Currently based in Canberra the setting for her 2006 novel Venom, novelist and journalist Dorothy Horsfield will be soon relocating to England to begin writing her fifth novel which is set in both Thailand and Europe.
Dorothy has three children from her marriage with respected political journalist Paul Lyneham who passed away in 2002. She has travelled, worked and lived abroad in far flung corners of the world from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
While in England, Dorothy will be also continuing postgraduate studies in international relations theory.
The Epoch Times: What is the most valuable thing that people can learn from travelling or living abroad?
Dorothy Horsfield: "I guess to heed the advice of the old adage 'travel narrows the mind.' As an outsider, especially in difficult places, the challenge is not to fall into self-serving stereotypes. At the same time, to travel in contemporary Zimbabwe or to the refugee camps of the Thai Burma border is often to confirm your worst expectations of cruelty and catastrophe.
ET: Whom do you most admire[and why]?
DH:"I admire all kinds of people. On a short list, I'd include James Fenton for the resonant beauty of his early poetry, Ryszard Kapuscinski for the quality of his journalism out of Africa, Inga Clendinnen for her elegantly-expressed commonsense, and most recently Richard Ned Lebow for his lifetime struggle to apply the grand vision of Thucydides to modern international relations."
ET: What have life's lessons taught you?
DH: "Hopefully to be more patient than I used to be, to try to be kind to all comers, even those who are not kind in return. I think as I've grown older, I've actually come to believe more in the traditional virtues: to try to live with grace and courage in adversity; not to be self righteous."
ET: What are the most important things in life?
DH:"My children who have grown up to be my very best mates. More generally, I accept the Dalai Llama's assertion that the meaning of life is 'happiness and usefulness'."
ET: How do you balance your life?
DH:"I'm not sure whether I do balance my life. Running five kilometres every morning and weight training might count on one side of the scales but for the rest of it I tend to be obsessive about whatever task I'm involved with."
ET: Why is writing important to you?
DH:"For a lot of reasons…because it helps make sense of the complexity of experience, because of the joy of a well-honed sentence, because weaving the world into stories is a way of conjuring our shared humanity; and maybe because it is infinitely various. I think the fact that I come from a large family that has always been curious about everything, from the life cycle of the scribble gum moth to the future of Afghanistan, has had a big influence too."
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