Lydia
I was born in the former East Germany. The wall fell soon after, just in time to allow me to go places that were previously locked behind the Iron curtain. I used this opportunity to run away from what I really wanted to do: writing fiction. Instead I worked as a sports reporter, a waitress, an environmental journalist, a door opener at a classical music festival, a news editor for an IT magazine, a researcher on journalism in India, and helped raise a lifestyle magazine in New Zealand.
Sharing flats with more than sixty people on three continents has fostered my sense of wonder about the quirks and personalities of human beings. It also gave me enough resilience, near-death experiences and wild characters to write about. When I moved to Berlin, the flatmates were replaced with beautiful plants. I lost my restlessness. I also met a lot of brilliant writers through my work at the British Council. I was lucky and have been adopted by the city’s warm and supportive literary family around the Reader Berlin and finally, I ran out of excuses. I’m currently working on my first novel.
