Anneliz Marie Erese

What was your favorite book as a child?

This might not count as a book but my mother, who was a secondary public school English teacher, often brought home the SRA Reading Laboratory kit. It was a box of thick cards, assigned with colours to designate the level of difficulty. Each card contained a story and a set of questions to test your reading comprehension. Even though I was not in high school yet at the time, I loved working through those cards, reading the stories, and answering the questions. I think, more than anything, it became the foundation for my love of books, stories and writing. My family is not a huge reader. There were no bedtime stories told to us as children, nor was there any visible championing of literature. But I was interested in sound and rhythm coming from a musical family, and English, being a foreign language, was incredibly fascinating to me. I loved learning it and understanding the almost-formulaic way of stitching words together to form sentences.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I don’t know if there is any specific reason or motivation that I can point to, and I apologise if that is an unsatisfying answer. Because I’ve loved language from the beginning, my activities and interests were then geared towards writing. I have been writing since I was in primary school, although it was more journalistic in style because I was trained to write for school newspapers and join national writing competitions. In high school, I was assigned to be the Features writer in the newspaper, so I wrote stories and poetry that were published alongside news and editorial items. A more conscious effort to write creatively came much later when I was already in my late teens, while studying an allied health professional degree and in the depths of what I understand now as depression. So, I think if there was a motivation for writing, however late, it was more an unquenchable need to express myself and free myself from self-censorship

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

In 2022, I went to the US after my Australian visa expired and I was figuring out what to do with my life and how to return to Melbourne, which I considered home. In the meantime, I let life take its course. I visited a friend in New Mexico and I tagged along with her and her friends to Utah. My friend is a seasoned hiker and I had no prior experience with multi-day hikes so when we travelled to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, I had no idea what I was in for. I climbed twenty-foot-tall cliffs, slid down massive rocks, squeezed myself between slot canyons, walked for miles and miles through sand dunes and creek. It was the most thrilling experience ever and, even if I almost died, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

Even though I love music, I prefer not to listen to it while reading or writing. I need complete silence because my brain just can’t accommodate two good things at once. I just need to hear myself think.