Junying Interviews Authors, Artists & Professionals
Getting Ready for a TV interview 
Author J J Collins
“I have always been fascinated with the strong sense of connection Irish-American’s hold to their heritage. There are over 40 million Irish-American’s and in my experience, they were often more passionate and patriotic about their Irish roots than even some native born Irish themselves. I have a natural love of history and found the circumstances leading to the American Civil War amazing for such a young nation. I thought I would combine my love of Irish-American history with my interest in the American Civil War into a book which explored the Irish connection and involvement.… Continue reading →
“I love erotica because it’s sensuality wrapped in words. When I read it, I feel aroused like listening to a great piece of music, eating a delicious dessert, or taking a hot shower.
Writing itself simply appeals to my love for wordplay. I enjoy satire, alliteration, puns, and I’m always playing several games of Scrabble at any one time. …Continue reading →
“I have travelled quite a lot and played in many beautiful venues. I want to bring my piano to some remote places, to people who don’t have much opportunity to listen to classical music. Places like deep in the mountain of South West China, villages in Tibet, care homes in Europe, on safari in the South Africa, or even in prison … Continue reading →
“I like experimenting with different formats of telling a story. The first two books are told from two different POVs that provide the reader with a richer insight into a variety of issues/ The third mystery in the series is also told from two POVs, and it also features extended POV of one of the story-tellers. But, of course, the main motivation for writing on is that there’s still a lot of the story left to be told. Not to mention, many murders just waiting to be committed.… Continue reading →
“I’ve been living in Thailand for the past 8 years with my wife and writing full time. I have lived the Marshall Islands, Vietnam, Budapest and many places in the U.S. I am a Southerner from North Carolina but my home, when in the States, is now Houston, Texas.… Continue reading →
“Often I get ideas that will bug me to death. Getting so bad sometimes that I will find myself with tablets all about the house. Jotting this or that down as they come to me. I have even gone so far as poking around outlines to books that find their way folded into a note book. Therefore I would have to say my inspirations are just the reactions of my mind in need of sweeping away the clutter (lol).… Continue reading →
- Author Dialogue 3: Meeting Mysterious, Melancholy, Multi-Published James Thompson
“The winter doesn’t bother me, nor does the dark time. They used to, but I’ve come to enjoy them. Here in Helsinki, we don’t always get enough snow as I would like, as I find it cheerful, but these past couple winters we’ve been deluged in snow. Adapting to the culture was difficult and took some years. In those terms, Finland has been referred to as the Japan of the west, meaning that the cultural differences are so different from the rest of the western world that the country and its ways are nearly incomprehensible to outsiders.… Continue reading →
Posted on February 1, 2013 by Junying
Author Profile
“Curiosity inspired me to write. I have been writing fiction for years. I’ve got drawers and drawers of the stuff. But I’ve mostly spent my time as a newspaper reporter in small towns throughout the province. Once I left that life to dedicate myself to writing full-time, I was surprised at how many ideas I had and how many books I wanted to write. … Continue reading →
Meeting Compassionate, Happy and Hardworking Jean Brown
Posted on January 14, 2013 by Junying
Author Jean Brown
“I am certainly character driven. My main focus is to create memorable characters. When I consider the multitude of books I’ve read over the past decades, I typically remember the interesting characters more than the plot. I think the plot is very important, but if the character is unique enough, it doesn’t really matter what he’s doing. I would like to consider my style similar to Dean Koontz. … Continue reading
“I was born a gamer. When I’m not writing or trying to pay the bills with work, I’m usually kicking back in front of my television playing video games on my Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 with my friends online. I also have a collection of vintage video games including a 30-year-old Intellivision video game system that still works. When feeling old school, I’ll hook up the old Intellivision and play some of my childhood favorites... and then quickly realize that the games seemed a lot easier when I was a kid (not to mention laugh at the dated graphics).… Continue reading →
“I never thought I would become a professional interpreter until I became a mum. Initially the beauty of working as a freelance professional interpreter for me was that it could nicely fit in my life as a mum to two young children. Gradually I have fallen in love with this profession because I feel that nothing I have learned in life got wasted in being an interpreter. For example, I used to think my second degree in Information System Design was a complete mistake in my life but then I realised that I could actually make use of the knowledge in this field while interpreting for a conference within the same field … Continue reading
“As a teen, sex to me was more than just a pastime or something physical to do. A relationship was more than something light and fluffy—I liked intensity that wasn’t based on something superficial like external looks only.
