We hope you’re reading along with the Cityline Book Club and enjoying Bone and Bread by Saleema Nawaz! Our crew here at Cityline is loving this novel so far, especially Tracy, who showed her appreciation for the novel on her Twitter account: “In awe over Saleema Nawaz”s incredible writing talent. Bone and Bread is an insightful novel. Thoroughly enjoyed it!” She even said later that it has helped inspired her to read more CanLit!
To help our book club get some additional insight into Nawaz as a writer, we asked her 10 questions about her writing habits and favourite books.
1. What was your favourite book as a child?
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and everything by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
2. What’s your current favourite book?
Anything I would call a favourite is a sentimental favourite from the past. I tend to live in a book while I’m reading it, but once it’s over, I have a hard time calling to mind exactly what it is I’ve been reading! The last book that I loved in an evangelical sort of way was Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant.
3. Was there a moment when you first knew you wanted to be a writer?
There might not have been a single crystallizing moment that I still remember. I know I had already decided in Grade One, when I felt very impatient with the process of being asked to draw pictures for my stories. I could tell my pictures were dragging down the whole enterprise!
4. What is your favourite music to write to?
I almost never write to music unless I’m out at a café, where sometimes the jumble of background sounds can be tuned out as a kind of white noise. I can more easily ignore a television, but music is a huge distraction. I really require silence in order to get anything done.
5. What author do you wish you could write like?
I wouldn’t want to sound exactly like anyone else, though there are lots of writers with styles I admire. I did once have the experience of reading a Carol Shields novel and feeling an odd sense of recognition in the prose.
6. Where is your favourite place to write?
My favourite place to write is curled up on a corner of the couch, with my laptop on my lap.
7. What time of day do you do your best writing?
When my schedule allows for it (which isn’t often!), I like to write in the morning, starting around 8:30, before talking or eating or doing much of anything. Time seems more elastic then, and the inner editor who might try to keep stuff off the page isn’t entirely awake yet.
8. What was your last great read?
Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, a collection of short fiction by Diana Athill. The stories are dark and funny and terrible in their perceptiveness.
9. What is the last book you gave as a gift?
Dear Life by Alice Munro.
10. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Besides writing (and reading, which is the other half of writing), my favourite activity is singing, and I sing soprano in a choir. I’m also part of a knitting circle (though we’re not very much like the one I describe in Bone and Bread).
Are you enjoying Bone and Bread so far? Share your thoughts in the comments – we can’t wait to discuss it with you. Stay tuned for a video interview with Nawaz about the novel, coming up right here in the Cityline Book Club next week!