I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!
Today we are joined by Gal Podjarny. She was born and raised in Israel/Palestine and has made homes in Canada and the UK. She draws from these diverse cultural landscapes to examine how social forces shape personal narratives and relationships. Her writing, including the short story collection Human Fragments and contributions to various anthologies, captures these intersections of identity and community. From her home in London, she continues this exploration through her blog at galpod.com and her work with the Disrupt Foundation. Until the Walls Come Down is her first novel.
Why do you write?
Because it tames the worst-case-scenario
movies that usually run in my head (kids getting hurt, spouse getting hurt, a
terrorist attack, that weird guy on the bus talking to me, you know the drill).
I don’t have to write these particular scenarios for them to quieten down,
though. Apparently, my brain has a lot of making-up-stories energy. When I
write, this energy is directed towards my WIP rather than apocalypse scenarios.
What’s the best money you’ve ever spent as a
writer?
Notebooks and a fountain pen. It makes me feel
like a writer.
How do you celebrate when you finish writing a
new book?
A nice meal with my spouse and, of course, a
new notebook (or any kind of stationery, really).
Would you and your main character(s) get
along?
Probably not. Tammar is too idealistic for me,
and I’d get annoyed by her pretty quickly. But maybe we'd have more in common
after she’d been an activist for a few years.
What is your favorite book from childhood?
I was a big fan of Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia
Brown.
What genres won’t you read?
I don’t usually read biographies, but I could
be convinced if I get an enthusiastic recommendation from someone who knows me
well.
Do you read the reviews of your books or do
you stay far far away from them, and why?
I always read the reviews, probably because I
don’t have that many. I really want to understand what readers connected with
and what they didn’t.
What would you do if you could live forever?
Finish my TBR list, obvs.
Do you DNF books?
Rarely, only if I really can’t stand it. Most
books I’ll read thoroughly, highlight sentences or descriptions I like (or
ideas, if it’s a non-fiction), and then go through and either copy the
highlighted sentences or summarise the ideas in the book and probably write a
blog post about it.
Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?
Definitely a book hoarder.
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Link to purchase: https://www.galpod.com/until-the-walls-come-down
After a terrorist attack claimed the lives of her parents, Tammar receives devastating news: her childhood home in Jaffa is slated for demolition. Pregnant and grieving, she throws herself into a legal battle to save the house—only to discover it once belonged to her Palestinian husband’s family, who fled during the war of 1947.
With the council hell-bent on demolishing
the house for a new development, Tammar needs all the help she can get. She
must reunite her estranged brothers with her husband’s family—each claiming the
house as their heritage. As neighbours join their fight against displacement,
Tammar learns that in her conflict-scarred homeland, every stone holds multiple
histories.
Exploring questions of ownership and
belonging, Until the Walls Come Down is a story about the tangled roots of
family and place, and the power of unity.
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