{"id":8992,"date":"2011-10-12T06:30:44","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T17:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=8992"},"modified":"2013-02-03T16:15:07","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T03:15:07","slug":"doing-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/10\/12\/doing-interviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing Interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As you know, I have done a few interviews on the blog already, collected here<\/a>, and hope to bring a few more to you soon. Over the past few years, I have also done a good many interviews on a local radio station, Plains 96.9 FM, mostly with poets—including New Zealand’s inaugural Poet Laureate, Michele Leggott<\/a>—but also with such well known novelists as Andrea Levy<\/a>, Nalini Singh<\/a>, and Jennifer Fallon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I enjoy doing interviews, and so felt very honoured to win Plains FM’s “Most Popular Podcast” (ie listened to interview) award 2010. And as with all aspects of my work, I do have a ‘philosophy’ in how I approach interviewing.<\/p>\n

Mainly, that it’s all about the interviewee—about trying to find the best questions to allow the person being interviewed and their work to shine through.<\/p>\n

In order to find those questions, I have to do homework: read the interviewee’s work, see if I can find other interviews they’ve done—not just to see what she\/he has said before, but also so I don’t ask all<\/em> the same questions as every other interviewer, ie it’s nice to present some fresh material, for the sake of the interviewee, but also for listeners\/readers.<\/p>\n

I like to take time over the questions as well, and think about what topics will best illuminate the interviewee’s work, and what listeners\/readers might find most interesting.<\/p>\n

No matter how carefully I’ve thought about the questions though, when I’m actually doing the interview there can be no “script.” If something interesting comes up then I have to follow that up—which is often when the best interviews “spark.”<\/p>\n

But I always have\u00a0 a back up question—or three!—especially on air, in case ‘the best ever, surefire question’ falls flat on its face!<\/p>\n

Always though, when thinking about interviews, I come back to that first point—good interview is always<\/em> about the interviewee. If the person doing the bulk of the “talking” is me, then I have failed as an interviewer.<\/p>\n

I hope, however, this does not happen often—and that you will enjoy the interviews on the blog so far, and those to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you know, I have done a few interviews on the blog already, collected here, and hope to bring a few more to you soon. Over the past few years, I have also done a good many interviews on a local radio station, Plains 96.9 FM, mostly with poets—including New Zealand’s inaugural Poet Laureate, Michele […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-interviews-on-anything-really-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8992"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18667,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8992\/revisions\/18667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}