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Exclusive Interview with

Glenice Whitting

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When did you start writing?

1995 when my father died and I discovered we had German ancestry. Also during VCE the only thing that fitted in with work commitments was fiction writing. I wrote a short story which was highly commended in an Australian national short story competition . I thought, 'someone liked it' and I was hooked to keep writing.

Glenice Whitting
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What makes writing your passion?

It is one place where I can be me.
Not in the role of wife and mother but where i can be myself.

Glenice Whitting
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How long have you been writing?

2007. Pickle to Pie won the Ilura Press international fiction Quest and got me into a masters at Melbourne University and later into a PhD at Swinburne University of Technology.

Glenice Whitting
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What was the feeling when you published your first book?

I had a brilliant experience.
I won the Illura Press International Fiction Quest Competition, and that’s how it was published.
They were a small press publisher, totally ethical and beautiful people. So, I had a very good experience with them. But they don’t have a marketing budget, and you have to get off your own bottom and organise your own marketing program. Unless you’re picked up by a traditional publisher like Pan Macmillan or someone like that, they have a marketing department. So, it is hard going unless you’re picked up by someone who has a strong marketing team.

Glenice Whitting
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What’s the story behind your choice of characters?

They were based on dad's family. with name changes of course . It was fact/fiction. My first novel was based on my father’s life. I started to write this when my father had died.
But why I had to go into fiction was because I asked my brother about my father. I remembered him as a difficult man. My brother had a different perception of our childhood and family to me. He was three years older and male. I thought ‘Did we live in the same family?’ Also, the grandmother died before I was born, so I never knew her. And yet I was trying to speak as her, and I thought I can’t put voice to this woman unless I call it fiction.

Glenice Whitting
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What annoys you the most in pursuing a writing career?

I love it all. I relish the struggles and the challenges as well as the joyous feeling when everything flows and falls into place.

Glenice Whitting
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How do you get over the “writer’s block”?

Glenice Whitting
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We all know the writer’s path is never easy, what makes you keep going? What advice would you give to new authors?

Start early and read everything.

Glenice Whitting
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If you could go back in time and talk to your younger self, what would you say?

Glenice Whitting
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Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with the bad ones?

I never let them stop me from writing.

Glenice Whitting
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What is the feeling when you get a good review?

I hug them to me.

Glenice Whitting
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Have you ever incorporated something that happened to you in real life into your novels?

Glenice Whitting
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Which of your characters you can compare yourself with? Did you base that character on you?

Glenice Whitting
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What do you think, the book cover is as important as the story?

Definitely important. It has to show the contents inside.

Glenice Whitting
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Do you connect with your readers? Do you mind having a chat with them or you prefer to express yourself through your writing?

Love chatting to my readers.

Glenice Whitting
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How do you feel when people appreciate your work or recognize you in public?

Also love it when people refer to my work

Glenice Whitting
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Who is your favorite author? Why?

Glenice Whitting
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What’s the dream? Whom would you like to be as big as?

Glenice Whitting
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Would you rewrite any of your books? Why?

Glenice Whitting
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If you could switch places with any author – who would that be?

Glenice Whitting
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What would you say to the “trolls” on the internet? We all know them – people who like to write awful reviews to books they’ve never read or didn’t like that much, just to annoy the author.

Glenice Whitting
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What would you say to your readers?

Glenice Whitting
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Share a bit about yourself – where do you live, are you married, do you have kids?

Glenice Whitting
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What is your day job if you have one?

After being awarded the phd I decided to pass on the knowledge to others so i got a job teaching Memoir writing at a Community house in Victoria, Australia.

Glenice Whitting
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What are your hobbies? What do you do in your free time?

Bike riding and spending time with my potted friends.

Glenice Whitting
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Did you have a happy childhood?

I had a very happy childhood. All in the same house in Parkdale vic

Glenice Whitting
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Is there a particular experience that made you start writing?

Glenice Whitting
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Do you have unpublished books? What are they about?

Dyed Pretty is about a hairdresser who has multiple affairs, a woman
obsessed with leaving a pretty corpse.

Yes - she is based on someone I once knew, but long ago died pretty.

Glenice Whitting
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What do you think should be improved in the education of our children? What do we lack?

Glenice Whitting
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If you were allowed 3 wishes – what would they be?

Glenice Whitting
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What is your favorite music?

Anything from opera.
'In the depths of the temple' from the Pearl Fishers, comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAchztDKlwU

Glenice Whitting
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Share a secret with us 🙂

Glenice Whitting
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