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How has your upbringing influenced your writing? My father grew up in Mexico, a country that’s steeped in magical realism. But he was also a scientist, so he had this strange polarity of spiritualism and rationalism. I think that’s made me cross the possibility of the supernatural with very rational explanations for whatever weirdness goes on in my books. I like to walk that edge. And my family did quite a bit of traveling, so along with all the good stuff—great art, ancient cultures, different mores and political beliefs—I was exposed to disturbing images and situations: poverty, desperation, oppression, madness. From the time I was a very young child I was very sensitive to the fact that there’s a lot of weirdness out there, and a lot of danger from unstable people. It certainly influenced my dark themes.
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? I was always into theater, much more into the performance side when I was a kid – but I was also writing plays with my best friend when we were just in grade school. We’d put on these crazy performances in her garage and charge the neighbors a dollar admission. It was what we did instead of selling lemonade, I guess. It taught me that you could make money from writing, though!
When and why did you begin writing? My mother made me write a journal from kindergarten on. Just a sentence, then a paragraph, then a page. I became an obsessive journaler. I guess that was the start of it. Writing was the way I thought. Then came the strange garage plays, and then theater, then screenwriting, and now novels.
How long have you been writing? I always wrote. Storytelling started when I was about eight or nine. I’ve been writing professionally for about 20 years.
When did you first know you could be a writer? I started out acting and dancing, then directing plays and choreographing musicals. Often I would rewrite scenes or add scenes, and when you do live theater, you know right away if something you’ve written works, because of the audience reaction. So I knew I could write. But the real thunderbolt was when I had written my first one-act play for a college class, and the professor had a graduate student cast and direct it. When my characters walked out on that stage and I saw how the audience reacted to them, I knew I WAS a writer.
What inspires you to write and why? That’s such an impossible question! I don’t think of writing as inspiration at all, it’s a constant state of being. It’s the way I process life, and the way I live life.
Do you have any upcoming appearances that you would like to share with us? I think my next in person appearance is at the Horror Writers Convention in New Orleans. Then Thrillerfest, in New York. There’s a regularly updated list on my website:
When you wish to end your career, stop writing, and look back on your life, what thoughts would you like to have? I’d like to think that I wrote and taught in a way that inspired my readers to think and feel. I’d like to think that I got a great deal of deep living done as well as writing.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Mystery / Thriller
Rating – PG13
More details about the author & the book
Website http://alexandrasokoloff.com/
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