1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.
I don’t like sweet potato. (You didn’t say it had to be interesting.)
I don’t like sweet potato. (You didn’t say it had to be interesting.)
2. What is your nickname?
I don’t have one at the moment. But my first nickname in school was Hair-Bear, to rhyme with my surname, Hehir which is pronounced 'hair'. At various times in my childhood and adolescence I have also been called ‘Timmo’ or ‘Timsk’.
3. What is your greatest fear?
Being kidnapped and held for ransom by the rancid butter monster that lives at the back of my fridge.
4. Describe your writing style in ten words.
Old-fashioned, but with a lively touch of today tossed in.
5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Lively, engaging, original, clear, grammatically-correct.
6. What book character would you be, and why?
Mr Darcy — because he is rich and handsome, but most importantly because Elizabeth Bennett falls in love with him.
7. If you could time travel, what year would you go to and why?
Any time in the 1600s when the Globe Theatre was playing Shakespeare. I would, however, pay an extra penny to sit in the gallery rather than rough it with the ‘groundlings’ who had to stand for the entire performance.
8. What would your ten-year-old self say to you now?
So what happened to all the hair?
9. Who is your greatest influence?
John Hehir, my uncle.
10. What/who made you start writing?
I started writing when I was about ten years old. Our class was given the task to write a page about ‘Going on Safari’. I kept going for about 30 pages because I found that I had created characters in a world where I could make them do what I wanted. It was so exciting that I did not want to stop. My teacher was not very happy though — I had not followed her instructions about writing only one page. I wrote in secret after that.
11. What is your favourite word and why?
Verisimilitude — it means ‘the appearance of being true or real’ which is what we writers try to achieve with our stories, but it is also one of the most difficult words in the English language to actually say. Try it out for yourself.
12. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Pride and Prejudice (the version without the zombies)
Tim Hehir's latest book, Julius and the Watchmaker was published in May 2013 by Text Publishing.
See more on Tim's work at www.timhehir.com.au.
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