Featured Interview With Monique de Koning
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a resident in the coastal area of a quaintly shaped country called The Netherlands for about 15 years now. I was born and raised in the east but moved west to the vicinity of Amsterdam where I’ve always (strangely enough) felt more at home. I love cats and have had the pleasure to share a good number of years with three wonderful and very different personalities of them, but after the last one died I have not been in a position to invite another one in my home and life.
I have a large range of interests, but I am most passionate about all things creative. Like designing, writing, photography, drawing & painting and thinking up & creating (not the most standard) miniatures & more. They often come togèther, which only adds to the joy. Among many other things I like, I also have a huge soft spot for animals & people and I love food, reading, music, series and movies, quite diverse genres.
As a result of long lasting, serious and quite extreme medical issues & conditions, my life has been very unusual for way too many years already and I’ve never been able to do much of anything. What I have done was mostly in very small or even the tiniest steps once in a while and only possible at áll because of not very common solutions and kind of impossible choices. Simply because my passion for life & creativity is too enormous, no matter hów impossible it seemed and in essence was. It only makes me more proud of and excited about what I have created and managed to do in my life so far.
I am not easily impressed by a challenge or things going differently than I expected or hoped, with also the ability to look at something from a new angle again and again, coming up with creative solutions. Always seeing and believing in possibilities. I am also known to be very positive, determined and crazy passionate.
When it comes to writing, I haven’t really chosen to become a writer. Writing chose mé, but I absolutely love it and it feels like we are a great fit.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve been crazy about books from a young age, as long as I can remember. I really enjoyed reading fantasy type adventures in voluminous books that were actually for ages a number of years beyond my own. And even though the library didn’t allow to check out more than six books at a time, I sometimes was. I think because of the types of books I read. As a teenager I even started to dive into two, and occasionally even three, books simultaneously because I couldn’t wait to finish one before starting another. I could even keep the stories apart. I was just too eager to read while also aware of the massive and ever growing amount of books I wanted to read and the fraction of it I realistically would be able to in a lifetime.
I haven’t read much for quite some years now because of the nature of my health-issues, although I have listened to some great audio-books whenever this was feasible. Quite some time later I even had to learn how to read again in a sense, after a stroke-like episode seven years ago. For a long time it took forever to finish just one page of a simple story line.
The writer in me was never as obvious as my attraction to books has always been. I’ve always loved to write, playing with words, but I never really did it much or in any way that writers tend to have done, like writing short stories. My focus and passion had always been drawing that at some point evolved into painting. When it became too painful and heavy to do that anymore due to a continued and progressive decline in my health and muscle strength, once I was able to do at least something at all again, within my still extremely limited possibilities, I had already discovered a new passion: miniatures. With this different creative area’s I had always enjoyed as well came together. Like designing, something I am very passionate about as well. I have had so much fun designing my book cover and the logo for the publishing company I came up with to be able to publish my book with my own ISBN.
Writing became apparent only three years ago, after the umpteenth and by now very clear sign from the universe about me writing a book about my story. Something several people had urged me to do over the years already because they found my story very inspirational. I finally got the message and when I did a title, subtitle and first chapter for my first (still unfinished) book suddenly popped in my head and I just started writing. Inspiration for another book came along that I find to be more realistic to finish first and with the unexpected inspiration to write poems in those years, I suddenly came up with the idea to publish those: Emerald Heart, my first published book.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite book is ‘The Discovery of Heaven’ by Harry Mulisch, a Dutch writer who, based on that, might be my favorite author. I just haven’t had the chance to read much more of him, only part of a short story during my medical rehabilitation I wasn’t able to, and eventually forgot to, finish. Other writers I’ve really enjoyed are Harlan Coben, Roald Dahl (Uncle Oswald) and Nicci French, but because of my brain malfunctions I’ve unfortunately forgotten most of what I read or what I thought of the ones or the authors I do remember. Like those I had or have read by for example Umberto Eco and Paolo Coelho.
I don’t really have one favorite genre, although I really like to read action & adventure, magical realism/fantasy and mysteries. But I have equally devoured realistic fiction, thrillers and historical fiction. I am interested, enjoy and have (had) books in many very different genres from James Bowen’s ‘A Street Cat Named Bob’ to the work of Gabriel García Márquez. It’s hard for me to choose because a book in a for me uncommon genre or author can make the kind of impact that really stays with me and even surpasses some of the books in my favorite genres. One of the unexpected books that made such an impression was The Five Gates of Hell by Rupert Thomson. Quite a heavy and dark book that I wouldn’t normally go for or think I could like. Luckily I’ve always been open to all kinds of books as long as the description speaks to me in some way that makes me curious enough to try it. I have even been reading a romance novel recently (The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand), which is also quite unusual for me. But that has everything to do with the inspiration for my first published book that has awoken that side of me.
Because writing is such a relatively new endeavor for me and it all started and continued in not the most common way, I can’t say I have a writer who inspires me in my own work. I also write very intuitively as I do everything really. Which has worked very well for other things I’ve done and created. Additionally the first book I have actually (and just) published is poetry, a genre I never really read, or actually liked that much. So I don’t even have a frame of reference for that. There is someone who hás been a huge inspiration for itthough. The entire reason for that book even, just not a writer.
If I have to name one of those, I’d say I would love to be able to write the way Harlan Coben does in what I have read from him. A fresh, no nonsense but very alluring way that keeps me sucked in. It truly fascinates me how he is able to create a captivating story with very little.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest, also my first and only book so far is called Emerald Heart. It’s poetry, but not in the traditional sense to me and I think ‘poetic love story’ describes it better. Like someone said to me ‘I’ve never been a huge fan of poetry, but yours are beautiful’. My poems are chapters that together tell a not very common love story. Mostly very different from each other and combined with a certain lay-out and font-types I think give it a bit of a unique look. It’s how I had made them for myself and wanted for the book as well. All the result of an attempt to put on paper what my heart & mind have never been able to comprehend. In doing so surprising myself with this for me new way of playing with words, how joyful it was for me to write them and what I’ve been able to create.
I’ve actually never had the intention to publish them. I had written them through the years as a way of dealing with an amazing, unusual connection. Then one day I felt they should be able to be enjoyed by others.
Although I’ve always loved to write I had never written poems before. More importantly I was never even interested in most things romantic at all, just too down-to-earth I guess ;). Not that I wasn’t into love or didn’t know it, I had actually been in a wonderful, very loving 21-year relationship with a great man. He was the love of my life who I had to let go because of extreme circumstances, after having shared more than two decades together, breaking my heart.
The man Emerald Heart is about changed all that. He not only turned my world and what I thought I knew complétely upside down, but unknowingly awakened my real feminine side I guess. He is the inspiration and reason for this book. I am not the same woman I was before he unexpectedly landed in the center of my heart to never leave, which was only the beginning of all kinds of new and magical experiences.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles
Monique de Koning’s Website