Karen Wyld

I like how the playfulness, you know, magic realism has a lot of playfulness to it.

the intelligence in the storytelling and just the way he deals with some really big, horrific historical events and the way that he tells it.

intentionally set out to write about women it just happened and I think a lot of the books that I read that strongly centered women in my early reading era were actually written by men if I think about that I was reading outside of my age group really quite young um and and that was because um I did a few different things like I'm dyslexic I grew up

to school in a time when dyslexic students were basically left to fall between the cracks.

So I taught myself to read.

And then once I'd read, I couldn't stop reading.

From reading lots of books at a very young age, then I decided to be a writer.

There was no access to libraries when I was little.

I think not until senior high school.

So I basically just read whatever I got my hands on.

And by the time I was in my teens, I was reading a lot of Victorian literature.

because of the rich writing style, not the theme.

So books such as D.H.

Lawrence's The Rainbow and Women in Love were things that I was reading.

And from there, I was really attracted not just to the writing style, but

to the strength of those women within that book, the way that he described them.

If I went back to read them now, I might think differently.

And then from there, I went on to Russian novelists such as Lea Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

And again, very strong women and women-centred.

And I don't know, if I went back now, I'd probably see that differently.