… Lee Winter
1. What’s the time of the day when you feel most like yourself?
Around 10am. I’ve woken up, I’m probably fully into writing, and it’s too early for me to judge the quality of the words I’ve written for the day!
2. What’s your coffee order?
I don’t drink coffee. (Or tea.) Never acquired the habit.
3. How would you describe yourself in three words?
Funny (in my dreams, at least). Smart-ass (okay, closer to the truth). Curious (I love learning about the world and how it all works – science and people and what makes things tick and so on)
4. What do you think of garden gnomes?
Shudder. No comment.
5. What’s the most ridiculous piece of advice you’ve ever received and why did it work for you?
Write the end if you get stuck. I did this on my first book, The Red Files. I wasn’t stuck but I was so excited to get to the end – the epilogue had been in my head for ages – that I wrote it long before the end of the book.
6. What makes you smile?
When my girlfriend smiles. She has such a genuine, wonderful smile that she bestows sparingly on people and even then they have to have earned it! Lord, that sounds bad, but truly she’s not one for faking niceties. So, when she smiles, she really means it. So when I get a smile, I’m just “aww, for me? Yes! Win!”
7. Do you believe in soulmates?
I don’t think everyone *finds* their soulmate, but I think some people are just meant to be with certain other people. You can just see it when you meet those couples.
8. What authors would you invite for a trip to a desert island and why?
EJ Noyes is coming because she’s a mate and I find her hilarious. Just because. I’m inviting Ana K. Wrenn (a debut author whose book Strange Attractors is out next year), because she’s a smart professor and a talented writer who I enjoy talking to on a great many subjects. And I’m thinking Chris Zett. She’s fun and fabulous but also, as a doctor, she’d be the most valuable person there! I’m not sure which authors cook, so I’m open to suggestions on that one so our desert cuisine isn’t awful.
9. What makes you cry?
Angst. I love perfectly written angst so much. I wept at the Joy Luck Club where the two sisters are united with their long-lost niece. EJ Noyes’s Alone makes me sob because, God, I love righteous indignation angst just so very much.
10. What’s your best feature?
I spend a lot of my days trying to make other people laugh. That’s good, right? I am happiest when we’re all having a laugh.
11. What’s your favorite meal?
Veal schnitzel and hot chips with a zesty squirt of lemon. Don’t judge me – it’s a childhood treat I get dewy eyed over. Retro reminiscing.
12. What’s the one thing you’d change about the world if you could?
I’d love it if everything was fair. Wrongs were righted. No innocents would be hurt. Unfairness used to make me angry cry so much as a kid. I would be SO outraged! I still am but it’s muted with the cynicism and weariness of age.
13. In a crowded room, what makes you notice a woman?
Two things: Confidence and high cheek bones. The former makes my brain purr. The latter makes the rest of me purr. LOL.
14. What’s your one big regret?
Not writing books early enough. Waiting for so long, to my forties, when I could have been writing for years feels like such a waste. But I didn’t believe *I* could write books.
15. What would be the title of your autobiography?
Confessions of an awkward introvert who thinks she’s funny
16. Who was the one person who had the most impact on your life and why?
Aside from my mother, which is obvious, I’ll say Glenn Close. She played Margarethe in Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story. It was the first time I had *ever* seen a lesbian on screen who was portrayed as honorable and respected and noble and it just blew me away. I’d had such deep shame about being gay and was so closeted. I saw that movie and after a month or so, decided to come out. It was life changing.
Btw I love that there are now so many lesbian/bi characters on screen, many of whom are wonderful role models, so the kids of today have a plethora of choices to be proud of.
17. What’s the one thing you’d want the 18-year-old you to know?
That being out isn’t as terrifying as you think it is. (Although to be fair, being out in 1988 was pretty effing terrifying. But I’m so glad it’s not like that now.)
18. What’s in your fridge right now?
About two dozen pre-packed meals for my vegetarian girlfriend that she makes in advance. A steak is defrosting for me. A bit of fruit and veg and lots of water bottles. God our fridge is lame. The freezer, on the other hand, is fun-ness. But you didn’t ask about that. 😊
19. If you could choose one song to be played every time you enter a room, what song would that be and why?
Fernando by ABBA. Okay, hear me out: When it first came out it was number one in Australia for a gazillion weeks. I loved it. It played over and over and over on the radio and TV and I never got sick of it. So I’m thinking if it’s to be a song I hear Every Single Time I enter a room, it has to be something I’ve already bench-tested to not drive me nuts despite incessant playing. I’m just being practical here. Quality of life is a factor I rank highly.
20. What’s the one book you read that you wish you’d have written?
Harry Potter. Although I’d have called it Hermione Granger. And Minerva would be gay. And LGBT kiddies would be cool and well represented. And I’d be rich enough to pay an assassin to bump off whoever keeps playing Fernando every damned time I walked into a room.
Lee Winter’s latest release, The Awkward Truth, can be found here: https://www.ylva-publishing.com/product/the-awkward-truth-by-lee-winter/ and from December 8 on Amazon.