5 minutes with ... Dr. Catherine Wild

What’s your favourite uni memory?

Scriptwriting, October 2016. We were playing consequences as a group. One-by-one, as the ‘stories’ were read out, the class started to lose it until no one could speak because they were crying with laughter at the ridiculous content.

Also, when I just read Kyle Scher’s ‘Five minutes with…’. Lecturing can be a lonely place and to receive unexpected positive feedback in this way makes it all worthwhile.

What do you write?

I like taking a large, unsettling concept and placing it in an ordinary environment. My story ‘Destiny’ is about a lonely girl, her big white dog and a cantankerous old bloke who runs a newsagent. Nothing unusual about that until the girl discovers that she, her dog and the old bloke are dead and the newsagent is purgatory, the space between life and death. You know, the usual.

What’s your favourite book?

Robert Westall’s The Devil on the Road. I am furious that he is dead; I really want to ask him about his research into Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, as well as the character of Johanna, the witch – or was she? His handling of timeslips is seamless.

Best thing about The University of Winchester

The sense of camaraderie. You’d be hard pushed to walk through campus and not have a ‘hi’ or two, especially from the lovely porters, Ken and Phil. And don’t even try and walk through reception if you’re in a hurry. Those girls are ACE.

Guilty pleasure

I read Heat magazine and Take a Break every week. Deal with it, yeah?

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