Sunday, April 01, 2007

A Camilla Cameo

My interview with Canadian author Camilla Gibb in StarMag today:
When Camilla Gibb realised in her teens that what she really wanted to do in life was write, she found herself surrounded by people who tried to talk her out of such an impractical career choice.

Among them was her English teacher who told her, “You’re only 18. What are you going to write about? Have a life first. Go to university and study something that will teach you about the world and then if you still insist on writing, you will have so much more to bring to the page.”
Read the whole piece here.

9 comments:

Adam said...

Sharon, link's not working.

bibliobibuli said...

ta adam. fixed.

Poppadumdum said...

Enjoyable article - but I get the feeling it's been heavily edited? Can't believe watsername Sharizat reviewed the book!

Kenny Mah said...

Good interview, Sharon! I had assumed Camilla Gibb would have gone against her teacher's advice, but she didn't! I like the way you ended the article on that note. :)

bibliobibuli said...

my dear sympozium - sharizat actually did a very good job of the review. a lobotomy is not a necessary pre-condition to become a politician y'know.

*sigh* if it feels heavily edited that's because i really had to cut it savagely. it was still over the limit by nearly 200 words. it would have weighed in more comfortably at about 1,600 which is what i had before i began to cut back. it's my fault therefore you can see the joins. but i did so want to talk more about the earlier books and say something about her involvement with PEN ...

nothing was chopped out - an explanation was added to help star readers who don't know what 9/11 means :-D

kenny - the teacher was right. what do these young whippersnappers of 17/18 know? get a life first. writing will always be with you. a good piece of advice to anyone who wants a career in any kind of arts field is "DON'T!" The ones who defy you are the ones with sufficient guts to make it.

Poppadumdum said...

Are you going to post your entire article? That would be great.

bibliobibuli said...

wasn't thinking of it ... let me have a think. the problem is that the earlier version would also need reediting to make it grammatical etc.

bibliobibuli said...

okay sympozium i will do that but it will take a bit of work as i have 3 versions of the article ...

bibliobibuli said...

see - i guess i work a bit against myself. i only have 800 words to fill but i set out wanting to know everything i can about an author. this after all is my reward, an intimate chat with someone i admire from their work. i read all the books and articles. have a long list of things i want to know. come back with way too much material. and then the choices get difficult. i think my problem is i try to include too much material and then it gets choppy when i cut it down to the required length.