SPOTLIGHT ON… Fantasy: Kaaron Warren

 

 

Kaaron Warren

 

Describe yourself in one word:
Imaginative

 

What is your background with regard to writing?
I published my first short story in 1993 and have sold over a hundred since then. I have three novels in print and four short story collections. I have hundreds of notebooks filled with story ideas, snippets of conversations, tiny descriptions and impressions.

 

When did you first begin writing with a view of embarking on a career as a published author?
When I was fourteen, a family friend gave me a list of addresses, including publishers, short story competitions and writing groups. That was the moment I thought it was a possibility, that this thing I loved doing, could be a career.

 

Tell us about the first book you wrote
It’s called Skin Deep and I wrote it at fourteen, not long after that family friend handed over that list of addresses! It’s hugely inspired by The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Really, it’s just the Australian version of that book, with Skips versus Wogs and a showdown at the local shopping centre and drama at the country creek. I wrote it in exercise books, using red pen, and I still have that original.

 

What is your writing routine?
Kids and husband leave the house, workmen arrive for the renovations, I hide in the backroom trying to write. That’s this month! Usually I manage to write for three or four hours a day, including research, reading and editing.

 

Favourite snack whilst writing?
Tamari flavoured almonds. A friend gave me the recipe and they are so deliciously salty and satisfying. I also like jelly beans but I try not to have them in the house.

If you weren’t writing, what would you be doing?
Tough one! I’ve wanted to be a writer all my life. Other careers I considered were murder detective and journalist. Both would definitely have been good for the writing, I think. Journalists learn to be succinct and clear. Murder detectives see a lot of terrible things.

 

What piqued your interest in the sci-fi/paranormal genre?
I’ve always liked the idea that anything is possible, and that’s what you get with science fiction and horror fiction. I love the possibilities. Ghosts can walk, the dead rise. We can travel into the future and the past, we can imagine utopias and dystopias. I love the freedom of storytelling that provides.

 

One thing you’d like readers to know about the sci-fi/paranormal genre:
That it’s broad and intelligent and should be judged by the best, not the worst.

 

Biggest accomplishment to date:
Winning the Shirley Jackson Award, the Aurealis Award, the Ditmar Award, the Canberra Critics Circle and the Australian Shadows Award and shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award in one year!

 

What’s next for you?
Finishing a novel based on my short story, where heinous criminals are offered the choice of death or eternal life. Eternal life comes at a cost, though. Doesn’t it always?

 

Finishing another novel about people at the end of their line who obsessed with last things.

 

 

 

Confessions of an Author:

 

Is there something we’d be shocked to know about you?
I like watching Survivor.

 

What do you find easiest to write? And, the hardest?
I love writing short stories, but I don’t know that I’d say it was easy. Easiest of all is writing ideas and sparks into my notebook!

 

The hardest is a blurb for my own fiction. So hard to sum up three years’ work in a couple of sentences!

 

Favourite travel experience?
Hard to choose just one, but I did love visiting Grover’s Mill in New Jersey, site of the alleged Martian landings in 1938. http://kaaronwarren.livejournal.com/2007/11/16/

 

Favourite fictional character:
Harriet the Spy. I bought a notebook just like hers the first time I went to the States.

 

 

Number one thing to do on your bucket list:
Live in New York

 

 

Milk or dark chocolate?
Both! I like dark for cooking, milk for nibbling.

 

 

Red, white, bubbly?
Red bubbly is my favourite drink of all time.

 

 

Salty or sweet?
Both!

 

 

Beach or mountains?
Mountains, especially with a creek running down.

 

 

Give or receive?
Both! There is something a bit selfish about always giving. I think we need to receive graciously as well.

 

 

 

 

Find Kaaron online:

 

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