Coffee Talks

With shanejoseph

Hello! Next is, shanejoseph , author of the book "Lest they be Forgotten". We hope you enjoy reading our friendly chat with him.

[C.C.]: Thank you again for your time Shane for 'sitting down' with us, as you may be a busy person.

[Shane Joseph]: "It's my pleasure. Wattpad has been very helpful in getting my stories out to a global audience, and for that I am grateful"

[C.C.]: So, when did you decide to become a writer?

[Shane Joseph]: "I've wanted to be a writer since I was a child. I wrote short stories between the ages of 17-24, some of which were published in my native Sri Lanka. Then I stopped writing (big mistake!) while I completed my education, built a family and a career. I returned to writing 15 years ago and haven't stopped."

[C.C.]: Wow, that's a lot of career positions that you have explored, do you ever get tired?

[Shane Joseph]: "Change is good. It revitalizes the soul and broadens your experience, two important needs for the writer. However, with every new beginning, something is also lost and that is the challenge of change."

[C.C.]: So, we see that you are just not a writer, but you were also a stage and radio actor. How was that experience like?

[Shane Joseph]: "Very positive from a writer's perspective. It helped me to get into the shoes of a character and speak like him - important in crafting dialogue. I also got to read deeply on Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Satire and other playwrights."

[C.C.]: Have any writers inspired you?

[Shane Joseph]: "The lives of writers have always inspired me. Many have come through deep loss to write about their experiences. In particular, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, J.M. Coetzee, Philip Roth, Mario Vargas Llosa, have inspired to me. But the list of good authors is endless. I have reviewed many of these authors' work on Goodreads."

[C.C.]: What would you say are the main advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing against being published or the other way around?

[Shane Joseph]: "Self -publishings instant gratification. But your work needs to be edited, proofread, printed and distributed and then promoted. As a self-published author, you will have to do this all yourself. As a published author, although many of these items will be taken care of by a publisher, the doorways to being published by a trade publisher are very narrow and there are long lead times involved. I would advise a new author to try very hard to have their debut novel published by a trade publisher as that may make or break a career."

[C.C.]: What story genres do you prefer to write in?

[Shane Joseph]: "I prefer to write in the literary and mainstream fiction genres - i.e. stories set in a time and place I know and live in. But I am working on a historical trilogy set in the 1790's, featuring an adventurer who was an ancestor of mine, and that series of novels takes place in France, South Africa, and Sri Lanka - so there is a lot of research involved."

[C.C.]: And thank you again for posting some of your short stories on Wattpad. Was there a specific reason why you shared them with our social community?

[Shane Joseph]: "I was looking for broader exposure, and I am glad I chose Wattpad at the time, for your reader base has indeed grown and I have received many reads and comments from around the world. And that is very encouraging. Thank you!"

And we conclude with a 'virtual' handshake! Let's give a 'virtual' applause to Shane Joseph!

~~

August 2016 Interview