Sonia Golt Takes Part In First Bookside Chat

The first of a monthly series of Bookside Chats was held yesterday evening at Bookgem. Hosts Julian Felice and Jackie Anderson welcomed their first guest, author Sonia Golt, to a relaxed 'fireside chat'-style event where they spent an hour in conversation about books, reading, creativity and about writing and publication. The event was free to attend and there was a sizeable audience.

Sonia Golt has published nine books in a variety of genres, although she explained to the audience that romance is her favourite theme, with love as a deep, very human passion that can have its dark sides as well as its joys. This dark side is something that she wrote about in her thriller "The Curtain Call", and Sonia shared her inspiration, her writing techniques and the challenges that she faces to draft and complete her works.

The conversation was immersive, with the audience invited to ask questions and also exchanging opinions and their own experiences as readers and as writers. The themes discussed varied from finding inspiration, the joys of reading, how technology impacts writers especially with the ubiquitous presence of AI and how that affects creativity and the creative process. Also discussed were choices of language, with Sonia writing mainly in English but also producing poetry in Spanish. The benefits of bilingualism were discussed as well as the concern shared by many that the use and command of Spanish is receding among younger generations with Sonia expressing her gratefulness for the work being carried out by government agencies and local groups including local authors to keep Llanito alive and relevant.

The next Bookside Chat will take place on 18th November at Bookgem and 6pm with local slam poet, Jonathan Teuma talking about his poetry, how he became involved in slam poetry competitions, his creative process, and perhaps reciting a verse or two.

Sonia's books are on sale at BookGEM who sponsored the event along with GCS.