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The question

As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Alice Munro

My favorite writer is Alice Munro—all of her books. She’s a tremendous writer and has taught me so much about writing.

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
As a child, Munro was constantly telling herself stories. One of the first was “The Little Mermaid,” by Hans Christian Anderson, whose ending she couldn’t bear.

Andrea Walker, The New Yorker, 4 October 2008 source ↗

Others on this question

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Viv Albertine Australian-born British musician and writer
I had no female role models growing up. I lived an incredibly sheltered life: there was no TV at home and we had no visitors. It wasn’t until rock and pop came into my life that I concocted myself as a role model.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 October 2020 source ↗
Jack Whitehall English comedian, actor, presenter and writer
I was hellbent on being a Thunderbird. I was devastated when my parents finally told me it was a fictional organisation. Ruined my 18th.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 April 2023 source ↗

More on identity & self

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Lee Child, Esther Rantzen, Jack Davenport, Kate Humble, Jon Sopel, Shirley Manson

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