I once knew every post code in Australia. (I was a mail sorter.)
2. What is your nickname?
Let.
3. What is your greatest fear?
Getting on the wrong train and ending up in the wrong country—again.
4. Describe your writing style in ten words.
Warm and playful with a strong sense of rhythm.
5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
In awe of speedy writers.
6. What book character would you be, and why?
Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mocking Bird. What lawyer wouldn’t aspire to that?
7. If you could time travel, what year would you go to and why?
I’d zap 50 years into the future to see if books written then about 2015 are accurate.
8. What would your ten-year-old self say to you now?
Why did’t you listen to your violin teacher? She told you that law will be really dry.
9. Who is your greatest influence?
My greatest writing influences would be Australian children’s writers like Morris Gleitzman and James Roy. I love the way they take really difficult or forgotten times in our history and turn them into accessible and thrilling stories for kids
10. What/who made you start writing?
From the time I started reading I wanted to write, and I spent all my childhood writing about wonderful places where children rule. I used to publish the tales in our own magazines with friends and we’d crank out the stories on an old roneo machine we’d unearthed somewhere.
11. What is your favourite word and why?
Mellifluous--it flows smoothly off the tongue like honey.
12. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?
The Incredible Lightness of Being. Every sentence has an aha moment. I just keep asking how can one writer know all this?
Loretta Re is an Australian writer whose diverse writing interests include everything from light verse and humorous articles to legal documents. Her children's books include the picture book Flying South and her most recent release, Stand Up and Cheer, an aviation adventure novel based on the 1934 Great Centenary Air Race from London to Melbourne.
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