Entrevista a Joss Stirling (en inglés y español)

¡Hola Viajeros!

¿Pueden creer que ya casi me gradúo de la preparatoria? Y pensar que abrí este blog cuando aún me quedaban dos años... ¡el tiempo vuela! 

Yam y yo nos hemos puesto de acuerdo para tener más activo este espacio y hemos decidido organizarnos y comprometernos a seguir esos parámetros. Desde ahora todos los Martes y Sábados publicaremos una entrada, y estamos pensando en realizar algunos cambios e introducir nuevas secciones, pero eso ya les iremos comentando poco a poco. Hemos subido en seguidores en facebook gracias a la hermosa de Lawit que es la que nos apoya con esa red social y esperamos ponernos al día con twitter para interactuar más con ustedes.

En fin, para el contenido del número de Abril de la Revista Literariamente, realicé una entrevista a una de mis autoras favoritas: Joss Stirling, y he decidido publicarla aquí en inglés, tal y como fue originalmente porque la autora es británica. Si quieren leerla en español, solo deben visitar el número de la revista y consultar la página correspondiente. En verdad disfruté mucho de esta oportunidad, fue como un pequeño sueño hecho realidad <3 Espero que les guste y que si no conocen las obras de esta autora, se atrevan a leer alguno, en verdad son fabulosos. 

Interview to Joss Stirling

Ys: At what age you started to read more and began to love this amazing universe of literature?

Joss: I began to read at five when I started primary school. I remember being very proud when I recognised the English word ‘kitten’ as it had two syllables (not that I knew what they were then!).

Ys: You always knew you’ll become a writer? When you started to write?

Joss: I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was about nine and spent the last few years at primary school writing stories in the afternoon (which I still have). I usually take one of them out with me—it is called ‘The Tapestry Room’ and involves travelling between worlds—when I go into schools now and I tell the children that if they are writing stories for fun already then they are doing the apprenticeship to be an author.

Ys: It was difficult for you to write and publish your first book? In which way your life changed after becoming a writer? How you felt when people started to know you?

Joss: Yes, it is hard to get a publisher, particularly now with reading habits changing and bookshops becoming a rare sight on the high street. I had a relatively easy route to being taken on by a publisher but there is no such thing as job security for a writer. I do, however, love what I do which makes it all worthwhile. I was fortunate to win a big prize in the UK with my first book (The Diamond of Drury Lane, written as Julia Golding) so it made me known from the outset and that helped gain me further contracts. I also won the Romantic Novel of the Year in the UK last year for Struck, first time a YA title has won the prize in the fifty years of the award – that helped put me on the map.

Ys: I know Joss Stirling is a pen name of Julia Golding and you also write as Eve Edwards, why you decided to have those pen names?

Joss: It’s complicated. One reason is that the books under each of the names appeal to different readerships so it made sense to separate them out. Readers known what they are getting and won’t be put off by finding I’ve suddenly switched genre or age group. Another reason is to do with how to make a living and publish more than one or two books a year.

Ys: Where you get inspiration to create your amazing stories? I mean, when those ideas came to your mind? 

Joss: Inspiration comes from all sorts of places like travel or news stories or just conversations with people. The twist in the tale involving Kate in Stung, for example, came from a conversation with a scientist at Oxford University about data storage. I know some interesting people here. The biggest inspiration for my Joss books though is my daughter. She is the first and most important audience for me. I wrote Finding Sky to appeal to her likes, which were the paranormal, boys to-die-for, and American high school which feels exotic to someone from England.

Ys: I have to say that I identify myself so much to Sky, even we measure the same and like the same colours. Do you identify yourself with some of your characters? 

Joss: As the writer, I am all of them, including the villains. You have to dig through your imagination and your own character to make up the different aspects of the people you create. I might’ve had most fun being Angel for the duration of the writing because I found her exhilarating. I wish I was more like her in the real world. I’m probably more like Summer or Phoenix, more private and reticent. Among the Benedicts I’m most like Uriel.

