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Discussing ‘Malice’ by Seheni Kariyawasam 

23 Aug 2021

By Mahika Panditha    Meet Seheni Kariyawasam, everyone! Seheni is currently in the US, as she is starting her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. She is currently focusing on her degree, but hopes to build a huge library in her home in the future, which is her book-related goal! We had the chance to chat with Seheni earlier this week about her new novel Malice, which is part of a duology called The Haunting of St. Bennetts! I will not give too much away, so do check out the article, and you can purchase her book from Vijitha Yapa or on Amazon. Before we get into it, we know she is an adorable little bookworm because as a child, her parents used to ban her from reading during her exams because she would read so much and not study! She ended up having hiding places all over her house where she hid her books and read them in secret! How cute!    Congratulations on receiving a scholarship for Boston University! What are you most excited about in regards to university?    Thank you! In regard to college, there’s so many experiences I’m excited for but the main thing would be all the new people I’m going to get to meet and share my college experiences with. I’m really excited about connecting with people from all over the world since Boston is a very diverse city.    You are planning to study Engineering! What made you choose that field?    I’ve always been interested in pursuing something science-related at college, but I think my specific interest in engineering grew during my A?L years after I’d narrowed down my subjects to science-related ones. My interest in outer space also fueled my decision and I hope that I can use my engineering degree to explore this interest more in the future.    Do you have any advice for youngsters that are looking to pursue a career in the same field?    I think this would apply to any field of study, but I think making sure you talk to people who have experience in the field and doing your research is very important before deciding to pursue a career in any field. So my advice would be to make sure you do your research about whatever field you choose to go into, especially if you are going into a programme or higher studies where you can’t switch majors down the line.    Aside from this, let’s talk about your novels. Your first one, ‘The Chameleon’ – tell us about it. What is it about and where did you get the idea from?    The Chameleon mainly follows a series of seemingly unsolvable murders and a young police detective’s attempts to solve them. As for how I got the idea, it actually sprang from this one dream that I had which involved a character from the story. I was 14 at the time, and after I had this dream I rushed to school to discuss it with a friend of mine. As I spoke about it more and more, the plot of The Chameleon slowly came into focus. Of course it went through many changes and the plot now probably barely resembles the initial one, but this was where the idea came from.   You have just released your second novel ‘Malice’. Talk to us about that.   I like to consider Malice as hovering between the borders of the horror and mystery genres. It does have its fair share of hauntings and ghostly activities, but at the centre of its plot is a mystery, and that’s what really drives the story forwards.    Malice is the first book in a duology which I’ve named the Haunting of St.Bennet’s. It follows a number of strange and paranormal occurrences centered on the small all girls school St. Bennet’s, which is heavily inspired by my school of 10 years, Bishop’s College, before I moved to Asian International School. Of course the hauntings in the story are mainly figments of my imagination and aren’t based on any experiences at BC (though if they were that would’ve been really interesting). A lot of my inspiration for the hauntings included in Malice came from the ghost stories that a friend shared with me  – ghost stories that supposedly took place at her school.     What is key to your writing process?    Ideally I’d say time. Being able to dedicate a set amount of time to my writing, where I can put aside any distractions and just focus solely on the story that I’m writing. But since that’s not always possible, consistency would be my next answer. If I take long breaks from writing, I can sometimes find it much harder to fall back into the story and writing with ease so writing consistently or taking time to read through and revisit the story is very important to my personal writing process.    How do you tackle writer’s block?    Usually when I can’t write but I don’t want to take a break from it completely, I’ll just spend the day reading through the story and editing. That usually gets me more invested in the story and excited about delving into writing again.   Can we look forward to more novels in the near future?    I would say so. I definitely want to continue writing, and I have many more ideas churning in my head that I would love to develop and put onto paper in the future!   Where do you hope to be in the next five years?    Honestly, I don’t have any concrete plans. My goals and hopes for the future have changed so many times over the past few years, and I’ve learnt to just take things as they come. I’ll hopefully be working on some more books though!    PHOTOS © bolinora


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