First, though, I have done a complete redesign of my website, TaniaHershman.com - please check it out, let me know what you think! Link opens in a new window, so you can do both...
- My grandfather was born in Newport, Wales. The family were fleeing from pogroms in Russia in the early years of the 20th century... and somehow ended up in Wales! It has helped me not a whit in terms of entering for "Welsh-writer-only" anthologies and comps. And I've never been to Newport. Now we're not that far, we may do a day trip. No family left there anymore.
- I'm going to be 40 on my next birthday, and despite being told by a kindly hairdresser many years ago that I would never go grey but "fade to a pale blonde", I have begun spotting white hairs here and there. I quite like them. Someone told me recently that I looked 13, which I really hope isn't true, so if white hairs make me distinguished, then so be it!
- I have a toe ring. Is that interesting? I've worn one for years.
- I have a weakness for vampires which hugely predates the current fashion, and stretches back to somewhere around when the Lost Boys film came out. I may have been 13. What was it about that film? What is it about vampires?
- When I was a kid and I was out with my mother, I used to make her stop while I ran ahead and then she would have to pretend to be meeting me for the first time, and I would be someone entirely different. She played along with this, sensing, perhaps, the burgeoning creativity? Or just avoiding tantrums? My pretend name was just my middle name, Caroline. Not that creative, eh?
- I hate mornings. Hate 'em. I feel like I don't become me until around 4pm, at least. I wish society was divided into two sectors, so I didn't feel guilty about everything I might be missing from sunrise onwards.
- I went to a healer/clairvoyant in Ireland a few years ago who could see spirits and she told me that "someone who looks like Albert Einstein" was watching me. I asked if it could be Albert Einstein and she said yes it could and that he finds me amusing. I have had two larged framed pictures of Albert on my wall for many years, I'm glad I might be providing him with some afterlife entertainment!
I am going to nominate some new-ish blogs I've stumbled across for this award, just to give you some ideas:
Wet Rock Writing (which really is a beautiful blog)
Mira's List
Mixed Messages
Original Impulse
AL Kennedy on Writing
David Lebovitz (food, mmm...)
Robin Black
Jacqueline Nicholls (art...)
Poetry, Science and Other Tales of Writing
Enjoy!
