Liberian Literary Magazine
Author Interview 2
Spotlight Author
MARTINA NICOLLS
Promoting Liberian literature, Arts and Culture
v ocational training units of
the Education Department
before
working
in
univ ersities in Australia.
For more than 15 years I
hav e been w orking as a
humanitarian
and
aid
dev elopment w orker in
dev eloping countries.
Why writing?
Liberian Literary Magazine
conducted an interview
with
Martina Nicolls, an aid
consultant who has worked
in several troubled spots.
LLM: First, we would like to
thank you for granting this
interview. Let us kick off this
interview with you telling us
a little about yourself….
I
w as
born
in
the
countryside of England and
my parents migrated to
Australia w hen I w as two
years old. I w as the second
of six children. My schooling
w as all in South Australia. At
univ ersity I graduated in
mathematics
and
education, but I also
studied English literature,
Australian
literature,
German literature, French
literature, and
Russian
literature.
I
w as
a
schoolteacher
(primary,
secondary, and special
education) and I w orked in
I w as alw ays reading as a
child, and I hav e never
stopped. Words and the
construction of sentences
fascinated me, and I was
alw ays amazed at how
w ords could hav e multiple
meanings. Professionally my
w riting w as non-fiction, but
w hen I started w orking
ov erseas my friends w anted
to know more about the
places and cultures, so they
encouraged me to w rite
about my experiences from
a fictional perspective. I
started w riting my first book
in 2005.
What books have most
influenced your life/career
most?
Trav elogues,
memoirs,
biographies,
and
autobiographies
have
influenced my w ork and my
w riting,
because
the
people I read about are
strong,
courageous,
adv enturous,
and
determined problem solvers
in spite of many challenges.
Books that span many
genres and cultures are of
interest to me and shape
my ow n w riting.
17
How do you approach your
work?
With my fictional stories
about different countries, I
start by research and
planning the outline of my
book.
I
conjure
up
characters and generally
organize my
w ork in
historical periods or themes.
I w rite w hen I can, in
betw een my mainstream
employment, sometimes for
long stretches of time and
sometimes only in the
ev ening. I alw ays w rite
dow n ideas too as I think of
them. I edit a lot – and in
fact I seem to do more
editing than creating.
What themes do you find
yourself
continuously
exploring in your work?
The themes I continually
explore in my w riting
include
indiv iduality,
friendship,
solidarity,
charity,
truth,
conflict,
peace, family relationships,
patience, transformation,
purposeful
w ork,
life
challenges,
and
life
solutions.
Tell us a little about your
book[s]storyline,
characters,
themes,
inspiration etc.
I hav e w ritten a fictional
story,
called
Bardot’s
Comet, about a female
mathematician
in
the
1960s. My other fictional
books are about countries
w here I hav e w orked, such
as The Sudan
Curse,
Kashmir on a Knife-Edge,