is already there; you can view her stunningly attractive albums here. You also read more about Mia in her spotlight and her other FFF story ’On the Bridge‘. Tonight’s story was podcasted here.

If you’d like to submit your 1,000-word max. stories for consideration for Flash Fiction Friday take a look here.

The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with thriller / romance novelist Gregg Feistman – the three hundred and thirty-second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales.

I have a new forum at
http://morgenbailey.freeforums.org
 and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s ‘Contact me’ page or plain and simple, email me.

 

Author Spotlight no.45 – Mia Johansson

Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the forty-fifth, is of Mia Johansson.

Mia Johansson is a civil engineer living in Sweden, author of the fiction novel “Unfinished discussion about God – The diary of a time traveller” expected to be published 2012, and a variety of short stories. She is an occasional photographer interested in the architecture of old and modern cities, street life, a good cup of coffee and jazz. I have recently joined Google+ (late to the party, I know) and Mia is already there; you can view her stunningly attractive albums here. You can read two of Mia’s short stories (which was/will be also podcasted) on the Flash Fiction Fridays page (‘On the Bridge’ and ‘The Jazz and the Blues‘).

And now from the author herself:

…how I became a writer?  Well…

I really don’t know… If I am a writer at all. I did write some pages, some thoughts. But does it make me a writer?

I never thought or wished or even dreamed to be a writer. It just happened.

One day, two years ago, I said to myself: “I will write a book” and the next day I started to write. I had an idea about what I wanted to write but I had no idea at all about how to write a book. Rules and stuff like that you know, about writing, not that I am that kind of person that follows the rules in general either.

I lost the text three times somewhere in the outer space, the virtual one, meaning my laptop so I had to remake the story three times. Or was it four? And I re-read it kind of “thousand” times each time becoming something else (lol! wonder how it will look in the end).  It took me two years to finish the material for the “Unfinished discussion about God – The diary of a time traveler”.

Almost the same time I finished the text for the book, the chance to take a writing class occurred so I took it.  And as in my book’s story, so even in reality, my reality, everything went the other way round.  How? Why? Maybe it’s time to re-read my story. Again!

And so I became a writer.

Thank you so much Mia, and I look forward to reading more of your writing.

The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with novelist and short story author Kimberly Todd Wade – the two hundred and thirty-fifth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me. You can read / download my eBooks from Smashwords.