Sarp Sozdinler

What was your favorite book as a child?

Any book in the children’s book series The Knickerbocker Gang by the Austrian writer Thomas Brezina. I’ve tried, but I don’t think I can stand one out.

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

Frankly, I cannot remember that far back, but for as long as I’ve known myself I wrote things on paper, mostly using my grandfather’s Olivetti-brand typewriter, which hurt my fingers as a kid. They were mostly outlines for made-up movies in my mind, which were in truth rip-offs of whatever I’d recently seen. Then there was a gap between that period of my life and my late twenties, which was when I took on writing again, this time as an adult. I had been working as a graphic designer by then and was profoundly dissatisfied with working for third parties and catering for their needs instead of creating for myself. In a sense, writing has been a way for me to connect with what I’d loved doing when I was a kid.

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

I’m intrinsically a very boring person. I don’t try adventurous things at all, feeling too afraid to tempt fate. But I can certainly recall an incident from my time as an exchange student in Vienna where I accidentally managed to got myself locked in a cemetery for a night (I didn’t know they close at 5 pm in the whole of Austria!) and tried to get ahold of someone who could help me until I was escorted out nearing the morning.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

No, not really. I like to spend my time very still and quiet like a monk, to be buried in my thoughts. I know some writer friends who enjoy ambient cafeteria chatter, even a fake one, but that sadly doesn’t work for me. And in a broader sense, I’m very sensitive with even the smallest of sounds in my personal life, from chewing sounds to foot tapping, to an extent where I could self-diagnose myself with misophonia (or should I more accurately call it misanthropy?).