Bio:
Tia Fielding is a thirty-something Scandinavian. She is a
self-proclaimed queer person, lover of everything pretty, witty people, words,
cats, sarcasm, autumn, and caffeine. (Lots of caffeine.)
Tia started writing stories early in life, almost as soon as she learned
how to write. Her early stories about horses and ghosts have now turned into
romantic tales about people in love, but her early enthusiasm and imagination
still runs wild. After losing the thread of her writing in her teens, Tia
rediscovered the joy of writing stories through fan fiction, which kick-started
her publishing career. Tia is not ashamed of her past of borrowing other
people’s characters, but has found creating her own much more satisfying.
In 2013 Tia's novel Falling Into
Place was recognized by the industry's Rainbow Awards in the Best LGBT Erotic
Romance (Bobby Michaels Award) category.
You can find Tia on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/authortiafielding and her website with more social
media links can be found at http://www.tiafielding.com.
The questions
- What language do
you speak most of the time?
I speak Finnish as a first language. In school here in Finland, we have
Swedish as the second language and English is, generally, the third. I’ve also
studied German, but I can’t use it much anymore. Swedish is tricky, because I
can understand it pretty well, but I seriously can’t produce text or speech in
it at all!
- What language do
you think in?
I think in Finnish and English. Depending on the situation and context. I
also keep forgetting easy things and words, like there was a day when I was
trying to think of the word “car” in English and couldn’t really figure out
until after a while. Similarly I often forget words in Finnish and have to
translate from English via an online dictionary to make sure I come across like
I mean to. Finnish is such a difficult language!
- What language do
you dream in?
I have to say I dream in Finnish, but I had an experience in my teens
when I went to England for 3 weeks for a language course where I ended up
dreaming in English. Maybe if I actually spoke it each day instead of just
mostly thinking and writing it, I might dream in English again.
- What language do
you swear in after you’ve really hurt yourself?
Finnish, with the occasional English words sprinkled in. Finnish has the
kind of longer words that only work with certain situations, but the most
common English one is only four letters, so….
- What language are
you most comfortable in?
I have to say it’s English for me. English has always been easy for me to
learn. Back in my day, we started to learn English as the first foreign
language (even before Swedish) when we were ten years old. I guess having been
learning and using it in some way or form for over twenty years, whereas I’ve
actually never had to use Swedish outside of school, has made it so.
- How easy or
difficult is it for you to switch from one language to the other?
I guess it’s pretty easy for me in general to switch, but sometimes when
I’m writing in English and someone comes and asks me something in Finnish, I
have to take a pause and think and translate myself to the correct language.
It’s weird, but understandable, I guess.
- Does it affect you
when you’re in a group where both languages are being spoken?
I’m rarely in those kind of situations, actually almost never. But let’s
say I’m having two conversations online, maybe on Skype or something, one is in
English, the other in Finnish. Whenever I make the change between chat windows,
I have to make a conscious decision to change languages. I’ve typed something
in English in response to a Finnish person’s question in Finnish and vice
versa. It takes concentration and effort for sure to be able to keep up with
rapid fire chatting in two languages at the same time.
- Do you ever speak
the ‘wrong’ language to someone?
No, because in my everyday life I don’t speak English at all. When
abroad, I guess I’ve come close to speaking English to family etc. but nothing
like that has happened in “real life.”
- Would you
translate yourself from one language into the other or ask someone else
(professional) to do it?
I could do it and I’ve considered translating as a secondary job
sometimes. Translating myself might be both easier and harder than translating
something by another person. Second guessing myself is just too easy!
- If size of
(potential) market wasn’t an issue what language would you be writing in?
Still in English. I’ve lost my ability to produce flowing, easy text in
Finnish. I can speak it just fine as I do each day, but writing it is very,
very difficult. Part of this, I guess, comes from the fact that Finnish is such
a different language, all in all. I’ve gotten used to thinking about
storytelling in English, so converting that would be tricky if not impossible.
At least it would take years of learning my first language again, I’m sure of
that!
Newest releases:
A contemporary ghost (short) story ‘Flickers’ in the Bedtime Stories
anthology through Wilde City Press on August 20th. http://www.wildecity.com/books/gay-romance/bedtime-stories/
Novel ‘Solitude’ co-written with Anna Martin, releases on August 27th
through Dreamspinner Press. tp://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5350
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