Interview with author Skadi Winter

Happy Friday TWPeeps! I’m so excited to introduce you to this week’s #fridayguestinterview with author Skadi Winter. I love the opportunity I have to interview all these amazing authors and this week is no different. So let’s jump right into it so you can spend some time with this lovely lady too!

If you could start by telling my readers a little bit about yourself.

Skadi:
A friend of mine, from Lebanon, once wrote in his Facebook profile: ‘A citizen of the universe. I’m beyond nation, race, religion, sex, and economic circumstances’. This is exactly how I would like to describe myself. I was born in a tiny village very close to the French border. As it often happens during or after wars, this border had been moved back and fro’ over centuries, resulting in confusion as to which nation the inhabitants of the village would actually belong to, this side of the border or that side of the border.

So, from an early age on, politics have influenced my life and identity. Later on in life, I have been travelling a lot. My interest always was to experience how other people, cultures, ethnicities were dealing with their day-to-day life, their sorrows, hardships and joys. One of the main influences of my life was, that I had been born shortly after WWII in Germany. I always felt that I belonged to a generation, luckily born after the NAZI regime but, nonetheless, sharing some kind of guilt for belonging to a nation branded by the world as ‘evil’, which is a heavy burden for a child.

The Writing Piazza:
Wow, that is a heavy burden for anyone, let alone a child. How has it affected your writing? Can you tell us about the books you’ve written?

Skadi:
My first book, Hexe exactly reflects these experiences of my early childhood. Germany had lost a terrible war which they had started and – even though I had been born only shortly after – the experiences of my family during this time deeply affected my childhood. Atrocities on both sides, the winners and the losers of this war, were frightening and this feeling has always accompanied me through my life until now. Hexe was an attempt to come to terms with the history of my own family, most of all the women of my family.

I am motivated to reach out and understand how it is possible that people, neighbors, friends, families can turn not only into enemies but also inflict the greatest pain on each other only on the grounds of a deceiving propaganda.

The Writing Piazza:
That is something worth exploring for sure. There is so much that can be learned about ourselves and humanity. It’s a tough subject but I think it can certainly be used to teach us and move forward into a world that is better than our past.

And you’ve also written another book, can you tell us a bit about that one?

Skadi:
My second book, Malin and the Wolf Children deals with the children who had been lost on the great trek from Eastern Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, children of minorities who had been completely and utterly at the mercy of the victorious, who only a few years before had been in the same situation of being expelled from their home and country. Revenge, bigotry, hatred and violence – are children, the generation surviving those ordeals, the carriers of hope? A great part of my writing is to discover survival mechanisms, like myths, dreams, fairy tales and stories, memories, which helps little souls to cope with a cruel and unjust reality.

The Writing Piazza:
That too sounds like fascinating subject matter. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to research such a book, you probably needed a few coping mechanisms yourself I would imagine to write such a sorrowful tale. But you persisted and wrote both incredible books.

Can you tell us about your journey to publish your stories?

Skadi:
I always loved reading and thus I came to writing, eventually. Of course, to get my first book published, took me many years. I didn’t grow up with the internet and thus my first manuscript was written on lose sheets of paper, edited and finally typed on an old type writer. I can tell you, this was the greatest fun for me. It felt so good! I felt right in the league with Hemingway, Joyce, Dostoyewski and all. The romantic painting of “Spitzweg,” “The Poor Poet,” always hung in my room (of course, not the original!) A scarf around my neck, cigarettes and lots of coffee, all contributing to an image which, at those times during the 60’s, was very ‘in’.

When I finally made the decision to get published, of course, I didn’t have a clue as to how to manage that. Unfortunately, it all ended in a big mistake. I fell prey to an online publishing company, paying lots of money and getting nothing out of it financially. Of course, at the end I held my books in my hands but at what price!

The Writing Piazza:
It’s so sad that there are shady “publishing companies” out there and that your story is not singular. This is a hard enough business to be in without companies like that making it even more difficult. But there’s still something so thrilling about holding a copy of your own book in your hands I think.

What would you say is something that has surprised you about this industry?

