Recently I nominated a number of bloggers for a Liebster Award. Out of the thirteen I nominated, six chose to share their thoughts by answering the questions I asked. Considering the percentage of responses that are often received to a survey, I think this is a great result.

Below I have presented the questions that I asked and collated a summary of each response. If you wish to read each respondent’s answers in full, please visit their blogs. I’m sure you will find much more of interest.

You may notice that not all respondents have answered every question, and that one respondent has chosen another question of her own. That’s okay. I gave them permission to do so!

Remember, these were open-ended questions with no wrong answers and everyone did a marvelous job in answering them. I am very grateful to each for sharing the depth and openness of their thoughts. I think we have much to learn from them, and from each other. This is a list of respondents with links to their blogs.

Anne Goodwin  annethology  annecdotal Anne Goodwin’s Writing Blog

Nillu Nasser Stelter, Fiction and Freelance Writer

Nicole Hewes Cultivating Questioners

Charli Mills Carrot Ranch Communications Words for People!

Caroline Lodge book word

Nanny Shecando

 

1. What do you value most in life?

Anne Goodwin

Authenticity; ambivalence; fairness; mutual respect.

Nillu Nasser Stelter

the ability to choose how I live my life. Freedom is everything.

Nicole Hewes

moments of possibility and opportunity, where the world seems open and the choices seem infinite

Charli Mills

living in such a way that I look for beauty all around me and find good even when life’s path gets rocky

Caroline Lodge

my daughter

Nanny Shecando

the chance I get everyday to make the most of it. That I can do whichever I chose to do.

 

2. What activities do you enjoy and why?

Anne Goodwin

Reading and writing; walking in the countryside; choral singing and growing (some of) my own food.

Nillu Nasser Stelter

lazy afternoons in the park with my family; sinking into a bubble bath with a good book; singing when nobody is listening and dancing when nobody is watching

Nicole Hewes

reading

Charli Mills

Activities that connect me to living in the moment: gardening, cooking and writing about the birds outside my window

Caroline Lodge

Reading and writing, and talking about both with other enthusiasts.

Nanny Shecando

any activity that allows me to be creative

 

3.What is something you wish you had more time for?

Anne Goodwin

I don’t think we can do everything (that’s what fiction is for – the chance to live other lives) and I’m reasonably happy with how I portion out my time.

Nillu Nasser Stelter

reading and writing; other creative pursuits

Nicole Hewes

travel, try new recipes, read more books, and to spend with my friends and family

Charli Mills

I’ve found that by taking time to stare at a sunset or falling snowflakes, I have all the time in the world. It’s what I do with it that matters.

Caroline Lodge

it’s not so much time as ability to fit all the things I love in my life

Nanny Shecando

read more books

 

4.What is one change you would like to make in the world?

Anne Goodwin

a shift in emphasis from a culture of greed to one of equality and compassion

Nillu Nasser Stelter

more understanding for each other, first within our own countries and then across country boundaries; clean water for all!

Nicole Hewes

change our society so that equal educational opportunity could actually exist, so that everyone could have access to basic resources, and so that money and special interests wouldn’t dictate the media

Charli Mills

contribute to world change through one beautiful book at a time; honor the hero’s journey within us all and to actualize everyday beauty

Caroline Lodge

World peace; access to books for everyone

Nanny Shecando

people holding themselves accountable for their actions

 

5.What is something you would like to change about yourself?

Anne Goodwin

I’d like to be more laid-back; a published novelist

Nillu Nasser Stelter

I’d like to care less about what other people think about me.

Nicole Hewes

I would like to be a tad more outgoing and a little less independent

Charli Mills

To stop worrying whether or not people approve of what I do.

Nanny Shecando

to practice a, “you’re full of greatness so long as you tap into it and utilise it” mentality

 

6.What surprises you most about your life – something good in your life that you hadn’t expected, dreamed of or thought possible?

Anne Goodwin

taking part in choral concerts of major classical works along with some pretty decent singers and a full orchestra. It’s a real emotional hit

Nillu Nasser Stelter

The ease of transition from single person to family life; how tiring and rewarding it would be.

I have evolved from a child with a mass of insecurities to someone who is comfortable with herself.

Nicole Hewes

Being in a relationship with a partner with a worldview quite different from mine who challenges my views and assumptions and is incredibly kind, supportive, and loving.

Charli Mills

an upheaval in my life would open the door for me to step into that writer’s life. It isn’t easy, but it is what I’ve dreamed of doing and I’m doing it.

