Category: Hannah Interviews

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Hannah Interviews

Hannah Interviews Paulette Mahurin

Welcome to Hannah Interviews the third in an occasional series where I interview authors I admire. The questions in each interview are based on the Proust Questionnaire and I hope they will offer an insight into each author and their books. For this interview I am delighted to welcome Paulette Mahurin. Paulette is an Amazon #1 author who donates her royalties to rescue dogs. Over to Paulette and I hope you enjoy the interview.

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What are your favourite qualities in a man?
Honesty, sense of humor, good health habits, good communicator and listener.
What are your favourite qualities in a woman?
Same as in a man.
What do you appreciate the most in your friends?
Balance in give and take. Ability to communicate constructively, effectively, and honestly.

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What is your main fault?
I take things too personally. Oversensitive.
What is your favourite pastime?
Being with family and my dogs, quality time with friends, reading, writing, doing my professional job as a Nurse Practitioner, and volunteer work.
What is your idea of happiness?
Being okay with whatever is happening. Accepting the hand I’m dealt. I may not be able to change it but can I change my attitude about it and find something to be grateful about.

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If not yourself, who would you be?
I’m okay with who I am and don’t dwell on being someone else. Like Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”
What is your favourite colour and flower?
Green and I love most flowers, especially natural and wild in nature.
Who are your favourite painters and musicians?
Too many to pick favorites. So many different categories, time periods in history, and ways of expressing. I appreciate talent in any field. And there has never been a lack of talent.

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Who are your favourite prose authors and poets?
Again, too many to enumerate on one, two, or a few. There is a lot of great talent out there from the well-known to the independents struggling to be read.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction?
The ones that are real, and balanced, and don’t necessarily overcome all the great odds but certainly give it their best. One I can relate to, one that I can read and feel he is organic and authentic.
Who are your favourite heroines in fiction?
Again same as in heroes. And I might add for both not a stereotypical cast character, one that has flaws and emulates the human condition realistically.

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Thank you, Paulette. You can learn more about Paulette’s award-winning books and charity work by visiting her Amazon page.

 

 

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Hannah Interviews

Hannah Interviews Denise McCabe

Welcome to Hannah Interviews the second in an occasional series where I interview authors I admire. The questions in each interview are based on the Proust Questionnaire and I hope they will offer an insight into each author and their books. For this interview I am delighted to welcome Denise McCabe, an author of children’s fiction, a thoughtful blogger and a wonderful person. Over to Denise and I hope you will enjoy the interview.

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What are your favourite qualities in a man?
The most attractive thing I find in a man is someone who can make me laugh. Also confident in themselves and treat you as an equal.
What are your favourite qualities in a woman?
Strong, independent. Ones who support and don’t feel the need to compete against each other and who is up for a bit of fun.
What do you appreciate the most in your friends?
Loyalty and knowing they will be there for me no matter what. One who I can be comfortable with and tell absolutely anything to and I know they’ll keep it with them and they won’t judge me.
What is your main fault?
How long have you got! I suppose I am quite impatient. I tend to start things and if I don’t get hang of straight away I walk on to the next. There are times I can jump into things too quick, and while sometimes it can work out, others it’s “Oh dear, maybe, just maybe should have given that one a few more moments of thinking!”
What is your favourite pastime?
Reading, listening to music and of course writing. One of my goals is to get into song writing, I love Irish ballads so currently I’m trying my hand at that.
What is your idea of happiness?
Having a good balance of life and not getting bogged down by things that are out of your control. Enjoying the now and accepting what you have. While I have my hopes and dreams, sometimes it can be just the simple things in life like chilling out in the park joining in playing with the kids, listening to a favourite song and having good positive people around me who I can just have a good chat and a laugh with.
If not yourself, who would you be?
Hard one to answer as so many people admire through the ages for various reasons, so if I was to be someone for a while maybe, as I’ve always been fascinated with the thoughts of other life existing out there so would love to be an astronaut for a bit to see if I could discover other planets, other life.
What is your favourite colour and flower?
Baby blue and sunflowers.
Who are your favourite painters and musicians?
I listen to all genres of music from classical to modern heavy metal, depends on the mood I’m in but one of my favourite singers would be Stevie Nicks.
Who are your favourite prose authors and poets?
I like some of James Joyce’s works. I’m not really a fan of poetry to be honest but I do like some from Maya Angelou as I admire her as a person the way she overcame a great deal of adversity and inspired so many people.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction?
I suppose one I would have just finished recently would be Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway as it was a story about courage and determination and despite his age he embraced his inner struggles to prove a point to himself, he never gave up wanting to catch that fish!

