Interview With... Becky Crozier
1) The world ends in 24 hours. How are you spending it?
Eating as many donuts as I physically can while exploring the amazon…obviously on a Segway because why not?
2) What was the first book you remember reading?
The Large Family by Gill Murphy
3) What is your favourite book / one book everybody should read?
My favourite book is To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee. I studied it at GCSE and just fell in love with Scout! That would also the one book I would tell people to read- I think that was the first time I found myself really moved by the issue of racial discrimination and prejudice. It’s shaped a lot of my writing. I also would recommend Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It’s all sex and drugs on the surface but it goes way deeper!
4) Bruce Springsteen once told me about his hometown. Tell me a little about yours.
The Boss is a wise man. Met him a few times. I grew up in Washington, Usworth. It’s not the most glamorous place to live but my little cul-de-sac was great- there would be about 10 of us all playing bull dog and tag until the street lights came on. Then you’d better get home or the mam’s would be out in force haha
5) What are you most afraid of?
Spiders and Geese. Did you know they have teeth on their tongue?!!!
6) What makes you feel nostalgic?
Cheese sandwiches. Weird I know. Every Sunday when I came home from training (I was a competitive swimmer) my dad and I would eat our cheese sandwiches and watch scrap heap challenge.
7) Do you have a set writing process?
Not really. It depends on what I’m writing. If it’s poetry I have to write it by hand in my little leather not book. I just feel more connected to it- I usually write poetry outside too. But for prose I usually just sit in my home office and start typing. This time of year I like to light my spiced apple candle to get me in the mood.
8) What advice would you give to young writers / people who are hopeless at doing it?
Just write! I always used to say I didn’t know how to write or I was too young to think about writing anything publishable. It really is true that you learn by doing. For the technical side of writing, obviously I’ve learned things at uni and watched Youtube videos but unless you actually sit down and write you won’t ever find your narrative voice or find what genre you feel comfortable writing in. My lecturer said to me just this week actually that we might surprise ourselves but writing in a genre we’ve never tried before. It all comes down to practice. Just as it takes a while to wear in a pair of shoes- it takes a while to find your authorial voice. No one is a bad writer- we all have different styles. Do your thing and do it with confidence!
9) If you could commit one crime and get away with it, what would it be?
Kidnapping. Johnny Depp is never getting away!
10) Go on, have a superpower. What would you like?
It has to be invisibility
11) You can smack any living person in the face and they won’t sue, I promise. Who are you hitting?
Donald Trump. He can sue if he wants
12) It’s hard being a writer, isn’t it? Why do you do it?
It is. The hardest part of being a writer is actually writing. It’s funny, all the writers I’ve spoken to say they spend more time talking about writing than they do about writing. That’s certainly true of me. My lecturer always says to me ‘find what you’re trying to say’ and I think that’s why I write. I have so much to say but no one ever listens. But if I write it all down and place it in a fictional world with made up characters- people are more willing to pay attention. I can talk about difficult things in a way that makes them less intimidating because it’s not real. Its hard but it’s all worth it when you world and characters start coming to life.
Ask me again in the middle of NaNoWriMo and I won’t sound so passionate about my writing haha
13) You can sleep with any famous figure, alive or dead. Who are you taking?
Mila Kunis!
14) What are some of your other passions, other than literature?
I’m a dancer so that is my main passion, but I also really like to go to the gym and play the Ukulele
15) Tell me about any work you have published / will be publishing / can only dream of publishing
I haven’t actually got anything published yet. I don’t think I’ve ever really had the confidence to put my work out there. I’ve won NaNoWriMo 3 times but haven’t thought about publishing any of it. That’s changed now though. I’m hoping to self-publish the novel I will be writing during this year’s NaNoWriMo (Tokyo Home). The reason for that being I feel like I finally have a story to tell, rather than just creating a narrative for the sake of it. It’s not in any way autobiographical but it tackles issues that I feel need to be talked about- I’ve just decided to talk about them through the voice of my protagonist- Ahri. I’m a lot more confident in my writing now that I’ve had more practice and I’ve written a lot nore now. My writing has changes over the past 3 years- the past year even and you can see then in the collection of short stories and poems I have been putting together. I feel like now it the right time to finally put my work out there. As for something I can only dream of publishing… maybe something as popular as Harry Potter? One can only dream!