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| >> Static Item >> Interview >> Biographical >> ID #982890 |   |
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 This interview is for Mel   's "Invalid Item"  . I hope you enjoy this-there's more to Shaara than you might think!On Writing.com, she’s Shaara  . In real life, her name is K.S. Riggin. She was born in San Luis Obispo, California, but now she lives in Venture County. Her area of expertise is teaching – she is a 2nd grade bilingual teacher, a district math coach, and a mentor teacher, among other things. She has one adult daughter, a mother and a brother, but her immediate family seems to be a cat. If you could be granted 3 wishes, what would they be? Wish number one: My agent would actually send my novels out, and some WISE publishing company would pick up on them, and the then published books would sell like ice cream on a summer day. Oooh, don’t we all want that?  Wish number two: I want to be thin. Wish number three: I’d like to have sufficient time so that I could write whenever I wanted to (and be able to afford to stay home to do so when I want to. LOL – see, that’s to make sure that my third wish doesn’t get me fired from my job or something equally horrid.)  When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Is it close to what you are doing now? For most of my childhood, I either planned to be a veterinarian or a teacher. It was a real struggle to choose between them. The Big Sister program decided me. In my freshman year of college, I started helping my little “sister” in academics and soon ended up teaching all her brothers and sisters. Before I knew it, I was staging school for about eleven children every day (cousins drifted in, somehow.) I unsnarled all kinds of misunderstandings and got “my students” moving forward -- and what’s even neater, the kids started to like learning. It was exhilarating. (Also, there was the fact that I kept fainting every time I had to give an animal a shot. I’m fine with blood, but show me a needle, and I still wilt and crash.) Aha! Shaara’s sense of humor is already at work! What is your favorite time period in history and why? The future. I believe optimistically that humans will “get it together” and will at long last discover how to live together in peace. I believe that we will then go on to solve world hunger and will soon, thereafter, begin exploring and colonizing other planets. I’d love to be alive then! Imagine, after we terraform Mars, it will have no pollution, no overpopulation, and no traffic. Send up a horse with me, and I’m on the first ship out of here! This sense of adventure and hope and imagination is what makes Shaara such a terrific writer! When you’re angry or upset, what do you do to calm down? I walk the beach. How can one be angry when the sea shushes you or laughs bubbles at your rage? How can one not smile when dolphins and seals bob up and eye you with their quizzical expressions? (I once walked several miles with a seal swimming alongside watching me. Maybe he just thought I looked strange, but it felt like we had a real bond – at least, until his wife called him. Then he deserted me without even a final bark of a goodbye.) Ouch, that must have hurt! Where’s the coolest place you’ve ever been and why? This is almost impossible to answer. I have been to so many cool places. I adored the castles, museums, and cathedrals of Europe. I love forests because the sense of silence affects me so profoundly. However, the truth is that I do have one particular favorite. I fell somersaults in love with Wales. In the ruins of a cathedral named, Tin Alley, all enchantment melded together in one scene. In its damp chill, I found perfect peace, a connection to history so real I could close my eyes and hear the people from long ago laughing and talking, and such a feeling of closeness to nature; it was almost as if I could not only breathe it in but taste it and feel it slipping deep inside my soul. Whenever I need peace inside me, I can close my eyes and picture that cathedral in the morning mists, surrounded by the fronds of ferns, the sacred, giant oaks and the dark, green velvet of trees that still may be hiding the Irish leprechauns and the fairies of countless tales. I ponder the huge slabs of graying stone, decayed and fallen in places, but majestic still in the heart where their spine still stretches to the sky. The great emptiness of that swelling cathedral still holds the whispers of King Arthur and his knights. In that one place, time has stopped. Because of that secret, that magic, the memory always transports me into calm. I didn't know it was possible to create an answer with such deep meaning in reply to the question! Shaara should take up philosophy! If you made a time capsule right now, what are 3 things that you would put in it? How big is the time capsule? Number one would be all my written words. (Don’t you think the future needs to read them? Oh, dear, I suppose that sounds vain, but it’s really just wistful, wishful thinking.) That's not vain or wistful thinking - that's just realizing that your works could benefit others in the future - we all want that, I think! Secondly, I’d slip in my CD collection. I have such lovely pieces. I range from opera (Puccini, of course, Verdi, definitely) to Renaissance (my favorite) to Baroque to more moderns (Stravinsky and the Grand Canyon Suite). I have some New Wave, some Scottish ballads, lots of Celtic, and some African and South American pipe music. (I even, sh! this is a secret, own some Barry Manilow and Barbra Streisand.) Oh, and how can I forget my collection of light opera? I’ve got everything by Andrew Lloyd Webber. And then there’s my James Gallway (my favorite flutist) collection and Gil Shaham (one of my favorite violinists) Oh, I could go on for hours listing these, but I think you get the idea. I can understand that! I have a unbelievable passion for music, any kind. My third choice would be a videotaping of a day in my classroom. If the future generations want to see the bright side of our world, what better viewpoint than through the eyes of the children? If the people of the future could share the laughter of discovery, see the eyes sparkling from the excitement and joy of learning, and know that wonder is possible for each and every new generation, perhaps they wouldn’t look back as this period of time with such grim expressions of horror and repulsion. Wow, those answers took some time and consideration! I was just a little hard on Shaara; I wouldn’t be able to pick just three things! What is your biggest pet peeve? I hate hearing swearing, angry words, or