The Big 4 Interviews – Kim Wilkins
Kim Wilkins was born in London, and grew up at the seaside north of Brisbane, Australia. She has degrees in literature and creative writing, and teaches at the University of Queensland and in the community. Her first novel, The Infernal, a supernatural thriller was published in 1997. Since then, she has published across many genres and for many different age groups. Her latest books, contemporary epic romances, are published under the pseudonym Kimberley Freeman. Kim has won many awards and is published all over the world. She lives in Brisbane with her husband and two small children.
1. What is your ideal writing environment, or what are the things you like to have around you when you write? Are you superstitious in that sense?
Ideally, it is early morning, cold and rainy, my children are asleep and I have a scalding hot cup of sweet tea (Irish breakfast for preference). My desk is tidy, a scented candle is burning, my cats are in their baskets nearby, I have my next scene planned, and I know I won’t be interrupted for an hour or two. There’s probably a maid folding my washing somewhere in the house too. No, I’m not superstitious. Writers need to be able to write anywhere, under any conditions. Once you start putting conditions in place, you are procrastinating: something I try not to do.
2 Your novels are set in a variety of historical periods. If you could go back and live in one, which would it be? Which character from history would you most like to hang out with?
It would depend very much on what my current obsession is. At the moment, I would go back to early medieval times. I’m obsessed with Anglo-Saxons. I know life would be short and smelly, though. For frocks, I would go to Edwardian times. For somebody cool from history to hang out with, I’d head off to early 19th century England and hang with Percy Shelley. I heart Shelley.
3. I’ve read that you’re a big music fan. How great an influence is music on your writing and which artists/bands most inspire you creatively?
I don’t write without music on. I make a playlist for every book that captures the feel of the story so that when I put the music on it gets me in the mood. At the moment I am writing a big moody fantasy based on Anglo-Saxon stuff. So I’m listening to folky Led Zeppelin, achey love songs from Regina Spektor, dreamy ambient from Hammock, and Icelandic post-rock from Sigur Ros.
4. You’ve written a lot of novels and short stories in your career. Which of your many characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?
That’s like asking me to choose between my children! It’s always the characters that I’m with at the moment who burn brightest, and I am totally in love with my female lead in the current book. But when I look back, I still have residual fondness for Prudence in Grimoire because of her wild girly energy, Rosa in Rosa and the Veil of Gold because she was so screwed up, but most of all Victoria in Giants of the Frost because she was the most like me. Not in a weird way.
Led Zeppelin: Kashmir
Visit Kim’s blog for the musings of a best-selling author & fab writing teacher here!
