Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am an ROC (Taiwan) citizen, born and bred in the UK. I began travelling in 1981 and soon found I didn’t want to go home. I used to write a lot in my late teens (pre-Internet, so nothing available in digital form) and am now ‘making a comeback’! In the intervening years (decades rather), my artistic pursuits have been more oriented towards visual arts, as can be seen on my personal website, alixlee.com. I haven’t written any complete books apart from The Taiwan Experience. As a teenager, I wrote short stories (fiction); now I mostly write true short stories.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I’m working mostly on the True Tales series, although I do have other projects, such as The Taiwan Experience, which is a trilogy of books based on my observations of Taiwan’s democratisation over several decades. With limited time available for writing, I tend to just concentrate on whichever story I feel like on any given morning, so the next story to be finished in the True Tales series will not necessarily be the next chronologically as the stories happened.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Don’t know if I have any unusual writing habits, as I don’t know what other peoples’ writing habits are! But I like to write either very early in the morning or late in the evening.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I think that’s for other people to say.
What are you working on now?
At present I’m working on several projects, the biggest of which is the True Tales of a Traveller series. This relates some to the more interesting experiences in 35 years of travelling. Each of the stories in the series is priced at 0.99 on Amazon, with free periods arranged for each whenever possible, and that’s as cheap as I can make them. The full series will also be published in paperback in a number of volumes. Any feedback appreciated!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
At the moment, on a low or non-existant promotional budget, only free options are available to me. Awesome Gang and a few other sites seem to do a good job of helping those writers with little or no funding available to get their work noticed.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
When I’ve had some commercial or critical success, then I’ll be qualified to give advice!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“If something’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well.”
What are you reading now?
I’m reading (or listening to rather) some books I first read as a teenager by Jack Kerouac.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Hopefully, browsing through English-language books at foreign airports and saying to myself: “Oh, there’s one of mine!”
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I think if I were stuck on desert island, I’d want to escape in my mind to somewhere completely different. Maybe something like The Godfather by Mario Puzo. Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was another engrossing novel I enjoyed, and I liked all George Orwell’s works. Normally I prefer short stories, but the problem is they are over too quickly and it would be a case of “Oh, no, I’m still on this bloody island!”
Author Websites and Profiles
Alix Lee Website