Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse will speak when she tells fairy tales.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Fairy tales and folk tales have always played a role in my writing in one way or another.
I'm an interpreter of stories. When I perform it's like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories.
I was a very good nurse, but I burned out after eight years or so because it wasn't what I truly wanted to do. Writing is what I belong to.
No matter what you write, you actually can't help retelling a fairy tale somewhere along the way.
I have been writing fairy tales for as long as I can remember. Not much has changed in terms of my natural attraction to the narrative techniques of fairy tales. My appreciation of them in the traditional stories has deepened, especially of flat and unadorned language, intuitive logic, abstraction, and everyday magic.
When my sister and I were very young, my father used to tell us fairy stories that he'd made up. My mother was always telling him that he should write them down, but he would say, 'Well, they've all been done before. There are so many blooming books in the world - why should I write another one?'
Many people think fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales are only for children, but I'm not the only writer to take an old tale and retell it for a sophisticated adult audience.
My parents told me any and every fairy-tale from all around the world. I usually gravitated towards ones with interesting, strong heroines.
My mum was a nurse, and her passion was geriatric care. I used to love listening to the old people's stories in her nursing home and picturing myself in their place. They'd say, 'I went to school in a horse and cart,' and I'd just think 'Wow!' I'd picture myself in their place - acting was a natural progression.
Fairy-tales are nice.
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