An Interview with Julia Hones

 

In June, before The Luck Illusion was published, I contacted Julia Hones with a casual enquiry about a possible review. Julia offered me the chance of an interview later in the year. It has now appeared on her blog, My Writing Life.

Julia has gathered a wealth of book reviews, author interviews and other writing across many genres. I felt privileged that she was willing to include my serious nonfiction book among them, and to give its ideas room for more than a brief description.

The interview explores why I began questioning what we mean when we call someone lucky or unlucky. I explain how teaching children from very different backgrounds shaped my thinking, and how living in Bulgaria brought me closer to people whose prospects were shaped by circumstances beyond their control. Running a smallholding and later dealing with cancer gave me further reasons to examine the part played by effort, timing and events we cannot foresee.

There is more personal ground, too. I talk about why I chose to tell Walsdos’s story within a nonfiction book, how I came to enjoy writing after years of finding it a chore, and the rather unsuccessful warning my father gave me about becoming a dustbin man if I did not read. The interview also touches on the books and writers that have influenced me and on what I am writing now.

Thank you, Julia, for the invitation and for making space for The Luck Illusion on My Writing Life. You can read the full interview here.