Podcast Interview

A little more than a week ago, Andrea Diener came for a visit. When you reach my age, you can sometimes utter this dreaded sentence: “I already knew him/her when she they still went to school.” This is precisely and annoyingly true in Andrea’s case. I got to know Andrea shortly before her high school graduation. We were both active in the Irish culture and music scene in our favourite Irish pub, where I played music and she did Irish dancing.

Well, quite some years have passed since then. Meanwhile, she is a journalist, writes great travel reports and maintains a regular podcast series, in which she interviews a wide variety of people. This time I was the lucky interviewee.

We had a nice evening on my sofa, busy with questions and answers of which the questions were well versed and professional, while I pushed my answers through some nervous trepidation. Most interviews that I have given in the past, were online interviews. Journalists or freelance bloggers send a list of questions and you send back a list of answers. The charm of this procedure is: You have time to think about what you want to say and in precisely what manner you wish to phrase your (hopefully clever) answer.

A microphone in your hand changes that completely. Like a symbol of all too sudden reality you grasp it like the proverbial straw and hope that what you are going to say will not be utter nonsense. And will not be interrupted by a lot of „ahhm” sounds. And a little later, you wonder whether you really got across what you actually wanted to say, and whether the broad grin was noticeable or whether all the people just misunderstood you and now think you claimed to have invented historical fantasy. (Note: I have not invented historical fantasy. I existed well before I wrote my first novel.)

After the interview, Andrea and I rounded off the evening with a glass of one of my favourite whiskies Talisker – the beverage that made it into one of my very first short stories many, many years ago.

And now you can listen to the podcast here. It is in German.