Today, I’m excited to welcome Fanni Sütő for an author interview! I know Fanni from Scribophile and Twitter–on the latter, she is currently hosting an awesome hashtag game called #junewipfolly. Lots of fun questions and prompts–definitely check it out if you’re in Twitter!
Thanks for being here today, Fanni! Today’s interview is going to be a lighthearted mixture of questions, starting with: Did you have a childhood nickname that stuck?
Not really, but there is the ah-so entertaining pun of “Fanni, you’re so funny!” Yeah, nobody made that joke before.
I can sympathize. “Heather Feather” was a favored one for me. What is your guilty pleasure?
I like reading “bad” Hungarian YA fiction. When I’m very tired, I find a perverse pleasure in it. Although these days I have less patience for it.
That’s interesting! I’ve never read bad fiction for pleasure, but I imagine it could be amusing in the right circumstances.
Next question: What secret talent do you have?
I can cry on almost everything, I can make up very silly puns and I’m pretty good in organizing things and not getting too lost in new places. I can also remember conversations from long time ago and make friends uncomfortable with the fact that I recall what they said five years ago.
I’m also good at organizing! Not so great at remembering past conversations, however… That’s an awesome talent, though. I promise to be amused or impressed if you remember this conversation five years from now!
Time to get a little more serious: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
Family legend has it that I rhymed already as a toddler. As an only child I was sometimes also a lonely child,but I found friends and adventures in books. My first writing projects were Sailor Moon fanzines and Knight Rider fan fiction in primary school. Then as adolescence hit I wrote love-hate poems about my crushes. They were quite hilarious, but not very high quality. However, they made me realized that writing helps me deal with my problems; I could make up my own worlds with my own rules. I really think that writing helped me to survive my teenage years without any major crisis. I was an avid diary writer from 15-18 (basically during my high school years) and I still have those journals. They were a strange mix between a diary and a scrapbook.
When I was 16, we had to choose an orientation for further study. I wanted to do (Hungarian) Literature and nothing else (also English but I was good enough to pass the exam even without extra classes). My literature teachers were always very supportive with me and I’m very grateful. I’m still friends with one of them even after the almost ten years since I left high school…
I never dared to imagine that I could make a living only from writing (although of course that would be my ultimate dream.) In teaching, however, I found a job which makes me happy and leaves us enough time to write as well.
To sum up, me becoming a writer was a long but pretty straightforward process. We’ll see what the future holds.
That’s awesome! I dabbled in writing when I was young, too, but have thankfully lost those documents somewhere in a dusty box of floppy disks. It’s great that you found a job you enjoy that still leaves you time for writing. I look forward to seeing where the future takes you!
What project(s) are you currently working on?
It’s really high time I finish my first novel, Londemonium. Here’s the mock-up cover a friend of mine created for it:
It’s an urban fantasy set in Hell and London. In Londemonium, Hell is a multinational company, led by its eccentric CEO, Luke Seyton. The characters include: Gregor, a German programmer who descends to Hell to retrieve his abducted crush; Molly, a feisty Irish girl on the look out for her heritage; Aiko, an English-Japanese girl who wants to make sense of her life; and Raphael, an immigrant angel, who desperately wants to fit in. I’m saying that I’m working on it, but I haven’t touched it since the winter… I plan to jump on it and finish it off this summer though.
I’ve recently come up with another summer project. I’m planning to write a tween novel about an adventurous summer holiday. I imagine it as a blend between Gravity Falls and Doctor Who with a lot of humor and excitement. My idea is to use the cards from a Dixit (it’s a very good association-based board game with gorgeous art) expansion which would give the writing process some randomness and excitement. I can’t wait to start. The working title in my head is Summer Break on the Milky Way or something similar.
I have two other half-finished novels. Glasgow, my love is a multiple-ended love story set in Glasgow and London. I like it because it’s summery and magical. The other one, Dreamless, is an alternative Victorian society where imagination and dreams have been banned. The Queen is a monster and poets are in hiding. I love the world building and all the Victorian-literature-fangirlism I can cram in.
Another multi-project author, awesome! *high fives* They all sound interesting–I especially like the sound of Londemonium. Hopefully you do finish it soon, so I can read it!
Let’s wrap the interview with a couple more casual questions, starting with: Where is one place you’d like to visit that you haven’t been to before?
Nowadays I have a craving for the US, I don’t really know why. I just think it’s such a huge country that everybody could find something to like there. Also, they’re hosting great conventions where I would really like to go…
This is a really big country. I’ve lived here my entire life and only seen a small fraction of it. The East Coast is a lovely place to visit! (I’m not biased at all, I swear…) Haven’t been to any conventions yet, but I hope to do so someday!
We have time for one more question, so here’s one of my favorites to ask people: What is your favorite quote?
“We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”— The Doctor, Season 5, Episode 13.
Ooooh, I love that quote! That’s going on my favorites list as well.
Thanks so much for being here today, Fanni! I wish you and your writing the best!
Fanni Sütő is a writer, poet, dreamer who believes in fairy tales even if they are dark, disenchanted and deconstructed. She writes about everything which comes in her way or goes bump in the night. She has been published in Hungary, the US, the UK and Australia. She is very happy to do collaborations, art exchanges, cross-art projects, so if you’re interested in such things, please get in touch.
You can connect with her on her website or Twitter.
