One of the recent love stories I enjoyed was Bhaskar's 'Bommarillu.'
Ever since I can remember I was telling stories and had a huge interest in other people and what made them tick.
I always look for good stories and good characters, and if they're placed in a whodunit, then I'm interested.
So writing stories is not easier in comparison to the playwriting or translation; the stories are easier in league with them.
Film is the only language I speak, and I have been lucky to be involved in some great stories. You don't want to preach to people, but you want them to think about why things are the way they are, the history that is there as well as the possibilities.
As Africans Americans we often think about the tragic stories associated with our lineage, but there are a lot of triumphs. Traveling helps you learn about other aspects of our history, like the story of Christ the Redeemer. It's empowering and inspiring.
I write almost everything, actually. Songs, poems, stories. And stories out of every genre, too.
You see women struggling to keep it all together while a loved one is in jail. But we don't hear about them or their struggles in a way that resonates with others. Their stories are so compelling. It's as if they are in their own little world and no one else sees them.
I write for kids because I think the most interesting (and most humorous) stories come from people's childhoods. When I was writing 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid,' I had a blast talking on the phone to my younger brother, Patrick, remembering all of the things that happened to our family when we were growing up.
I financed and made my own films from the start. My path has been autonomous and independent, so I don't have any horror stories about glass ceilings and expectations and tense studio meetings.
For film, I think because it's more detailed, and especially with historical material, you really have to find the right projects. Speaking as a mixed-race woman, there aren't many historical stories about people like me. When people think of 'dual heritage,' they think it's a modern concept, but really it's not.
I put my life in danger every time I do some of these demonstrations, whether it's in the audience hanging upside down or on the stage. We now have a lot of dangerous stunts where anything can go wrong. In fact, I have fallen two stories and landed on the stage, so I am well aware of the dangers.
My stories deal with multicultural situations as well as multigenerational settings.
Nothing has ever touched on what fun childhood was. Summer holidays were bliss. We made home movies, with real stories in them. My father had such charm and charisma, and made everything so funny.
When I write, I talk about stories and things that are happening in my life. I come from the church. There was a time in my life when I actually had that transformation and relationship with God.
You'll go mad trying to figure out what people want. I don't bother. I write the stories I want to read.
For me personally, I'm constantly trying to really re-negotiate how I'm going to make a living because I can't make a living solely off editorial. And I'm also still trying to tell long feature stories that are harder and harder to get assigned, you know.
I care about narrative structure; I care about how stories unfold.
Personally, I don't even read bummer news stories about the environment because it makes me feel helpless to fix anything and reminds me that the general population doesn't treat these issues as an important part of our political life.
In the past, the U.S. was the centre of the world, where everything was happening. I think my stories have always sought to question this, maybe even criticise it.
I think one of the reasons that I got so good at it, as somebody making radio stories, is that on the radio I can actually - I can understand what's happening in the interview and can make a connection in a way that makes sense.
Our daughter's name Arwynn comes from Arwen in 'Lord of the Rings' because my wife and I met for the first time in the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis used to go to read out their stories to one another.
Once I started writing novels, I understood how hard it was to write really good short stories.
Who has ownership over stories these days?
Christianity and Islam, they have the same morals, same lifestyle, some of the same stories that shaped them.
For every Tesla or Uber, there's a Valeant Pharmaceuticals or Theranos - two story stocks that seduced an astounding array of prominent investors and supporters based on stories that did turn out to be too good to be true.
I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.
Though they don't always have to be set in fog, weather is incredibly important in ghost stories. As is suspense: you've got to turn the screw very, very slowly.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
My dad died of a heart attack when I was 15. I was bullied mercilessly in middle school. I went through a divorce - those not-so-great things are all a part of me, and they give me a place to go when I cover those stories on the news. I'm more empathetic, more relatable because of them.
People like to say how much they like stuff, but with 'The Sunset Tree,' people shared stories about what it meant for them. And that stuff's so humbling and amazing.
My dad does tons of voiceovers; he was Duke in 'G.I. Joe' and 'Transformers' and Handy, Lazy, and Grouchy Smurf, so I grew up with the best bed time stories ever.
The first series I wrote, 'L.A. Candy,' was always meant to be a three-book series, so when I started out it was all outlined that way and by the time I was done with the third book, I had become so involved and the process and the stories, I was a little bit sad to be done.
Agatha Christie holds special personal memories for me because my mum, a television producer called Pat Sandys, had been the first person to persaude the Agatha Christie estate to put one of her stories on T.V.
I'm not a kingmaker.
The things of Catholic life are never boring because we have such a rich tradition and so many stories to tell.