Uriel es de mis favs <3 <3 <3

Ys: When you wrote ‘Finding Love’ series, you visited those places personally? Or you just described the places you saw on photos?

Joss: I’ve usually visited the places, or on a rare occasion had someone close to me go there and tell me about it in detail. I’ve invented some of the locations but if they are in a real place, like the Italian Alps, I’ll have been to the area I describe. I particularly enjoyed my research trip to Venice for Seeking Crystal.

Ys: Personally, I love quotes. Do you have a favourite one?

Joss: ‘To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelt out is a spark.’ Victor Hugo. I have that on the shelf in my study.

Ys: Are you thinking about visiting Latin America? You can come to Cancun. Mexico if you like… (just kidding)

Joss: Funnily enough, I went on a three-week family holiday which started in Cancun in the summer of 2014. We went to San Cristobal, Palenque, then on into Guatemala and Belize, ending up at Playa del Carmen. The thread was visiting Mayan ruins as my son was particularly interested in the culture and we all enjoy history.

Ys: You have other passions besides writing? What you like to watch on tv or what music you like?

Joss: I’ve just mentioned one – history. I enjoy a few handpicked TV shows like Sherlock and dramas such as The Night Manager and Dr Thorne (on the TV in the UK at the moment). The Night Manager stars the brilliant Tom Hiddleston (better known as Loki in the Thor films). Otherwise I tend to listen to the radio. We have a fabulous talking radio station in the UK called BBC Radio 4, which is full of fascinating factual and cultural programmes. It is one of the best things about my country. 

I like listening to music; it is an important part of my creativity. My music taste is varied. I’m currently listening to Adele, Ed Sheeran, Jess Glynn, Sam Smith, the Corrs and many more, but my ‘desert island’ track would be a classical piece Allegri’s Miserere – listen to it and tell me if it doesn’t send tingles down your spine!

Ys: Constantly I ask myself if an author’s life is different from an ‘ordinary’ life. How would it be a normal day in your life? (Like your daily routine)

Joss: Going out to a café to write at 9am for couple of hours. Walk the dogs on a pretty meadow in Oxford at about midday and think about the book I’m writing. Work on things like emails and website in the afternoon. Do family/household stuff from about five onwards. It’s a nice life.

Literary questionnaire

Ys: Imagine there is a zombie apocalypse and you can only take five books with you, which ones you would choose?

Joss: How to kill a zombie, How to grow your own food, How to treat Zombie bites…

Oh, did you mean classics? Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), My Name is Asher Lev (Chaim Potok), the Bible, Complete works of Shakespeare.

Ys: And which ones you would discard?

Joss: If I had to chuck a book at the zombies to fight them off, I’d make sure I kept the Bible to the very end.

Ys: If you had to stay in a world all your life, what would it be?

Joss: I guess this means a fictional world? I think I’d be very happy in Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

Ys: Which book made you get into reading? 

Joss: Hard to remember but I did read and love the books by Frances Hodgson Burnett including The Secret Garden and A Little Princess.

Ys: Favourite author?

Joss: Jane Austen

Ys: If your life were a book, how would it be the book cover? And what would be the title? 

Joss: ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ and the cover would be a picture of Oxford with mythical creatures peeping out of the buildings like gargoyles.

Ys: An adaptation that has passed a book (a movie better than its book). 

Joss: I guess you are asking if I’ve seen a film where it is better than the book? Life of Pi definitely rivalled its source material, possibly surpassed it.

Ys: A book that you liked a lot and his film has disappointed you.

Joss: The Hobbit overran – great actors and realization as you would expect from Peter Jackson but he shouldn’t have spun it out to three films. I’d like to see a heavily cut single film, or at most two films as originally planned.

Ys: When buying a book ... What do you look first? Book cover or title?

Joss: Actually usually the author name.

¡Y esto fue todo! 

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Un beso,