Angela Hair
From Angela Hair’s first experience of writing a book (Muriwai and Beyond 1985), she discovered the joy of collecting and collating stories. She began her lifelong task of recording client stories, and helping the person make sense of their story through reflection, and the use of homeopathic remedies. Angela Hair has been working as a homeopath over thirty-five years and is an Intentional Grace practitioner.
Do you try more to be original, or to deliver to readers what they want?
I tend to write about what I am interested in, and may be helpful for my homeopathic clients. These people are curious to learn how to help themselves recover from acute and chronic illnesses. Homeopathic stories confirm that an integrated approach to recovery is helpful.
How do you select the names of your characters?
I ask the person I am writing about to come up with a name for themselves.
If you had to do something differently as a child or teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would you do?
Listen to my English teacher. It was my science teacher that noticed I had an imaginative way of writing science papers. Maybe I could have asked her to help me develop this side of myself.
What was the first book that made you cry?
The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier – a child’s story about being in Warsaw, Poland, during the Second World War.
Have you Googled yourself? Did you find out anything interesting?
Yes I am known as a hair salon for angels!
Are there any secrets in your books that only a few people will find? Can you tell us one? Or give us any hints?
Grandad Ellmers will be in every book.
Did you ever consider writing under a pseudonym? Why?
Yes when I was a student I wrote under my grandmother’s name in Broadsheet because I didn’t want my mother to discover what I had written.
How did publishing your first book change your writing process?
I discovered collecting and collating stories are important.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
Two are on the way
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters of the opposite sex?
Don’t describe them too accurately so they don’t discover who you were really writing about.