discord, but beside that, my biggest pet peeve is cigarette smokers. I hate the way they pollute the air and discard their trash everywhere. (Maybe this is not diplomatic, but you asked.) I agree wholeheartedly with you – I would have picked the exact same things! What is your happiest childhood memory? It’s strange that my most vivid moments are the times that things weren’t so great. (I don’t mean they were horrid, but chairs fell on me or I fell – those kinds of things. LOL) But my happiest, I think, is getting my first horse. I’d saved for him from kindergarten. (a nickel a week) From that time on, every spare penny went into the bank. Then when I turned sixteen, I found the horse of my dreams, a white Arab with a tail so arched, it almost never came down. I was green, (which means not all that knowledgeable, although I’d been taking care of and riding the neighbor’s horses for years – another job, but one I didn’t get paid for, except in rides) and so was my fine-spirited wild, four-year-old – but he was so beautiful. I absolutely fell in love with him and never stopped adoring him. He was, however, the most stubborn horse you’ve ever seen in your life. When I wanted to go one way and he didn’t, he’d rear and buck and back up. That first month we went everywhere in reverse, but I won in the end. After about a year, he would do anything I wanted. We were such a team. He went off to college with me, and definitely kept me out of trouble. I’ll never forget that first moment, though, when I unloaded my Ben from the trailer, and he was really mine. That's a wonderful story. Believe it or not, you are very lucky, because I have 6 horses, didn't put a cent into them, and didn't have to break them, so I've never had that bond. I wish I had time to start all over and do it that way, though. It'd make me appreciate them a lot more. How about your worst childhood memory? Getting mono. They call it the “kissing disease,” but I’d never been kissed by a boy. My mother and I were set to go to Europe. We had a great tour all lined up. It would have been our first time in Europe. But then the doctor said I couldn’t go. He also said no riding horses, no bike riding, no ice-skating, no swimming. The sky crashed down that day. Life basically came to a full stop for more than six months. Wow, that answer makes mine sound really immature…in the third grade I thought I was cool doing a handstand against a chainlink fence. Then I fell and got my head stuck in a hole under it. It took four teachers to get me unstuck!  What modern issue do you feel most strongly about? Peace. I want peace. I pray for it. I imagine it. I think circles around it. What would it take for all people to live together in tolerance? I can’t figure out that solution. I really don’t understand what causes war. Why do some people choose evil? Why do some want to dominate others? Why do some people hate? That is a wonderful answer, but I can't resolve your questions. I've always wondered the same thing. The only thing I can say is blame it on Adam and Eve! When is the last time you’ve had the number of candles equivalent to your age on your birthday cake? Probably when I was eight. I almost never have a birthday cake. If I did, I’d plop only one candle on. I hate waste, and using more than one seems like waste to me. (Does that make me a party pooper or just someone who prefers symbolism to reality?) What was your favorite grade (college freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior count as well) – and why? I doubt anyone will say anything other than senior year. That’s the cracking of the shell. Freedom. (But these questions really don’t apply to the “me” of today. It was just too long ago – a different lifetime.) What is the biggest American event that happened when you were growing up? The death of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. I didn’t cry for Kennedy, but I was devastated when King was killed. He was (and still is) my hero. Who was the most interesting person you met and how? Bill Cosby. That was back in college, a long, long time ago. He came to the university to give a speech, but the audience was really small. After he spoke, the remaining people gathered around him, and we asked questions. He was so funny and so cool. He made a big impression on me mainly because I’d come to the university with lots of ideas about having black friends and doing peace walks with them. Then when I arrived at Chico, I discovered that blacks didn’t want to have anything to do with me since I was white. (They called me “one of those do-gooders, like that was a crime. One person even told me to find “my own hero” since Martin Luther King Jr. belonged to the blacks.) Bill Cosby didn’t hold it against me that I wasn’t the right color. He was warm and friendly, and he answered my questions freely – without turning his nose up at me because I didn’t match his skin color. Wow, that must have been awesome! I wish everyone had the same understanding you do of life and your experiences! Do you ever wonder if he remembers you? What do you consider your worst flaw/habit? Wow! Couldn’t I make a list? Either procrastination or making decisions. Right now, I can’t choose, so I guess it’s the latter. Haha, Shaara! Very clever!  When did you get your first boyfriend? Kindergarten. We got married, too, but it was rather informal, so it probably didn’t count. Wow, that must be normal, then! I was a little worried for my county when everyone in my kindergarten class got married to someone in Pre-K! (Except for me; I got left at the altar by a Pre-K er!) On a more generic (yuck!) note, what is your biggest fear? Spending all my spare hours writing book after book and never having one published – or maybe even worse, seeing one or more of them sitting on a bargain table – in a big heap that no one’s buying. (I’d cry!) Me too!  What is your favorite quote/saying/phrase, or biggest lesson you’ve learned in life? This is the easiest question yet! e.e. cummings: “To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the bravest battle that any human being can fight – and never stop fighting. I also have another quote of his hanging on my computer: “It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” (That one is because my mother thinks I’m wasting my time writing novels nobody reads – or at least, nobody pays to read.) Well, this concludes the interview! I hope you all enjoyed learning what I believe are the little known facts, the missing pieces of Shaara's life! I also hope you learned that there's more than meets the eye hidden behind that Writing.com handle!
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