My first blog interview!

Over on Julia Buckley's blog Mysterious Musings I've done my first ever blog interview(!), and a fun but very weird experience it was. I'm not used to talking about myself.

Julia asked some great questions, such as why didn't I make Socrates my detective, and if living in an otherwise all-female household affected how I wrote women characters. If you want to know the answers, go have a look.

7 comments:

Mimzy said...

That was an interesting interview. I especially liked when you said that you didn't want wimpy female main characters since they're bad role models. I don't understand why more people don't write strong female characters. With a lot of books (*cough*Twilight*cough*) it seems like feminism in literature is in a reversal where a female character is not only defined as herself, but also by what man she's dating/married to.

Also, was Herodotus the guy that met the Norse and witnessed the Balder-like funeral? I tried doing a Google search but couldn't get a straight answer.

Gary Corby said...

I'm not sure I'd class as a feminist!

Still, it's true I do keep in mind I have young daughters who going to read what I write.

The Herodotus/Norse/Balder question made me do some quick research. I think the answer to your question is probably no.

The best I could come up with is, Herodotus mentions a tribe called the Getae, and he describes the Scythians in some detail. The Getae are believed to have migrated later and become the Scandinavian Goths. The Scythians are believed to have originated in Asia and ended up in Scandinavia too.

Mimzy said...

Then who am I thinking of? I swear that my mythology teacher, at one point or another told my class that there had been someone in the ancient world who had traveled very far north and witnessed a viking funeral.

Maybe he was Arabic or Roman....

Mimzy said...

That took too long to find out and initially I was taken to a movie based off a Michael Crichton novel.

The person I was thinking of was Ahmad ibn Fadlan who was Muslim and went in the 10th century.

Ha! My memory was completely wrong, but now vindicated!

Gary Corby said...

Thank you so much Mimzy! I'd never heard of Ahmad ibn Fadlan. Now I have the joy of reading him to look forward to.

I'm discovering one of the most fun parts of doing this blog is what I learn from my visitors.

CKHB said...

You ice dance? That is SO cool.

If you didn't see my Monday blog post, I think you'd like it... Joss Whedon explains why HE writes strong women characters.

Gary Corby said...

Hi Carrie.

Let me qualify that. We ice dance really badly.

I'm ashamed to admit I did miss the Whedon post. Error now rectified. He makes a great deal of sense, and backs it up with some brilliant women in his stories.