Writers Abroad Magazine Issue 2 March 2015 | Page 10

WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE
itself is a cross-genre piece. Since then, I’ve written other plays, many more poems,
three novels, and also many journalism pieces about my writing, my social activism in
Cambodia and my pet passion — using arts education for social change. It all seems
to feed each other.
John: Has living abroad influenced your writing?
Sue: Undoubtedly. I think there is something about being an outsider, an observer,
which goes along with the writer mentality. Living abroad means being an outsider all
the time. I may have lived in England for 25 years and I may have a British passport,
but that isn’t making me English! The fact that I love and seek out this sort of life shows
how it informs everything about me, I think.
John: Who are your favourite authors?
Sue: This is a hard one which people ask all the time. Right now I would say Kent
Haruf and Marilynne Robinson — yes, both Americans.
John: Who are your main influences?
Sue: This one is easier. My earliest influences were Thomas Wolfe and his Look
Homeward, Angel and James Joyce, especially Ulysses. Both of these showed me
how poetry must be a part of prose and showed me what was possible to portray
through language. Anthony Trollope has taught me so much about characterization
and plot. Also my academic work was in Classics, especially Greek tragedy, and all of
that is always lurking somewhere in the back of my brain. But I now look to writers for
their “advice” about whatever project I am in the middle of. For example, my next
Cambodian novel will take place against the backdrop of recent political events, and I
am finding Peter Koch’s The Year of Living Dangerously to be very helpful.
John: What are your main interests apart from writing?
Sue: I’m a keen amateur violinist. I’ve played since I was seven. And you and I, of
course, have bonded over our love of Bob Dylan! I am also on the Board of a fringe
theatre company called Theatre Delicatessen in London. But really, other than the
writing, my great passion now is working with the children of Cambodia. I founded a
writing workshop in one educational shelter in Siem Reap five years ago, and it has
now expanded to become a program incorporated into the curriculum of schools
throughout the country, and it is threatening to go even beyond Cambodia. It is called
Writing Through, and people can find out more at www.writingthroughcambodia.com.
John: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Sue: I would say try not to think of yourself as an author but rather a writer. Read
everything that you can, good and bad, and write what you hear, what you see and,
especially, what you feel.
See also: http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk. WA

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