{"id":169144,"date":"2022-08-19T14:16:05","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T04:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=169144"},"modified":"2022-08-19T14:16:06","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T04:16:06","slug":"ten-terrifying-questions-with-tim-hollo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2022\/08\/19\/ten-terrifying-questions-with-tim-hollo\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Terrifying Questions with Tim Hollo!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Tim Hollo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tim Hollo is the Executive Director of the Green Institute, a Visiting Fellow at the ANU\u2019s School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), and a delegate to the federal council of the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance for the Musicians Union. He was previously Communications Director for Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne, has been a campaigner and Board Member of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, and has written extensively for publications including The Guardian, ABC, The Griffith Review and Crikey. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To celebrate the release of his new novel Living Democracy: An Ecological Manifesto<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, Tim takes on our Ten Terrifying Questions! Read on …<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

1. To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself \u2013 where were you born? Raised? Schooled?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

My family, like so many Jewish families, travelled all across the globe repeatedly during the 20th century, fleeing persecution after persecution. I was born, kind of accidentally, in Reading, a commuter town near London, because my Dad happened to be working there at the time. But my parents had met at uni in Sydney, having both arrived in Australia as refugees in their teens. I was brought up in Canberra and Sydney, lucky enough to spend lots of time in nature \u2013 in the mountains, in the sea, in the bush \u2013 very aware of both our privilege and the fact that our privilege was very fragile. My grandparents had been privileged, as assimilated Jews in Europe, before that had been ripped away. I was taught to use my privilege to help others.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was 12, I wanted to be David Attenborough. True story. I couldn\u2019t imagine anything better than actually getting to go to the places he got to go to, sitting there with magnificent wildlife, sharing his joy and awe with the rest of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was 18, I think I probably most wanted to be a musician. And I\u2019ve had some amazing experiences as a musician \u2013 playing with incredible people, getting to go to wonderful places, being part of something so transcendent. But I think I knew then, too, that it would only be one part of my life. I was already also very exercised by injustice, and the destruction of our precious and beautiful home, so that was always going to be part of what I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 30, my partner and I had a toddler and a newborn. What I wanted to be was peacefully asleep. Took a few years for that to be achieved!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you don\u2019t have now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 18, I reckon I believed I had the answers to everything. Or at least that I could find them. Ha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. What are three works of art \u2013 this could be a book, painting, piece of music, film, etc \u2013 that influenced your development as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d have to include Ursula Le Guin\u2019s A Wizard of Earthsea<\/em>, which I first read when I was maybe 12 and have read and re-read many times since then, alongside her other works for young adults and adults, novels and short stories and essay and poems. Le Guin\u2019s extraordinary simple and evocate language draws you in and leaves you with deep, lingering, challenging lessons about how we should live our lives, individually and collectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attenborough\u2019s Life On Earth<\/em> has to be there, too. From him, as a small child, I absorbed absolute wonder and adoration for life on this planet. I often try to channel his wonder in my work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I\u2019ll go for Joni Mitchell\u2019s incredible album Hejira<\/em>, for the merging of simple beauty, story-telling, melding of artistic styles, and the love for the world \u2013 human and nature and modernity \u2013 that suffuses it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Considering the many artistic forms out there, what appeals to you about writing non-fiction?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s actually the easiest way to express pretty specific ideas, I reckon. I\u2019ve tried writing songs to express ideas, and you have to step back and be pretty generic to make the art work. Same with visual art. Same with theatre, even. You have to embed the ideas in layers of something else. Which is what makes them so powerful, of course, when they work! But with non-fiction, you just need to express your ideas clearly!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Living Democracy by Tim Hollo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

6. Please tell us about your latest novel!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living Democracy<\/em> is a manifesto for the end of the world as we know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It feels like pretty much everyone understands now that the world is on a knife\u2019s edge. Everything is changing so fast. Nothing will ever be the same. Whether it\u2019s the climate crisis or teetering democracies, spiralling economic inequality or centuries-old racial injustice, we\u2019re on the precipice. But at the same time, all around the world, so many people and communities are doing incredible things, reinventing how we live together, actually building the world we need from the ground up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through stories and ideas, the book sets out a framework for how we can understand what\u2019s going on, an array of examples of what we can do, and a way to piece together each aspect of change into true transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s definitely the end of the world as we know it. It doesn\u2019t have to be the end of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tell
Check out our Podcast and YouTube channel now!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope people reading my book come away with ideas and inspiration. I really don\u2019t want anyone to put the book down and get on with their lives as before. I hope they decide to do something \u2013 or something more, or something slightly different \u2013 to be part of this project of Living Democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Who do you most admire in the writing world and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ursula Le Guin. I mean, obviously. Just read her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help people work out how to make their contribution, whatever it is, to living ecologically, interdependent with all other living beings. To help them see what they\u2019re doing as part of this most crucial transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read what you\u2019re writing out loud. If it isn\u2019t easy to read aloud, it isn\u2019t easy to read in your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for playing!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Living Democracy<\/a><\/strong> by Tim Hollo (NewSouth Publishing) is out now!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get to know the Greens activist and author of Living Democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":169146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4,6676],"tags":[13467,12674,15090,5184,15089],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/9781742237251.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169144"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169222,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169144\/revisions\/169222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}