I met Ainslie Paton online years ago but we really got to know each other on a three hour drive from Canberra to Sydney two years ago. You get to know a lot about a person as you drive down an expressway flinching at the roadkill count that interrupts your conversations. The two of us continue to chat online and occasionally we get to lunch in person. Regardless of the physicality of our meetings, we always end up laughing and chatting like old friends.

Ainslie Paton

Author

Can you describe yourself?

For a writer, Ainslie Paton is crap at description.  All of her training trained her out of it. So in describing herself she’d say.  She’s a girl, who always wanted to write, and got lucky because she has done that for most of her career both corporately and for love, and is still surprised at the stupid mistakes she makes.

She’s not very tall and not very thin and not very blonde and not very young but has enough height, weight, hair of varying colours and years of experience to muck on with.

Her daily work is supervised by two cats.  They both go to bed before she does.  She can do limited sleep and forgetting to eat and going without to write.

She never got wisdom teeth.  Make of that what you will.  She gets a rare form of chronic headache that men mostly get – and none of the privileges of being a man that come with them.

Sunshine.  Seascapes.  Pilates.  Coffee.  Books

Coffee.

Reading.

It’s a shame we need sleep.

 

What is your main reading medium (books, blogs, games, news, etc) and how much time do you spend reading a week?

I read constantly for work.  I’m a news junkie and read several international and local newspapers a day, plus an array of other publications, websites and commentators.

We’re in a news intensive period and it’s robbed me of what little time I have for reading for pleasure right now.

What or who is your joyful reading (guilty or otherwise) pleasure? 

No reading is guilty.  I’ll read almost anything.  The only guilt is reading when I should be earning or writing or fixing my mother’s IT.

Do you have a favourite storyline or plot? And do you have one you will not read?

No strict favourites.  More inclined to chase novelty, originality.  Not a big fan of novellas or shorter novels or classic tropes treated classically.

Why do you/don’t you use a public library?

 

I have a lovely local library, but rarely visit it.  No time, baby.

Do you RUI*. If so, what?

I read under the influence of triptans and other drugs that mostly don’t help my headaches.

Do you have a favourite reading spot?

Bed, couch, beach, my Aeron chair, car and while having to wait anywhere.

Toilet reading: 

a) Never do it

Romance fiction of the Happily Ever After (not the love tragedy) kind – are you a Lover or a Hater and why?

I’m a swinger.  Sometimes you need a good romantic tragedy.

What would you give up reading for**?

Pleasure reading – work.  Happens all the time.  Being a person in the world reading.  I would probably die if I couldn’t read.

Can a romance/crime/super/etc hero be the driver of a hatchback?

They can be anything and it depends on the hatchback.  Seldom are the nature of the wheels employed that critical to me.

*Reading Under the Influence

**I like stranded prepositions