{"id":82478,"date":"2018-08-16T14:41:36","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T03:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=82478"},"modified":"2018-09-03T12:32:05","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T01:32:05","slug":"sally-rooney-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2018\/08\/16\/sally-rooney-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Sally Rooney answers Ten Terrifying Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin. Her debut novel, Conversations with Friends<\/em><\/a>, was one of the most popular debuts of 2017. Rooney was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for ‘Mr Salary’ and was the winner of the Sunday Times\/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. Her second novel, Normal People<\/em><\/a>, has been longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

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

I was born and raised in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, in the west of Ireland. I was also schooled there, in the local girls\u2019 secondary school, St. Joseph\u2019s. Then I went to college in Dublin.<\/p>\n

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

I think that I vaguely wanted to be an actress at twelve. At age eighteen, as far as I can remember, my primary ambition was to have a boyfriend who was in a band. I\u2019m not thirty yet but I\u2019ll get back to you.<\/p>\n

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At that age I thought it was very important to be intelligent and well-read. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s remotely important anymore.<\/p>\n

4. What were three works of art \u2013 book or painting or piece of music, etc \u2013 you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think JD Salinger\u2019s novella Franny & Zooey<\/em><\/a> had a great effect on me as a writer. Also Van Morrison\u2019s album Astral Weeks<\/em> and the 1961 Robert Rossen film The Hustler.<\/em><\/p>\n

5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think any other artistic avenues were meaningfully open to me. Writing is the only thing I am even slightly good at.<\/p>\n

\"sally<\/a>6. Please tell us about your latest novel, Normal People<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a novel following the relationship between two characters over several years, beginning in their final year of school and finishing in their final year of college. The subject of the book is not so much the individual characters but the relationships between them.<\/p>\n

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

I find that question very hard to answer. I only really write to amuse myself, so if anyone can take anything whatsoever away from reading my work then it\u2019s very much a bonus.<\/p>\n

8. Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, admiring a person\u2019s work is not the same thing as admiring a person. There are many, many books I admire and relatively few writers. I admire my friend Thomas Morris<\/a>, the Welsh short story writer, and I admire his stories too.<\/p>\n

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

I think my goal is always the same\u2014I just want to write the next thing and make it good.<\/p>\n

10. What advice do you give aspiring writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talk less and listen more. And if necessary, write less and read more.<\/p>\n

Sally Rooney, thank you for playing.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin. Her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, was one of the most popular debuts of 2017. Rooney was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for ‘Mr Salary’ and was the winner of the Sunday Times\/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. Her second novel, Normal People, has been longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. 1. To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled? I was born and raised in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, in the west of Ireland. I was also schooled there, in the local girls\u2019 secondary school, St. Joseph\u2019s. Then I went to college in Dublin. 2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why? I think that I vaguely wanted to be an actress at twelve. At age eighteen, as far as I can remember, my primary ambition was to have a boyfriend who was in a band. I\u2019m not thirty yet but I\u2019ll get back to you. 3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now? At that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":82482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6676],"tags":[9111,9110,8594,2615,9046,8595,5184],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Sally-Rooney-Social-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82478"}],"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=82478"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82900,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82478\/revisions\/82900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}