Todays Author Interview is with Natascha Tallowin.

Tell us about your latest project.

I’ve just finished collecting together enough poems and prose pieces to form my first anthology, ‘Some of Her Parts’, which is available to buy from Amazon.com .co.uk and LuLu.com.
It features the majority of the poems that have been published in literary journals, magazines and poetry anthologies, such as ‘Some of Her Parts’, ‘The Dream of Someone Else’ and ‘If I Didn’t Have You, Someone Else Would Do’, along with plenty of lesser known pieces such as ‘For Sale: Dorothy’s Shoes’ and ‘London in the Evening’.

When and why did you start writing?

I’ve been writing full length novels since I was about 9/10, and have been doing so ever since.
As for why I started writing, as cliché as it is, I doubt I could do anything else. I’m pretty unemployable really. I’ve got the qualifications but give me a boss I don’t like or an environment that I don’t crave to be in and I’ll leave immediately!

Writing fiction makes me happy, I crave doing it and am completely in love with it. I’ll never understand people who work jobs that they don’t adore.

What’s your favourite genre to write and what’s your favourite genre to read?

My favourite genre to write, and my favourite genre to read are pretty much one in the same. Literary fiction and the odd bit of diluted Magic Realism (think Chocolat by Joanne Harris). I don’t get on with science fiction or fantasy or things like that. I like to read and write about the real world and analyse the people in it.

What inspires you?

Food, film, the face behind the façade of the individual.
I often find myself drawing inspiration from the non-politically correct and the social deviants. For example I’ve written alot of poetry inspired by men who wear make up, cross dressers, transgendered people, gay men, lesbians, unconventional sex and common situations made awkward by people’s assumptions and prejudices.
I’m also inspired alot by other writers such as Virginia Woolf, Peter Hedges, Joanne Harris and Sarah Waters, and occasionally glam rock musicians such as David Bowie, Pat Briggs and Boy George.
I like people who shock, and push boundaries, but never just for the sake of it. I’d like to think some of my pieces achieve that.

Do you have any quirks to how you write?

I’m not sure. Probably not. I tend to just settle down with my laptop, a cup of tea and Eliza (my baby daughter) sleeping on my chest and start writing. I do keep word documents full of half ideas and quotes that I want to include in things, but that’s pretty much it, nothing too exciting!

Are their any of your characters you particularly relate to, if there is, who and why?

I think a lot of my characters share my general disregard for anything politically correct, and a lot of them don’t suffer fools, so I relate to them in that sense, but I think generally my characters are fictional, and are a way for me to explore different ways of being.

What are you planning on doing next/What else are you up to?

I’m now in the ‘ideas stage’, of two projects. One a novel, working title: ‘Theatre of Excess’, which is top secret at the moment, and two, a short story entitled ‘According to Maurice’, which I’ll turn into a play once I’ve completed it. My partner and I are also about to start work on a children’s story for our little girl, which will be interesting as writing books for children is something new for both of us.
Aside from that I’m busy writing poetry as usual and about to begin editing my latest novel.

Thanks for dropping by Natascha, I agree on the being unemployable thing. My husband jokes that I’m completely unemployable as well. I think there are quite a few of us writers that are similar.