Interviews

May 6, 2017

You can read an interview of mine on Awesomegang.com. In it, I talk about the writers who have influenced me, some of my future plans, what I’m working on at the moment, and I was allowed to offer my advice to new writers. You can read it here. I hope you enjoy it.


July 26, 2017

I was honoured when Viking Reviews asked for an interview. In it, I talk about the main themes that influence me, how a given idea I may have develops into a story, the kind of books I enjoy and more.

Here’s an excerpt:

  1. V: Who is Chris Sarantopoulos? What can you tell us about yourself?
    C: I was born in Athens, Greece and learned to speak English almost at the same time I started using my native language. At a time when I still had hair on my head (near the end of the end of the last century – actually the last millenium), I went abroad and studied Geology and Petroleum Geology in Scotland, picked up a few words that I can’t get rid of (like aye for example), then returned to Greece and did a Masters in Service Management. During that time, I was offered the chance to do a PhD, started working on it, but it didn’t work out.
  2. V: When did you start feeling the urge to write?
    C: The really strong urge, the uncontrollable kind, started back in 2013. Until then, I often felt the calling, but didn’t dare following it. The reason for not starting it earlier was due to poor academic skills at school when it came to essay writing, a mandatory subject throughout school life here in Greece. So this feeling of inadequacy gave birth to a little voice at the back of my head that kept telling me that I could never write anything longer than my name.All this changed when, during a casual conversation with a friend of mine about books and the poor quality of some, he simply suggested that I should have a go at writing. I don’t know what changed, but that afternoon I went home and wrote four pages (the world’s worst written four pages ever) of a story I had in my head. And everything felt right. It was as though my life was a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces of my life were wrongly fit together, and suddenly someone knocked the whole thing over, pieces flew up in the air, and miraculously those pieces landed where they should have been originally. Everything in my life made sense after that.

You can read the rest here.


October 2019

Meghan’s Haunted House of Books honoured me by asking for an interview when I published Through Stranger Eyes. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Meghan: Hi, Chris! Welcome welcome. I’m glad to have you here today. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Chris Sarantopoulos: I was born in Greece back in the late seventies and was fortunate enough to have grown in an environment that used English as much as my native language all the time. That’s one of the reasons why I find it easy to communicate in English. After finishing school I went to study abroad, in Scotland, and that’s why I sometimes say aye instead of yes. It’s also why I use UK spelling when I write.

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

Chris Sarantopoulos:

I’m bilingual, fluent in Greek and English.

I can’t stand heat and summer. You want to make me feel miserable? That’s your best bet. Which is weird because I’m from Greece and it’s almost always sunny, and half the eyar if not more, feel like summer. Go figure.

I’m also a self-taught, part time digital designer.

As a kid and teen, I absolutely hated reading books. Shocking, I know. Nowadays, not a day goes by without me reading for a couple of hours.

My favourite colours are black and grey.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

Chris Sarantopoulos: Like I said, as a kid I made sure to stay away from all sorts of books. The reason was that teachers or relatives used to bring me books that had no appeal to me. They were the wrong genres, even though back then I had no idea of the concept of genre.

I made a 180-degree-turn when at university, a Faroese friend and flatmate bought for me as a gift the first Dragonlance book. It blew my mind! I had at long last found a book that was exactly what I wanted. It was a genre (high fantasy) that I had no idea it existed. That’s the book that opened a door for me that eventually led me, several years later, to becoming a writer. For those unfamiliar with the Dragonlance universe, the first book of the core set is called Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

 

You can read the rest here: