Austrian
First Language(s): German
Second Language(s):
English,
Russian
Susanne Sophie Schmalwieser was born in 2001 in Mödling, Lower Austria. She is a writer of poetry and prose in English and German and her literary interests evolve around intersections of human lives/societies, language and technology. In 2024, Susanne was awarded a scholarship by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture to work on her first novel.
What was your favorite book as a child?
Like many of my generation I was raised by a book franchise about a secret world of witchcraft and wizardry, filled with characters that I now (have to) attempt to view separately from their creator. Also, I cherished Thomas Brezina’s Knickerbockerbande — a book series about a hobby detective squad led by a both intellectually and emotionally intelligent girl.
What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?
I believe I was a passionate storyteller long before I even learned to write. I have always loved inventing or re-telling stories. Creative writing later became the medium via which I could do that, when the privilege of being a child and being able to talk about anything without fearing consequences was eventually replaced by other, more important privileges of growing up. Today, I also write because of the many great texts I have read that have made my heart drop and bloom — and due to my hope that one day, I might produce a few lines that might have the same effect on somebody else.
What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?
Moving: to England at age 15; to explore India, Japan, Morocco, the US, Australia, Albania and many more; into a flat with my love; my body to music/up the climbing wall/through nature, even when my body and I were less than strangers; on.
Growing: up in a household where I was in a hurry to; into my body, together with my friends and family; my first grey hair.
Falling: out with people and learning to bear it; behind; for ideas and beliefs and unlearning them again; in love.
Do you listen to music while reading or writing?
I used to, but nowadays I seem to lack the multi-tasking skills and therefore prefer writing in relative silence, but surrounded by noise: on trains, on my family’s kitchen table, in parks or at the counter of a bar in which one of my best friends works.
Poetry
to conjure / conjure away
Issue Fall '24
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