Book Tweep - Ann Somerville
Ann Somerville grew up in one of Australia’s prettiest small cities. In 1989, she left Australia with a BA majoring in English, French and History, and a burning ambition to see more of the world and its people, and to discover this ‘culture’ thing people kept telling her about. In 2006, she returned home to Southeast Queensland with two more degrees (this time in science and IT), an English husband (and an English accent) and a staggering case of homesickness, vowing never to leave Australia again.
She now writes full-time, working part-time as a contract web programmer to pay for the small luxuries of life, but all she really needs is a laptop and an internet connection for true happiness. Her long, plot-driven fiction featuring gay and bisexual characters has been published by Samhain Publishing and PD Publishing. Additionally, copious free full length stories and novels are available on her website. She also reviews GLBT fiction on Uniquely Pleasurable and blogs about writing, publishing, her life and many shiny, distracting things.
Who taught you to read and how old were you?
My mother, and five. I was able to read very well before I went to school, which made me unusual in my first year there.
Which books did you love as a child?
Little Golden Books were the gateway drug. My father ran a children’s/toy section of a large department store, so he was always bringing home new books — I adored the How & Why series. I read more non-fiction than fiction, I remember. I was an information hoover, and still am.
There was a book on the stories in ballet that I borrowed from the library many times. But the books I remember — and still adore — were the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. I think I wore out our town library’s copies; I took them out so often. These shaped my creative processes and influence my writing even now, mumble mumble years on 
Which five fictional characters would you like to meet? What would you like to ask them/talk about with them?
Gosh, this is tough. I don’t think about characters like that, unless they’re my own. I’m weird in that I’m really happy to leave an author’s creation as complete and discrete — yet when it comes to movie and TV, I want more all the time (disclaimer: former fanfiction writer.) Besides, the people I find fascinating on paper, I would often cringe at meeting in real life 
Francis Crawford, Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett — I’d like to know if he desired the men he slept with, or was it simply convenience
Tenar, Earthsea stories by Ursula K. LeGuin. She’d experienced so much horror, and yet remained sane. I’d like to know if she wished her life had taken another course after Ged rescued her.
Melanie from Kelland by Paul Bens. Did she believe she might one day be happy again after all she’d been through?
Jack from Whistling in the Dark by Tamara Allen. I’d just like to give him a hug. And his lover too.
Samuel Vimes from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. I’d like to know what he’d do if Carrot ever became king of Ankh-Morpork
Name the last two books you have read and rate them out of 5 (5 is the best) You can add a few sentences to say why you liked or didn’t like them if you wish.
I’ll cheat here and restrict it to paper, and other people’s writing because truthfully, I read an awful lot of free online fiction, and a lot of my own.
Both are by Steve Kluger, purchased on a trip to San Francisco last yet. Last days of Summer, and My Most Excellent Year. Both are YA, and both are 5 out of 5 for me. I love Kluger’s writing for the same reason I love Terry Pratchett’s — both are so warm, humane and incredibly funny, managing to make deep observations about what being human means, while being wildly entertaining with it.
Where is your favourite place to read?
On my computer, anywhere. Or our new sunroom. Or in bed. Place doesn’t matter so much as what I read — and increasingly, in what format, as paper books are hard on my eyes.
You are being sent to a remote island for who knows how long – which three books are you going to take with you?
Is it awful to say three of my own? Because then I would spin off tales and imagine sequels. I’m happy to allow other authors the final say on the endings of their own books, so the activity potential would be less.
If I can’t take my own, then:
The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett
Whistling in the Dark by Tamara Allen
When you don’t see me by Timothy James Beck
Print or e-book?
Ebook. No question. I can’t fit another paper book in the house, and my Macbook is so much nicer to read from than paper.
Visit Ann Somerville at:
Love, romance and the occasional sound thrashing
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