Sunday Whoever.

Here’s a treat – Everyone loves Leila and she has been a tremendous asset to the site since well before she agreed to join the editing team. So, let’s find out more:-

Congratulations, Leila the team at Literally Stories want to know a lot more about you? Our Get To Know the Authors feature is a writer interview to give you the opportunity to let us into your deepest darkest secrets – So follows a list of questions. If you don’t wish to take part please let us know and then we will assume your secrets are very deep and very very dark because after all, what writer doesn’t want to talk about their craft!?

Q: What topic(s) would you not take on?

A: Other than the obvious stuff like mass shootings, molestation, and pain in general–or using violence and sex in a gratuitous manner–politics bore me. And anything that cannot be funny in some context is usually best let alone

Q: What in your opinion is the best line you’ve written?

A: Hard to answer. We all write that thing we love and no one notices, and that thing that is nothing to us that others extol. But I like the title For Whom the Elm Toad.

Q:Would you write what you would consider shite for money?

A: No. Then again I’ve never been in that position, so maybe there’s enough to get me to do it. I’m not a snob, but I don’t think I could sit in a room with a bunch of other literary hookers and turn out formula trade novels. Something inside would short out before lunch.

Q: Will you ever go Woke with your writing and use pronoun / non-descript characters and explore sensitive issues in an understanding and sensitive way?

A: “Woke” by any other standard but your own is pandering. In the Great List of World Evils, something like using insipid beige pronouns lest risk being labeled a racist or homophobic only rates a slot as a concept of control.

Q:Type something surprising.

A: Always. That’s because I have no plan, just an opening idea and whatever happens happens.

Sometimes good, sometimes not so much.

Q: Do you see something different in a mirror that others don’t when they look at you?

A: I think we are all like that–more than what meets the eye. You know, “Still waters run deep,” “Dogshit doesn’t stink until you step in it.”

Q:The future – Bleak or hopeful?

A: Fortunately, no one has ever accurately predicted the future–except that (so far) there continues to be one. I know that I wouldn’t want to be young now–I dislike there being more espresso shops than taverns, and, well, things are awfully boring anymore. Moreover,  if stuff like A.I. arts take over, well then maybe the human race has run its course. I think it all hinges on how the powers that be control the stupid people when religion finally bites it. Could get pretty ugly.

Q: What would you like to like as you hate that you hate it?

A: Well, I’m progressive, yet dislike most of the people who push that agenda, and like conservative salts of the earth, yet their beliefs are sub moronic. That’s as close to an answer for that, I can think of.

Q: Records? Tapes? Or CDs?

A: I used to collect 45 records and albums and had hundreds of them. But, as we all know those things warp easily. Then I bought tapes, which I hated because the deck would eat the damn things. CDs were the big thing until I discovered that they could get as skippy as LPs. All in all, Eight tracks and MP3’s work the best. And like Kindle, I have thousands of works all saved in a four by six tablet. I miss albums nostalgically, but they needed improving.

Q:Has anything you have written told you something about yourself you did not know (good or bad)?

A: Yes–I’m a much more skilled liar than I ever gave myself credit for being. You see, I feel that liars know the truth better than honest people do.

Q: What genre you don’t write in would you like to try?

A: I think scriptwriting–creating a visual story with sharp words. Don’t know if I could do it, but a part of my mind leans in that direction.

Q: If you have an idea for a story in the middle of the supermarket what action do you take?

A: None. Once upon a time I carried a notebook for Big Ideas. Never consulted it. I figure if the idea is good enough it will return.

Q: What invention has been the downfall of the 20 / 21st century?

A: Plastic liquor bottles. Hate the idea of losing booze because I set it too close to the heater. Second place goes to the cell phone. I find myself glued to it, but it is really doing bad things to the human personality.

Q: When you agreed to become an LS Editor did you realise it would take over your life?

A: Everything I enter does that if it is good. If it hadn’t taken over then I would have had trouble.

Q: Why is there no mouse flavoured cat food?

A: Cockroaches are much cheaper. Actually, I put that question to Dudley, Izzy, Andy and Alfie. “The tails are too chewy” appears to be the main concern.

Thank you for having me. It’s not often that I can cast my special sunshine on the world.

Leila