Five Minutes with Bron Bates

1. Where do you get most of your writing done?


At home in the study area which is right in the middle of the house. Sometimes I’ll take a laptop and work at a café or even in the car, but I’m more comfortable at a desktop.

2. Internet on or off while you’re writing?

I am always plugged in. Always.

3. Which book/poem do you wish you’d written?

Hmm, I hope I find my own voice.

4. Which book are you constantly lending your friends? 

I’ve lent out Somaly Mam’s autobiography quite a bit. And anything by Anne Tyler. I have duplicates.

5. Which fictional character do you think you're most romantically compatible with?

Gawd, I have no idea. Not Mr Darcy.

6. Best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

The advice wasn’t to me, but I read it, remembered it and like to think it could be true. It was from Doris Lessing to a (then?) aspiring author. She told her something like, if you can write a good letter, you can write a good book. Please let that be true.

7. If you could only read and re-read one book for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

Definitely something by Anne Tyler. Probably Breathing Lessons. There’s a line in it about not being crazy that still makes me laugh out loud even though I must have read that book 20 times.

8. Which book do you only pretend to like to look cool/well-read?

I don’t really pretend to have read books that I haven’t. But I don’t finish reading a lot of books. Embarrassing. My book club friends can confirm this.

9. What are you working on at the moment?

An article on birth for work. I hope to start a new creative piece soon.