10 Quirky Questions with author Fiona Wood

1. What's your hidden talent?
I am my family’s handy person. I’m the keeper of the tool box, the electric drill etc. I love fixing things.

2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?
Iago from Othello is a favourite – jealous, duplicitous and completely ruthless. I had this character in mind when I created Holly in my second novel, Wildlife. Whenever I wondered if something she might do was just too awful, I thought of Iago and that helped me to shape her as a truly horrible false friend.

3. You're hosting a literary dinner party, which five authors would you invite? (alive or dead)
So many possible configurations for some fantastic dinners, but tonight I’ll invite Edith Nesbit, Joan Aiken, LM Montgomery, Tove Jansson and Robin Klein.

4. Which literary invention do you wish was real?
Time machine. See questions 3 and 9.

5. What are five words that describe your writing process?
Daydream. Plan. Write. Rewrite. Rewrite.

6. Which are the five words you would like to be remembered by as a writer?
“Made me laugh, cry, think.”

7. Picture your favourite writing space. What are five objects you would find there?
Computer. Remote keyboard. Coffee cup. 4pm snakes. Window, through which to stare at sky.

8. Grab the nearest book, open it to page 22 and look for the second word in the first sentence. Now, write a line that starts with that word. (Please include the name of the book!)
The word is ‘her’ from Dragon Skin, the superb middle-grade novel by Karen Foxlee.
Her name was Persephone, not that anyone had bothered to ask.

9. If you could ask one author one question, what would the question be and who would you ask?
One of the lovely things about working as a writer is that you can ask another author anything. Authors are friendly and helpful and good at listening to each other’s trials and tribulations. So, present-day questions being sorted, I will travel back in time to ask George Eliot if I could please see her planning papers for Middlemarch – so many balls in the air! If George Eliot were not available for some reason, I’d ask Enid Blyton how she was so prolific: Did she have a team of ghostwriters working with her?

10. Which would you rather do: 'Never write another story or never read another book'?
Neither option is in any way acceptable!

Fiona Wood's first novel, Six Impossible Things was shortlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year, Older Readers. Her next three books, Wildlife, Cloudwish; and Take Three Girls (co-written with Cath Crowley and Simmone Howell, and winner of the CBCA award for Older Readers) were shortlisted for numerous other awards. Her books are published internationally. Fiona is also a screenwriter and lives in Melbourne/Naarm with her family. For more information, see www.fionawood.com.