Ask the Author: Emer Martin

“I dreamt I was a spider and I plucked off all my legs and when I got to the last remaining two I stood up and became human. I wrote this down and it became the first sentence to my new book.” Emer Martin

Answered Questions (5)

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I have just finished Baby Zero, which I enjoyed immensely. I was curious as to why you chose to make the family from a fictitious country rather than choosing a real one?

Emer Martin Some have asked me where Orap is. Orap is a creation of the West, a mythical place, the book is surreal, set in a future, which feels like today, just closer to the end. All the wild animals are extinct – as could well happen in our near future. The name of the family Fattaggas is the indicator of this surrealist intention – being the name of a famous surrealist exhibition with Max Ernst, among others, taking part.

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How do you get inspired to write?

Emer Martin Inspiration is easy and not really what writing is about. Time, commitment, and most of all feeling what you do is worthwhile are necessary, to quote my friend the writer David Donohue, "When I'm visiting schools, doing readings, children often ask me about what inspired me to write my books. I always say, forget inspiration, that's just ideas, they're ten a penny. What opened the door to the possibility of me becoming an author was ENCOURAGEMENT. I was lucky to find a mentor, the extraordinary, Herbie Brennan, who ceaselessly encouraged me until I just gave in and began to half-believe... Encouragement, it's at least as important as love..."

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What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Emer Martin Having an excuse to do nothing and say you're thinking. Going to dens of iniquity and claiming it's all for research. Befriending mad yokes and troublemakers and justifying it all as character studies.

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