This is the first in a series of interviews with people who responded to my request for interviewees in this post.

I was delighted to receive a response from the hugely talented fiction writer, Kathleen Maher, who was a finalist in both 2007 and 2008 in the Weblog Awards for Best Literature Blog. Kathleen blogs at Diary of a Heretic and The Vitruvian Woman, she also contributes to the magazine, The View from Here.

Your Blogger: You’re a writer, was that always your chosen profession?

Kathleen: The way I recall it, as soon as I could read and distinguish fact from fiction, I wanted to write fiction. In college, however, I backed away from my dream because at that age I was terrified of failing. My second love, however, turned out to be philosophy, and my prospects for achievement there looked no better. So if I was going to fail, better to fail at what I loved most. Not everybody experiences this, but some people might like to know: I failed and kept failing, which in my case has turned out to be a good thing. Now I’m fearless about failing. In fact, I consider it essential to my personal creative process. If I’m not facing failure daily, I’m not risking enough to find exhilaration. And at this point, I think my writing succeeds, at least on its own terms.

Your Blogger: Are there other writers in your family, or are you a first? How do your family feel about your career choice, do they support you or have they ever asked when you’re going to get a ‘proper’ job – not that I’m suggesting you should, just that it seems to be a common thing for people with creative jobs to be asked.

Kathleen: My husband and daughter both write. Otherwise, my parents and siblings and as far as I know, my predecessors have not been writers. As for the “proper” job question? It bedevils me. I hate not pulling my weight. My family, however, has never expected me to make money. I was so obviously an odd duck. My husband, who knew me as a child, married me knowing full well what an impractical spirit I am. He supports us both as a financial writer and has always woken before dawn to write his fiction. If anyone’s betting on which of us will get a novel published, bet on him: Philip Maher.

Your Blogger: What motivated you to serialise your novels in blog form? How has that worked out? Do you think it’s brought your work to a wider audience than simply publishing in a more traditional format?

Kathleen: I started writing fiction on a blog because I’d fallen into a kind of writer’s block where I was rewriting obsessively. On the blog, I resolved to write my best and post what I had. So that everything I put up wasn’t half-born, I began serializing “Diary of a Heretic,” a novel I wrote ages ago, and couldn’t get published. The blog has definitely brought me more readers than I could hope for otherwise—otherwise being none.

That does not mean I’m an unprofessional writer. I love writing more than almost anything and consider myself skillful and exacting. My writing, like my imagination, however, veers widely from the mainstream. I never studied writing in an MFA program and don’t have any real life friends who are writers. (Through the blog I have become online friends with writers and readers in other cities.) The few real-life friends I have don’t read what I write, nor really does my family. I have asked them to glance at it and have assured them there’s nothing autobiographical or even consciously borrowed from them. My husband is the exception; he reads almost everything, and my daughter occasionally reads some of it.

Your Blogger: Tell us more about Diary of a Heretic – where did the idea come from?

Kathleen: New Year’s Eve, 1999, the character Malcolm was just there for me. I wrote the novel as his diary. I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote twice on the blog. It’s done. I have sent it to contests and small presses without luck. One agent reported that he had found it mannered. Me too—it’s very mannered. What can you do?

Your Blogger: Diary of a Heretic features strong female characters who, refreshingly, don’t merely act like men – too often strong women in fiction are little more than men in skirts. Was this a conscious decision, and were you influenced by women you know in real life?

Kathleen: Kate, saying that my female characters are strong without being “men in skirts” is the finest compliment I’ve ever heard. Thank you. My characters are their own boss and with the women, I rarely stop to question what they’re up to. I can’t write much about characters I don’t love and admire so I trust them even if they’re misbehaving. I still post what I write as I go along and my characters often surprise me. I have been told I write well using a man’s voice and I have terrific fun doing that. But then I am highly conscious as to how my sentences match what a man or boy might think. Usually a little of me sneaks in there, but those phrases tend to be glaring and easily cut. In general, I like men, and for better or worse, I have been studying them all my life. They are, after all, everywhere.

Your Blogger: I noticed from your Facebook profile that you’re a fan of Ursula Le Guin who is widely hailed as an influential feminist writer. How do you feel today’s chick-lit compares to the work of Le Guin and her peers?

Kathleen: I read Le Guin mostly as a child, although I try to catch up with her later work. Unfortunately, I can’t speak for chic-lit because I’ve read only Bridget Jones’ Diary. My writing often dictates what I read. Currently, I’m writing a story where one of the girls asked the actor whose children she babysits if he was going to do the next James Bond movie. I have no idea where she came up with that, but when I reread it, I saw no reason to cut it. So I then watched my first James Bond movies, Dr. No, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace, (which I’m hoping are enough.) I looked up Ian Fleming and discovered he was a close friend of Noel Coward’s. When the actor in my story agreed to star in the town’s summer theater, the director turned out to be a funny, sad alcoholic who fancies himself a Noel Coward-type. So now I’m reading Noel Coward plays.

Your Blogger: I also noticed you list film/movies as one of your interests which intrigued me because Diary of a Heretic has a cinematic quality, it’s very easy to imagine it transferred to screen. Was this intentional? And do the films you enjoy influence your work at all?

Kathleen: I like movies but may have put that on Facebook hoping to join the club. I don’t know movies the way aficionados do, or even as well as most people. The cinematic quality you mention—another lovely compliment—is more the result of writing blog fiction. Readers drop in and out. My stories are long serials and involve many characters. So in an attempt to attract and keep readers, I make sure not only the plot moves but also the lens or point of view. I don’t know if it really makes a difference to any readers, but I’ve come to enjoy writing that way. It’s the kind of fiction I like reading on blogs.

Your Blogger: And finally, because I thought there should be a meme-type question, what’s your favourite way to start the day?

Kathleen: My favorite way to start the day? I don’t know if this is my favorite way—in fact, I view it as a bad habit—but I wake up and start writing. Coffee takes too long to make so I drink energy drinks.

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