Today I’d like to extend a warm welcome to V.M. Sang. Welcome to The PBS Blog! Let’s get started.
What is your name, and where are you from?
My name is Vivienne Sang. I was born and brought up in the north west of England in a town called Northwich, not far from Manchester. At present, I live in the south-east of England not far from the town of Eastbourne.
What job do you think you’d be really good at?
I don’t know if I’d be really good at it, but I would like to have been a vet.
Nice. How many siblings do you have?
My father died when I was very young and my mother re-married. She had a girl with my step-father, my half-sister, but my step-father had already got 7 girls and 3 boys with his first wife, so I have 10 step-siblings as well.
What skill would you like to master?
I do some painting when I have time. I would really like to become a good painter.
What state or country do you never want to go back to?
Belgium. They insist on signing their town in the language of the area, in spite of the rest of the world calling them something else. Liege, for example, is called Luik, I think. Now I don’t have a problem with this, per se, but many countries that have different names for towns sign them with both. We got lost trying to find Liege.
Also, we nearly ran out of fuel once because there were no fuel stations on the main road and we had to go off into a village and by chance found one. Also, Brussels is a nightmare to get around.
Unfortunately it’s on the way to many places in Europe I do want to go back to!
Yea. I can see how that can be confusing with the language. I love history. Who is your favorite historical figure?
Leonardo da Vinci. He’s not only a great artist but also scientist and technologist, too. I went to his home in Amboise in France where they had built scale models of his inventions using only the tools and materials he would have had. Brilliant.
Let’s talk about writing. What genre do you write in?
I write mainly fantasy, but have recently published a historical novel based in Roman Britain, and have another almost done. I think historical fiction is much harder to write, So much research is needed that you can get away with when inventing your own world. Having said that, I do try to make my world as scientifically realistic as possible, so that does involve some research.
That’s true. Historical Fiction does require lots of research. Are you married Vivienne? Children?
Yes, I’ve been married for a very long time. 53 years! I have two, a boy and a girl.
Awwue. Congrats! 53 years, wow. Relationship goals!
What are your thoughts on race? Define racism.
There is only one race. The Human Race. People who judge others on the basis of ‘race’ are ignorant. People should be judged by their words and actions only, not on how they look. This applies to disability, too. and everything that makes us different. We should embrace our differences.
Racism is deciding you don’t like a person or group of people you know nothing about on the basis of some physical thing, such as the color of their skin, the slant of their eyes or some other superficial, irrelevant thing.
Thank you V.M. Sang for spending this time with us. We enjoyed you!
About.
Vivienne Sang was born in Northwich, Cheshire in the United Kingdom. She was educated at Northwich Girls’ Grammar School and at Elizabeth Gaskell Teacher Training College in Manchester. She taught Science, Maths and English in Salford and Heywood, Lancashire until she had her first child.
After staying at home to bring up her two children, a girl, and a boy, Vivienne returned to teaching when her son started school. At this time, the family lived near Southampton but moved to Redhill in Surrey where she taught in Croydon.
When she took early retirement in 2001 Vivienne moved with her husband to East Sussex.
As well as writing and reading, Vivienne enjoys many crafts and also paints. She enjoys cooking and walking on the Downs as well as cycling.
Vivienne enjoys traveling and has visited many countries in Europe and has made two visits to the USA.
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