Skadi:
The greatest surprise to me was the realization that the internet, with all its blessings, has led to believe that just anybody can write and – as propagated by the media – can become a millionaire. Of course, sh** happens, as the saying goes. The book market is flooded with bad literature, bad in a sense of spelling, grammar, narration; my greatest surprise is to see that the contents of a book doesn’t seem to be important but its success is measured by how to market it effectively. I do know that literature changes with time, reflecting on how society is developing and with it its language. But – helloho – come on…..

The Writing Piazza:
Yeah, it can be a bit discouraging to see some of the poor writing out there making it big while well written works are left to collect dust. It does feel a bit more like the luck of the draw that makes a book successful rather than skill or killer plot line. It can be a hard thing to face but face it we must as writers wishing to publish.

What have you found to be the hardest part about your journey as an author?

Skadi:
The hardest part about my journey as an author was to find out where my journey as a writer was going to. Did I want to make quick money, become famous? Or, did I want to write about things which were close to my heart, which I could believe in; always feeling the expectations of others when they found out about my writing. ‘Oh, you should write romance. That sells!’  Or: ‘How much money do you actually make with your books?’  OR: ‘Do you have a day-job?’ Well, no, so far I am only writing and enjoying it – I actually have great reviews so far. At least, my books are on amazon.com, which seems to put me in a better light.

The Writing Piazza:
There are a lot of hard parts about being an author. But I think we’ve spent long enough on the negative. There are some really great parts about being a writer as well. Do you have any fun/heart-warming/inspirational stories you can share about your experience as an author?

Skadi:
My best experience as a writer is that I’ve met other authors during events, book signings and readings. The solidarity of writers is amazing. I have hardly ever known a community which is so supportive. Writing is an art, like painting or music, which brings people together. One of my 12 grandchildren, who inspire me much, once said: ‘Oma, I want to be a writer like you!’ At the age of 10, he asked his mum to buy Hexe on Amazon for him and I had to read it to him at bed time.

Unfortunately, my books are written in English and he only knew German at the time so I had to translate ad hoc and improvise to make the story match his age, and after 10 minutes he had fallen asleep. The next morning he obviously felt guilty about having fallen asleep. ‘Oma’, he said, ‘my eyes were tired last night but I listened to your every word. Mind you, next time make a cartoon. I never fall asleep while watching cartoons!’

The Writing Piazza:
Haha, that’s so adorable! I love the charming things that children say. And I agree with you about the writing community, they are so supportive of one another. I love doing interviews like this because it adds to that community, sharing advice and support is what this blog is all about! Speaking of advice, what is one thing you know now, that you wish you’d known before you wrote your very first book?

Skadi:
I should have known that many famous writers, like Stephen King and many others, had been rejected umpteen times by publishers before they came to fame. I should have known that serious writers always leave a part of their heart and soul in their books. And, I should have known, that writing, serious writing, is a never ending journey and that it can be painful at times and doesn’t necessarily pay the bills!

The Writing Piazza:
So very true! Do you have any last advice specifically for authors hoping to publish their own work?

Skadi:
You can self-publish, of course. But, if you really want to achieve acknowledgement as a writer, go for traditional publishing. It might take longer but it is less painful, believe me.

The Writing Piazza:
Are you currently working on a new book?

Skadi:
Actually, I am working on two new books. One, a bit of a side-track, is about me having been in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 80’s and the other one is a sequel to Malin. I don’t want to give too much away as I am not quite sure myself where the story is leading me. I only want to say that it is fascinating to me how the human heart is able to choose between forgiveness and revenge. Life is a never ending circle and if we lose the ability to forgive or, if we are not teaching future generations how to forgive, we will endlessly fall into the abyss.

The Writing Piazza:
Wonderful! It’s good to see you are staying busy. 🙂 Before I let you go, can you tell my readers how they can connect with you?

Skadi:
My website:     skadiwinter.co.uk

FACEBOOK:  facebook.com/skadiwinterwriter
TWITTER:https://twitter.com/skadiwinter1

The Writing Piazza:
Thank you so much for your time and for being a guest on my blog! I’m always so grateful for the authors who take the time to do these interviews. There’s so much to learn in this industry, it’s helpful to hear from those who have managed to write and publish their work.

Of course I also have to thank all you wonderful readers who have stopped by to read this interview, you are the reason we work so hard to put these interviews up. Our gratitude cannot be measured, we hope you will continue to come back for more!

Until we meet again.