OUTRAGEOUS WRITER

I HAVE RECENTLY MET, through the Internet a very talented young writer from the Philippines named Rhea Gulin. Rhea has a blog called Outrageous Writer on which she posts book reviews and author interviews. Her most recent posting was an interview with Stephen Poleskie. The introductory paragraph is both thoughtful and insightful. We have included it below.

The greatest bewilderment I have in my life is the fact that I have lots of dreams. Writing of course, has always been my first love since God knows when, but when I discovered the enchanting world of visual arts such as photography and painting, I was drifted away from the straight path I am taking in becoming a writer. I have forced myself before to identify my main goal in life, so that I may have a full concentration towards it, but then I realized it was as impossible as sneezing with your eyes open. I was close to being doomed because of anxiety that time, little did I know, I need not to torture myself in focusing on one distinct dream. In fact, I have met someone who have materialized each and every bits of my creative dream.

The interview with Poleskie began in this manner:

Confiding with cliche is not my thing but I decided to do so for the sake of formality. I asked Mr. Stephen Poleskie about what he is an artist, specifically as a writer. Unlike other artists and writers who places fame before excellence as the sole definition of success, Poleskie isn't one of them.

"I find myself a person filled with the curiosity of life who writes for the pleasure of doing it, with the secondary hope that other people might enjoy what I have written and perhaps even find their lives altered by it."

He admitted on our online interview that somehow, he was an outcast during his childhood, but he didn't loathe that fact for it was the threshold that lead him unto the doors of arts and writing.

"I started school a year early, so being the smallest boy in the class was constantly bullied. I preferred staying in my room working on my stories and drawings to being outside playing games with the other children."

In spite of the vivid pungency of excellence in his work, he didn't have any formal training in terms of writing, and his skills have just been developed through constant practice and practically his passion itself. In fact, he didn't pursue a concentration in it for he took a degree in Economics instead.

To read the rest of this very interesting interview, which also includes a lot of reproductions of Poleskie's artworks you can click on the link below:
http://www.outrageous-writer.org/2012/08/guest-author-stephen-poleskie.html

Sidney Grayling
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