My Love for Books: Author Interview

Monday, March 25, 2013

Author Interview – Shireen Jeejeebhoy

Who designed the cover? I did. Photography is a hobby of mine, and I enjoy playing with photographs in Corel Paint Shop Pro. I wanted something to represent the evil entity as well as Toronto, which is an important part of my book.

Who is your publisher? I self-published She through CreateSpace, Smashwords, and KDP.

Why did you choose to write this particular book? All my fiction book ideas just come to me, like mist rising up, taking form, and knocking me on my head, demanding my attention.

What was the hardest part about writing this book? Not knowing if I could write fiction again. I had suffered a traumatic brain injury and up until I began writing She, I had had trouble writing fiction. But a friend suggested registering for National Novel Writing Month. I did — and began with great trepidation even though I had prepared well, spending the months before outlining the novel and receiving lots of helpful advice from my editor friend Greg Ioannou. But once I began to write and saw that my imagination was working again, I relaxed, well, as much as any writer can!

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? Evil is not always obvious and can work in us and appear to us in different ways. Also, the evil entity represents a state or condition. What that is depends on the reader. I’ve enjoyed hearing the different ways people see the entity. And I also enjoy it when readers see it as simply that: an evil being. To me readers complete the book when they read it.

How important do you think villains are in a story? I think the heroine or protagonist needs opposition or challenge, whether that’s an outright villain as in the case of the evil entity in She or an internal struggle. Conflict drives a story forward and reveals the details of the main character and his or her friends and family, which I think is what engages the reader.

Can we expect any more books from you in the future? Yes. I have three novels written but not yet published. I hope to publish Time and Space, my time travel novel, this year. And if I’m lucky, Aban’s Accension too, which I’m currently putting up on Wattpad.com for reader feedback. I write a novel every year during National Novel Writing Month, and I’ve begun writing during CampNaNo as well, so I will continue to grow my list of books.