1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.
I’ve got a second-degree black belt in karate.

2. What is your nickname?
Fastest uphill runner in the world (haha, I wish)

3. What is your greatest fear?
Dying. I can get over pretty much anything else.

4. Describe your writing style in 10 words.
There’s space between the lines. Readers can figure stuff out.

5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Tenacious, authentic, grounded, mercurial, perspicacious.

6. What book character would you be, and why?
Scarlett O’Hara. I’d love to have that sass, though I wouldn’t be quite as mean.

7. If you could time travel, what year would you go to and why?
1840s to sort out the blokes’ attitudes and kick start the women’s revolution. It would be a different world today.

8. What would your 10-year-old self say to you now?
You go, girl.

9. Who is your greatest influence?
Sir David Attenborough. He is my moral compass. If I have a problem, I just ask myself: what would Sir David do? And when I’ve finished saving the turtles with him the problem has disappeared.

10. What/who made you start writing?
My 10-year-old self. It just took a while to listen to her.

11. What is your favourite word and why?
Plum. Go on, say it. Feels good, ae?

12. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?
War & Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. The rest of my life is a long time and I’d hate to be bored.

Cristina Sanders is an historical fiction novelist from Wellington, now living in Hawke’s Bay. She writes, runs on the hills, plants native trees to regenerate the forest her ancestors cut down and, whenever she can, sails away on tall ships with groups of crazy but charismatic kids. For more information, see www.cristinasanders.me.

May 25, 2021 at 12:30AM Penny