Alya Interviews Sheree Fitch

Alya, the star of Rhythm and Blues has six pressing questions she wants me to ask of as many of my fellow authors as possible. Today she talks to Sheree Fitch, Nova Scotian author of award-winning books for kids, teens and adults.

Read on for the full interview, but first, take note: next week, Sheree’s making a couple of appearances in Montreal, Alya’s temporary home town:

• Montreal Children’s Literature Roundtable
  Beaconsfield Library
  7 p.m, April 14, 2010
• Yes Oui CANSCAIP hosts
  W.I.S.E. Words Writing Workshop with Sheree Fitch
  Montreal West Town Hall
  10:30am – 3:30pm, April 17th 2010

1. Alya: I LOVE any kind of music you can dance to, especially hip hop, and pretty much all R&B, especially ballads. How would you describe your favourite music?

   Sheree: I am sooo weird about having favs of anything .. I think I am more of a of mood directed person in terms of likes, loves and when I want to listen to what .. so… after Silence, which is truly my number one music , I guess you could imagine me listening to eva cassidy, Leonard Cohen, van morrison, sting, colleen peterson, david myles, john mayer, and yeah my maritime roots are showing— celtic anything.

2. Alya: So I was pretty happy being a dancer, and then all of a sudden one day, this producer guy asked me to audition as a singer, BUT I COULDN’T EVEN SING. Yikes! If you could have any talent in the world besides writing, what would it be, and why?

   Sheree: I think I’d love to have been a doctor — and to me that is a gift and talent and skill etcetc …. but in the arts — a dancer hands down and then a composer.

3. Alya: Sometimes I think my life is not turning out like anyone else wanted it to. It’s hard to figure out, let alone stand up for half the stuff I think I want now. What was something or someone you had to stand up for to your parents or teachers or friends, when you were a teen?

   Sheree: guess what — maybe I should not confess this but I still feel like that a lot

   As a teen .. I fought for girls to wear pants to school — back in my day we still had to wear dresses or skirts — and hey I am not that old , and so along with two other girls we started a petition and went up against teachers and principal ( and I sooo did not tell my parents ) and yes, we got in a lot of “trouble.” But we won ! We got to wear -get this — pant suits!

4. Alya: If you read Break On Through, you already know I am SUCH a huge fan of Bershawn Sera, the best singer in the universe. What celebrity would you most like to meet? How do you picture it happening?

   Sheree: Carol Burnett. She was a comedian. How might I meet her ? HMMM. So I’m in New York at a rehearsal of an off Broadway play based on one of my books and someone who knows I am a big fan arranges it and and she walks in the door and and I almost faint and cry and hug her and tell her how her spirit and gift of laughter and genius and huge heart came right thru the TV screen on Thursday nights when my mother went bowling and my Dad let me stay up to watch her show with him. I’d tell her she liberated me from a sense of decorum and my fairly conservative Maritime roots enough to make me dream and dare to be a poet and writer and storyteller of things both silly and serious. Then we’d sing “so glad we had this time together” together.

5. Alya: How would you deal with it if you had a huge secret– OK, more than one huge secret– and you needed help, but for some reason, you didn’t feel like you could talk about it to your BFF, the person you usually turn to for EVERYTHING?

   Sheree: I’d breathe BUT then panic first. I’d turn myself into a pretzel, I’d probably google to see if anyone else in the universe ever experienced what I did, I’d read, I’d get as much information as I could because really anxiety is just lack of information, i’d find an expert or tow and get some advice that I might or might not listen to and then I’d calm down and give my worry over to prayer. I am a believer in there being a love and wisdom and healing energy that is far greater than any of us mere mortals know or could imagine. Some call that God. Works for me. Brings me much peace.

6. Alya: Look at what you are wearing RIGHT NOW. (Be honest with yourself, even if you are wearing pajamas, or a t-shirt with a splotch of dried toothpaste.) If you had to go on stage in the next five minutes (Pretend you’re singing on reality tv or something. It’s your big chance.) and couldn’t go change, how would you make it work, using only the clothes you are wearing and the contents of your makeup bag (if you have one.)

   Sheree: yoga pants and a pink clingy pj top ….now this is not too bad except for the no bra thing going on that believe me — no one wants to see .. so ..I’d use the scissors in my make up bag to cut the bottom off my yoga pants–they are too long anyhow — and use the bottoms to make a make-shift bra or undershirt to wear under the pj top – then present my self as a poet who does yoga and demonstrate how yoga helps creative flow , do a few seated poses, keeping my hands at heart centre covering or helping to lift whatever was not working to hold me up with the last minute bra and all— and then I’d have the camera zoom in on my face– all nicely done up with the make up — lipstick to match my pj top — I’d do a few tongue twisters and that would be that! And “they”- the one who were giving me my big chance would say she really is a lipslippery kind of woman with a very unusual way with words. We should hire her and pay her a lot of money to do tongue twisters. Or just laugh with her. She seems very odd but seems to have a lot of fun.