Tanith Lee
Tanith Lee
Tanith Leewas a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of over 90 novels and 300 short stories, a children's picture book, and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake's 7. She was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award, for her book Death's Master...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 September 1947
exciting love somewhere
I'm writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it!
people
People are always the start for me... animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings, immortals, the dead... these are all people to me.
characters die drive follow lead lives plot
There are the characters who die but who you follow after death, and they often lead much more interesting lives after they are dead! So the characters usually drive me along, but occasionally the plot has to come first. It can get sticky.
depths pain vampires
What I like about vampires is what I like about everything I want to write about, the depths and heights, the pain and joy. Life.
children cinema nightmares preview twice
We used to go to the cinema once or twice a week, and they used to preview X-certificate films-those which children couldn't see-and I was terrified, and used to have nightmares just from the previews.
vulgarity-is vulgar worst
The worst vulgarity is to avoid vulgarity solely on the grounds that it is vulgar.
ordinary
No one is ever ordinary.
book practice stories
Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.
venice venus parallels
I came up with a parallel Venice called Venus. set in a parallel Venice about 1701.
jobs children stupid
In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does.
silly school actresses
At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.
war writing long
I simply write what I want, wish, long to write.... The state of human life and the god or demon within. The constant internal war that being alive can conjure.