Today’s Q&A treat is the unmissable Nicole Burstein. Currently a bookseller at Waterstones’ flagship Piccadilly store, Nicole is an expert in the YA book market, as well as an exciting new author of YA fiction and a possessor of many crazy hats.
Who or what is your writing inspiration?
I don’t have one person or book that inspires me. I can draw inspiration from practically anything! Music, films or an art exhibition can trigger an idea. Sometimes I might overhear a conversation in a coffee shop, or might see a funny looking building, or experience something personally that becomes the groundwork for a story.
Where is your favourite place to write?
It’s not necessarily my favourite place to write, but I have started referring to the Starbucks in Edgware as my office!
What was the last book you read?
I read a lot of YA, often two or three books a week. In the past week or so I’ve read Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone, The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines, and the Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson plus a couple of Graphic Novels: Unwritten Volume 1 by Mike Carey and Y: The Last Man Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan. In between each book I’m also reading a chapter or two from The Horologicon by Mark Forsyth.
When did you first decide you wanted to be a writer?
I can’t remember ever not wanting to be a writer. I was reading at a very early age and my favourite game was to make books from folded up scraps of dot matrix printer paper, bound together with sticky tape. I then used to fill the books in with random ramblings and pictures. At six or seven my Dad gave me an old typewriter and I spent every spare moment writing stories so that by the age of ten I was having touch-typing races with my Mum (who went to secretarial college!).
What is your favourite ice cream flavour and/or favourite biscuit, and why?
I’m terribly boring – you can’t beat good old chocolate (for both ice cream and biscuits!)
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