Q & A with Sheilah Roberts

1. When do you like to write (time of day, day of week)? Where do you do your writing (location)?

I like to write anytime. Working full time doesn’t give me a lot of time, so I squeeze it in, lunchtime, break, morning, evening. In a perfect world, I would get up at 8:00 am, fiddle around with every other possible thing in the house (i.e. dishes, laundry, etc.) and then finally get down to a good chunk of writing by about 10:30 am. I need perfect quiet to write. I work in my home office or I work in a library here at MUN.

2. What other jobs have you had besides being a writer?

So many: art model, film extra, chambermaid, barmaid, theatre manager, riding instructor, singing teacher. Better stop there. Right now I work in the music library at MUN.

3. What was your first piece in print (book, review, or article, etc)?

My first piece of work in print was the cooking/history book called For Maids Who Brew and Bake.

4. What is your favourite book(s)?

I’m trying to finish a children’s novel and so my most recent favourite has been the Pullman trilogy. His Dark Materials Trilogy: The Golden Compass, The Amber Spyglass, The Subtle Knife. For local books, I loved Joan Clarke’s An Audience of Chairs.

5. What are you reading now?

I’m going away so I have a book in German to read entitled Der Loewe von Uruk.

6. What do you like to do in your free time?

Free time is almost a luxury. On a Friday night I kick back with a bottle of wine and a good movie, and sometimes on a Saturday my partner and I like to go ballroom dancing. Every other day/night of the week is pretty full.

7. What is your favourite food?

My favourite food? Any good vegetarian dish. I’m very partial to the menu at the Sprout at the moment, or always a favourite: India Gate cuisine.

8. What is your favourite movie(s)?

My favourite movie would have to be a foreign one, I think. I get pretty bored with the predictable Hollywood crap, but on second thought I recently saw American Gangster and thought it not bad at all. I really liked Rare Birds too. That’s foreign.

9. What city/country would you most like to visit and why?

The city that I’m about to visit, Prague. Next voyage will be to South America to dance the tango on the streets of Buenos Aires.

10. Make a question of your own and then answer it.

What did I want to do when I grew up?

I wanted a horse and I wanted a harp. I don’t think making money crossed my mind. It never occurred to me that I would write, and yet as a child that’s all I did was write and draw and paint. I wrote my first short story at eight and my first novella during history class in grade eleven. It wasn’t until I was desperately in need of money and a job that I wrote my first book.