Ask the Author: Gail Pellett
Answered Questions (6)
Gail Pellett
If I get stuck, I read. Fortunately, I haven't really experienced writer's block in a serious way. The distractions of life are my problem.
Gail Pellett
For several decades I produced and directed and wrote for TV and radio, primarily producing documentaries, but also radio plays and public affairs programs. That work is highly collaborative and time pressured. When I started to write for print and then work on my book, I felt great relief to control my own schedule and space. I welcomed the simplicity of pen, paper, then computer. And being alone with my thoughts and imagination.
Gail Pellett
Read, write, engage with the world, question everything, listen carefully.
Gail Pellett
I am a journalist first and foremost and I am curious about the world, and hungry to understand it. Therefore, I am always developing some idea for an article or op-ed or blog. Recently, I published a blog on 3Quarks Daily about the missing publishers in Hong Kong, relating it to my experience working at Radio Beijing 35 years ago. I am working up an idea for another book, but it is unwise to talk about it yet.
Gail Pellett
Inspiration comes from so many sources. Life experiences, comments of the characters I encounter in the world— their life stories, ideas and attitudes— then the rich universe of books. Reading and writing are so intertwined I never know where one leaves off and the other starts.
Gail Pellett
Since my book is a fusion of memoir and journalism, describing my experiences living and working in Beijing in 1980-81, trying to navigate a world that had been closed to Westerners for 30 years, my ideas were overflowing. I kept copies of my letters to friends and family along with diaries and journals. They sat in a box under my desk for 30 years!
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