Who are your favourite heroines in fiction?

Top of my head would be Listbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson Girl with Dragon Tattoo books, young complex girl with her dark troubled past and prodigious skill for hacking, she turns lethal vigilante PI and uses her skills to expose corruption and to pay back those who wronged her.
Thank you, Denise. To learn more about Denise and her books please visit her website and Amazon page.

 

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Hannah Interviews

Hannah Interviews Ellie Midwood

Welcome to Hannah Interviews the first in an occasional series where I interview authors I admire. The questions in each interview are based on the Proust Questionnaire and I hope they will offer an insight into each author and their books. For the first interview I am delighted to welcome the award-winning, bestselling historical novelist Ellie Midwood. Ellie lives in New York with her fiancé and their Chihuahua named Shark Bait. Ellie’s books have been recognized by the New Apple Awards and Readers’ Favourite Awards. Over to Ellie, and I hope you will enjoy the interview.

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What are your favourite qualities in a man? – I like the so-called type A men: driven, hard-working, always trying to improve themselves; who are passionate about what they do; who can be both sensitive and yet firm and who of course will treat their girlfriend/spouse as an equal partner.
What are your favourite qualities in a woman? – Same as in a man, actually, haha 🙂 I like women who are strong, independent and can stand for themselves.
What do you appreciate the most in your friends? – Our discussions about history and politics that last for hours; that we challenge each other and help each other broaden our horizons; that they’re incredibly sweet, honest people; that we always have each other’s back; and that they don’t get mad if we don’t speak for weeks when I’m on my writing spree 🙂
What is your main fault? – Arrogance, I’d say. Every Leo’s fault, I have to note in my defense 🙂
What is your favourite pastime? – It’s simple: reading, writing, doing my research and yoga.
What is your idea of happiness? – In a physical sense – a remote cabin somewhere in the Alps with no people around where I can write my novels while enjoying the nature. In a more vague sense – if all people would stop fighting for their ideas and live in peace without trying to impose their laws/ideas/policies etc on everyone else. Simple like that, just living and minding their own business and contributing to the society in which everyone can coexist peacefully. That would be my ultimate idea of happiness.
If not yourself, who would you be? – Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. I’m perfectly happy with my life/career choice/time that I live in etc. Maybe I could remain myself but travel back to the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s though? That would be amazing, because I’ve always been fascinated with that period of time.
What is your favourite colour and flower? – The flower is easy: I adore lilies! As for the color, it’s a tricky question. To wear, I love black, white and blush; I prefer gray/white colors for the interior of my apartment; and I like blue just to look at. So it depends I guess.
Who are your favourite painters and musicians? – I love French Impressionism, so all the painters belonging to the movement would be among my favorites. As for musicians, I love classical music, so Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and other composers are on my permanent “to listen” list 🙂
Who are your favourite prose authors and poets? – I can’t enumerate all of them because the list will be too long, haha! Russian classics writers of course: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky; Irene Nemirovsky and her wonderful novels about France; Fitzgerald and his incredibly beautiful language; Nabokov; Hemingway; Maupassant; Remarque – I really can go on and on! I’m not that much into poetry to be honest, but Charles Baudelaire wrote poems about quite unorthodox ideas for his time that I loved.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction? – Elie Wiesel’s protagonists both in “Dawn” and “Day”. Those were novels unlike “Night”, so they considered to be fictional characters, however he wrote them with such raw emotion and feeling that I couldn’t stop thinking about them long after I finished both stories.
Who are your favourite heroines in fiction? – The “Anonymous” protagonist from “A Woman in Berlin” that tells a story of the atrocious rape of Berlin by the Red Army in 1945. That was actually a real diary of a real woman, and that made me admire her willpower and strength even more. I love tortured, broken characters who went through hell in their lives and yet remained so incredibly human. Those are my personal heroes.
Thank you, Ellie. You can learn more about Ellie’s books by following this Amazon link.