Jonathan Steffen

It is often said that we spend much of our adult lives in the attempt to recapture the original intensity of certain childhood experiences.  In my own case, my desire to become a writer can at least in part be traced back to the experience of reading a novel on the last day of the summer term when I was an eight year-old at school.  Our teacher let us choose a book to read for the day; I took down from the classroom a novel entitled Robin of Loxley, which was about the adventures of Robin Hood; and I was instantly transported to a world whose very air seemed to be of a heightened colour and intensity.

Although I remember nothing of the novel’s narrative, I do recall my excitement at reading it as though it had happened yesterday; and from that moment forth, I have wanted to be a writer.

I am not sure that any of us become exactly what we originally wanted to be.  Certainly my own life as a writer has been entirely different from the life I wished for in my youth.  One point of difference has been its variety.  I have worked variously as a teacher, translator, interpreter, writer and PR consultant.  I have written poems, songs, short stories, novels, articles, reports, press releases, websites, brochures, book reviews, translations and histories.

This variety – of occupation as well as of preoccupation – is something I would like to share with others.  Many great writers over the centuries have exercised a variety of occupations at different points in their lives; many have worked in more than one genre.  Not all of them were recognised during their lifetimes for what we now perceive as their key works.