I found myself very uninspired/bored/irritated with the way sex and relationships were mostly depicted by the mainstream mass media. They seemed to gloss over the emotional and spiritual components to sexual activity, which is something I include in most of my writing (whether it’s fiction or non-fiction).… Continue reading →
“There is no typical day in court and police interpreting due to short notice bookings. You could have a plan that you are going shopping with a friend but end up in the police cells all day. Finally you manage to get home and in the middle of dinner you get another call and work till early next morning. There are also days where you are just at home – waiting for a call. You cannot predict how many crimes are committed so you have to arrange your life around the work and be as flexible as possible.… Continue reading →
“I’m what’s called a “pantser,” meaning when I sit down to write I don’t have much planned, except the story concept itself. I read what I’ve already written, and then go from there. There are times when I’m not even sure what the outcome of the story will be until I get there.… Continue reading →
“I don’t think that the public has a good understanding of what our job involves and everyone think that they can interpret as long as they can speak a foreign language. You can speak a language but to interpret you have to be qualified, trained and skilled you also learn a lot through experience and practice. I think the most important thing is to convey to both parties what is being said and enable them to communicate with each other and unfortunately interpreters should keep a low profile and should not interfere. That is my understanding of a good interpreting but sometimes there are some cultural specifications that need to be addressed before.… Continue reading →
“I have no illusions of who I am. I may not know all the names of my muscles and bones in my body, nor do I know all the scientific names in this world. I may not know how to speak neither Spanish nor Latin—but I know my worth—and I came to a point where I simply refused to let others tell me otherwise or to hurt me, relatives or not.… Continue reading →
- Meeting Frustrating, Obsessive, Silly, and Cute Mariam Kobras on Tour
“This is an easy one: I get up, make coffee, start to work, and stop when it’s time for dinner, more or less. Sometimes I have lunch. I work around the writing, or write, all the time. See, I’m alone at home all day long, and I really, really detest housework. So it’s an easy decision. Also, with the decision to write in English instead of my native German, I’ve written myself into isolation. I don’t have many friends here. And no one here knows I’m an author. Funny, isn’t it? I live in Germany, but my books are published in the US, so no one knows about me.… Continue reading →
“When I wrote My Schizophrenic Life: The Road to Recovery from Mental Illness, I wanted to document the course of significant events in my life. I soon realized that by sharing my struggle and successes, I could give others hope and inspiration. I was able to explain what made my recovery possible. Also, I wanted to reduce stigma by putting the reader in my shoes and showing the insider’s point of view.… Continue reading →
“My characters chatter away in my head constantly, they drive me nuts at times! I have never consciously used anyone I know as a book character. Sometimes different character traits of people I have met get jumbled into one character.… Continue reading →
“I am PETRIFIED of butterflies. Seriously. I mean they’re pretty and all, but *shudders* those wings, and the way they flutter about. No thanks. It all started when I was six. I was sitting on the front porch of my childhood home, and, unbeknownst to me, a large Monarch landed on my shoulder. I looked over and saw it (and I swear it looked me right in the eye —eep!) and I FREAKED! What made it so bad, is no matter how much I shook my body and ran around, it would NOT leave me alone. And ever since then, it’s like the butterfly kingdom knows this and they flock to me. When I lay by my pool they just haveto come say hello (which, of course, means I run around like a complete idiot screaming).… Continue reading →
“I always believed that equal opportunity is essential in every nation and culture. Many minority groups have struggled to become at least marginally recognized in all fields of interest. But there is still one group, the Asian and Asian Americans who have been short-shrifted in all areas of equal opportunity including arts and entertainment. Because of cultural differences with majorities in many countries, the prejudice still runs deep in many parts of the world.… Continue reading →
“It’s not easy tooting your own horn! Maybe an interesting aspect of my personality is the ability to empathize with a variety of situations/people. It is almost uncanny the way my life has unfolded with such drama, only to make me into the person I am today – a woman who has been there, done that and can truly understand others. … Continue reading →
“Most of the time I don’t write enough, but sometimes I write too much. There have been a few days in the past two years when I would write 6,000 to 10,000 words in one day. I take “writing vacations” – days when I put aside all my other aspects of my life, take my laptop, and go disappear in a hotel room and write. Once I even stayed overnight in a hotel only 10 minutes from home and ordered room service so I didn’t have to stop writing.… Continue reading →
Interviewing Avid Writer and Actress Deanna Proach;
“When I’m not writing, I’m actively involved in my local community theatre as an actress. The kind of theatre I’ve been involved with for the past two years is Story Theatre, aka street theatre. We’re a small troupe and we perform various short stories to an audience of children and adults at several outdoor venues on the Sunshine Coast (the community in South-Western British Columbia, the place I call home) throughout the summer months. So, yes, acting is my favourite pastime.… Continue reading →
“If I’m not working or writing, I spend leisure time with Julie. We are into movies, TV, and family events. Also, we like to travel, especially to Europe, where we have been to several countries, including your adopted homeland, England.
I am in an avant-garde musical group, The Exploration Project, where I work with poetry and percussion. We have a painter, Eric Henty (http://erichenty.com) who makes original canvases while we make the sounds, and we have several musicians, including the founder, Scott Rifkin, who plays a custom-made James DeCava double-neck six-string guitar, and our newest member, Peter Dragotta, a woodwind specialist.… Continue reading →
Junying’s Interviews & Guest Posts
Interview about my Journey to the West, with Guangdong TV Station Facetime Team
Ever since the publication of my books, I have done a number of interviews with fellow authors and book reviewers, as well as making guest appearances on some fabulous sites. The above pictures were taken during my interview by one of China’s TV Stations. Guangdong Facetime English programme was my host. See the link below to watch the first draft of the programme shown on the 19th February 2013: http://v.gdtv.cn/html/ItemId86/2013-02-19/41723.html.
2) Talking to Tracey about Trials of Life
3) The Same Moon Review and Interview with Jenna Christy
4) Jewel Adams Getting to Know Junying Kirk
5) Wonderful Read of the Month with Eri Nelson
6) Multicultural Icon with Matt Posner of School of the Ages
8) Jess C Scott Interviews Junying Kirk
9 Eden Baylee Gets Inside an Author’s Mind: Junying Kirk
10) Charming Character Interview as Pearl with Carlyle Labuschagne
11) Murder is Everywhere: Guest Author Junying Kirk
12) SSBooksFanatics: My “Journey to the West”
13) Author Roundtable with Jason Bourne
14) Inspiration behind the Trilogy with eTLC
15) Andi’s Realm: Interview with Author Junying Kirk
16) Characters, Editing, Genre & Interesting Facts about Land of Hope – Lisa M Stull
17) A Review of land of Hope by Junying Kirk – Jean Brown
18) Interview on Land of Hope with Vanessa Wu
Land Of Hope Book Tour with Author Junying Kirkby Eri Nelson
Book Reviews & Promos
Some of the books I have read in 2012 and you’d find reviews of a few of them on my site.
