Tania Hershman was born in London in 1970. In 1994, she moved to Jerusalem, Israel, where she now lives with her partner. Tania is a former science journalist, and her award-winning short stories combine her two loves: fiction and science. Many of Tania’s stories, which have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in print and online, are inspired by articles from popular science magazines. In September 2008, Salt Publishing released Tania’s debut collection, The White Road and Other Stories. For more information, visit The White Road and Other Stories website, Tania’s website, and her blog: Titania Writes. Also check out The Short Review, a unique website dedicated to reviewing short story collections that Tania founded in November 2007.






Intro to Word Association Interview
I contacted Tania a few weeks prior to the day this interview was scheduled to be posted, and asked her what she wanted to talk about. I’d read the previous interviews from her virtual book tour, and she’d already answered a ton of questions about herself and her book. Was there anything that hadn’t been discussed that she wanted to focus on, I wondered? Tania’s answer set the course for this interview. She said: “I have to say that, 6 virtual book tour ’stops’ in, I am really tired of talking about myself!” She then suggested a different approach to the interview based on Angela Meyer’s interview with Nam Le. I was definitely game. I’d never done a “word association” type interview before, and it seemed the perfect format at this stage in Tania’s tour. Tania answered however she wished, with only the prompts you see for inspiration. Each prompt is specific either to one of Tania’s stories in the book, or to the topics she writes about.

Gravitational deficiencies. Feet on the floor.

Stories lift you, they take you places. Great stories forget about the rules of physics, about gravity, and they soar. But they can also root you in this world, show you behind the curtain, reveal reality in a way you may have never seen before. A great piece of fiction can do both, it takes you on a journey and it returns you to yourself, but a slightly changed self, altered, pulled a little, pushed a little, stretched.

“I am Eve in the garden before the snake arrives.”

We can do it, again and again, making mistakes is the way we learn. It’s not one chance, you’ve blown it. I believe life puts situations in front of us and will keep putting them there until we learn, until we figure something out. If Eve could go back to the Garden, would she do it differently? Would she refuse the apple, shun the snake? Writing is my way of testing out possibilities, the What If… I work through scenarios in my stories – how might it feel to have children, for example? How might it be not to like your child? How might it be to lose a loved one? This is only partly a conscious process. It’s all about potential, about possibilities, about imagination.

The Art of Science. The Science of Art.

I don’t like boundaries, definitions, pigeonholes, this is art, this is science, two worlds, two languages, no crossing between, strict passport control. Look at the amazing images in science magazines; that’s art. And the way scientists talk about truth, about beautiful equations. Truth and beauty? Art. Science. It’s all part of a whole, art and science are two telephone lines in our conversation with the world, about the world, questioning and probing. It used to be that artists mixed with mathematicians to discuss, to share. Now there’s some kind of wall. I wasn’t allowed at high school in the UK to study “sciences” and “arts”, had to choose one or the other. What kind of choice is that? More Physics for Poets, and Poetry for Physicists, that’s what this world needs.

Splinters.

This is how stories come to me, like splinters that float through my brain. Some of them stick. Some of them begin to irritate, they worry at me until I give in, until I say, Fine, I’ll write you, until I start to write and I let the story out, let it grow.

Side effects. By-products.

Are often more interesting. Get rid of the main attraction, take a peek to the side, what’s happening in the margins, out of the spotlight. Distract your mind, put your attention somewhere and let your brain whirr away in the background. By-products can be toxic, altering; side-effects can include twitches, upsets, asymmetry, imbalance. Much more interesting than whole, healthy, walking the straight line. Veer off the main drag, take a detour, walk the darker paths, the roads less taken.

“I’m gobsmacked.”

Ha, this made me laugh. So British, does anyone else know what this means? Shows me that you can take the girl out of England, but etc… etc.. I am a British writer, regardless of where I live. And I am seen as an Israeli writer just because I live here. And a Jewish writer, just because I am Jewish, even if none of my characters are. And a woman writer, and a writer in her thirties, and a 21st century writer and and… Labels. All labels. I’m just someone who spends her time making stuff up.

Home.

Wherever I write. Somewhere I want to be most of the time. The person we are with? Something we may all be spending our lives searching for. A refuge. My head. My heart.

What if…?

Everything. This is all of it. What if…? and let go, free fall, no soft landings. It takes you anywhere and everywhere. Trust your imagination.

Tania’s Next Stop:

12/23/08: Kanlaon

Tania’s Previous Stops

12/10/08: Eco-Libris
12/2/08: Eric Forbes’s Book Addict’s Guide to Good Books
11/26/08: Tim Jones: Books in the Trees
11/17/08: Sue Guiney: Me and Others
11/9/08: Vanessa Gebbie’s News
11/5/08: Literary Minded
10/28/08: Keeper of the Snails