Caroline Lodge

That it goes on getting better, that I go on learning, that there are so many amazing people in the world and I know some of them.

Nanny Shecando

that I am able to be so happy, comfortable, confident and secure in leading the life that I do.

 

7.What ‘big” question do you often ponder?

Anne Goodwin

The fact that our species has invested so much energy and creativity in the technology of warfare and so little in strategies for living in peace with our neighbours.

Nicole Hewes

Why our differences continue to lead to such polarization and why empathy can be so selective.

Charli Mills

How do I listen to God’s calling and live in the light?

Caroline Lodge

How can articulate and intelligent people inflict direct and indirect suffering upon others?

Nanny Shecando

life vs the state of dreaming. How can we really distinguish which is which? How do we know if what we perceive to be real is actually so?

8.What sorts of things amuse you?

Anne Goodwin

my husband’s dreadful punning jokes. And I quite like dark humour exemplified by the ditty Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from The Life of Brian

Nillu Nasser Stelter

Slapstick comedy and Ally McBeal; innuendo; the children

Nicole Hewes

comments that my second graders make in our classroom; when the ridiculousness of an idea is exposed by positing the same thinking in another situation.

Charli Mills

Silly little things

Caroline Lodge

Unintentional meanings in things like the sign “uncontrolled pedestrian crossing” in London.

Nanny Shecando

the daily conversations that I get to share with the kids.

 

9.What do you like to collect?

Anne Goodwin

Slugs from the garden

Nicole Hewes

copies of student work that blows me away with its insight or hilarity (I have a “smile file” where I keep these items). I also like to collect quotes and articles and stories that suggest that gender roles are actually shifting and gender stereotyping is altering. And pasta recipes

Charli Mills

Stuff from the ground that’s old–rocks, fossils, arrowheads, purple glass.

Nanny Shecando

books and old sheet music

 

10.If you could talk with anyone and ask them to explain their ideas and/or actions, who would it be, and why?

Anne Goodwin

I’d ask the women who doled out white feathers to men out of uniform in the First World War why they thought they had the right. If I couldn’t time travel, I’d ask our Prime Minister, David Cameron, why he isn’t ashamed that a rich country like ours has spawned so many food banks.

Nillu Nasser Stelter

both my grandfathers, who have both sadly died

Charli Mills

I’d love to talk to my 5th-great grandfather and ask him why he left North Carolina. He was a poet and wrote such sad verse about leaving those mountains as an old man.

 

11.What is something you can’t do without?

Anne Goodwin

My glasses, voice-activated software

Nillu Nasser Stelter

feeling connected

Nicole Hewes

a good book on my person at all times

Charli Mills

Internet!

Caroline Lodge

my daughter

Nanny Shecando

a notebook and pen

 

12.What is something important you learned about life, and how did you learn it?

Anne Goodwin

That, unlike a work of fiction, we can’t scrub out the bits that don’t work and start again.

Charli Mills

A life of truth is not an easy one.

Nanny Shecando

you don’t get anything unless you ask for it

 

13.What is your earliest memory?

Anne Goodwin

I distinctly remember standing on the steps leading up to the front door of our house, replying “two in August” to a passerby who’d asked my age. However, this being one of the stories my mother liked to tell about me, and knowing what I do about the fallibility of autobiographical memories, especially those from early childhood, I doubt its authenticity, and regard it as my mother’s memory, not mine.

Nillu Nasser Stelter

Probably my gran singing ‘Nanu maru nak’ (my nose is small), a Gujarati nursery rhyme, to me, but I often question whether my memories are real or reconstructed, so I can’t be sure.

Charli Mills

One of my earliest memories is of a black cat that I coaxed into being a pet on a ranch where I lived the first seven years of my life. That cat made me feel safe

Caroline Lodge

Someone threatened to steal my little sister. It was an early experience of a quandary: if I went to get adult help she might get taken, but could I make sure she was safe on my own. I was scarcely 3 and she was newborn.

14.What sorts of things irritate you? (Caroline Lodge)

Caroline Lodge

There are lots of things, and one of them is the pervasive idea of favourite books and writers in tweets and blogs. It’s such a simplistic, reductionist concept that I try to avoid it. I added this question, just so I could indulge in a favourite whinge.

 

The responses reflect the richness of our humanity, both the commonality and its diversity. Which responses strike an accord with you? With which do you differ?

Please share your thoughts and keep the conversation going.