10 Minutes with Anna McGahan

  Do you have any writing rituals?

 I actually need to set a bit of a mood. There is always a pot of English breakfast tea, a playlist, and sometimes a dried eucalyptus leaf burning. I find setting up a strange little altar helps me see the practice as something intentional, and sacred. I collect little artefacts to have on my desk that reconnect me to the story. The ritual gives me a shortcut to wherever I left off previously.

  Are you a plotter or a pantser?

 I go in as a plotter, then realise my characters have minds of their own and they will insist on a different story. It always surprises me.

 How do you feel about the book now it’s out of your hands?

 Terrified! It’s difficult not to feel perfectionistic, to see things you want to change even once it is in print, but I’ve begun relating to it as if a child. It has a life of its own to lead, it is no longer mine to form. It will find its people, and the right ones will hold it gently.

  As you were writing, who did you have in mind as the ideal reader?

 Honestly, the ‘singular reader’ I wanted to present truth for was very specifically a woman who has experienced separation with young children, especially if she has done so within a religious context. That being said, I feel many people appeared as ideal readers along the way - especially those who are navigating suffering in any way. 

 If Immaculate was made into a movie, who would you see playing the main characters?

Oooffft this is hard, because it actually started as a script pitch, and I’ve imagined many different people (including myself!). For Frances (a woman in her mid 30s), I always imagined a young Claudia Karvan, or the incredible actor Yael Stone. Someone raw, fascinating to watch, compelling in their complexity. 

 For Mary (a sixteen year old girl), it would need to be a very young, eccentric, comedic actor. Potentially someone raw and unpolished. I had real teenagers in mind, instead of actors, but a teenage Celeste Barber or Steph Tisdell would be the dream.

 What is your number one rule for writing?

 If you force it, you will need to rewrite it anyway. Wait for flow - invite flow - cultivate flow with focus and ritual.

 What element of your writing brings out the grammar police in your editor?

 I love repeating words three times as a kind of poetic coda. A weird tick of my brain, it brings in a rhythm I like but my editor finds a little… much. 

  Do you have a favourite writing place?

 I tend to move around my house like a cat until I’m comfortable, but I do love my desk. I also did a lot of writing of Immaculate at Lucky Duck (a cafe in Highgate Hill). I tend to get more plot inspiration if I’m out of the house moving my body, however. A big element of the plot came from a night walk I took in New Farm Park. 

Are you reading anything at the moment?

 Oh God, my book stack…

I’m simultaneously reading Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros) and Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason. I am about to start Emily O’Grady’s Feast and cannot wait.

What are you working on next?

 I’ve begun a second novel that is bringing me a lot of excitement. It explores the social ramifications of a paleontological fossil find that indicates extraterrestrial life, and follows the woman assigned to the controversial dig. I was inspired by the discovery of the first dinosaur bone (by a woman, Mary Mantell, in the 1860s), and the way faith groups and creation ideologies had to resist or integrate the explosive claim that dinosaurs existed. We haven’t found evidence of alien life yet, but when we do, it will have far reaching impacts on religions, conspiracy groups, and political agendas. A little like the pandemic, it will deeply politicise personal relationships too. 

 Can you tell I’m in the first throes of love? I love the dating stage of writing stories - by the time you get to the proofread in the edit you’re ready to file for divorce…

10 Minutes with Richard Fidler

Do you have any writing rituals?

Not rituals as such other than getting up early in the morning, needing a quiet house, have a little – I literally have garret that I write in at the moment. I have a garret that’s in the attic of the house we live in and I have to climb up a ladder to get into it. But it’s an electric ladder so I just press a button, and it closes and I can hide from my whole family. Yeah! It’s great. First I thought when we got this house: ‘Ugh this is going to be a real imposition every time’, but now I love it. It’s great, being able to cut myself off from the rest of the family. And having that quiet is a really big thing for me. Having two strong cups of coffee. It’s nothing terribly remarkable, but having the quiet, the early morning, and the little place of my own that’s kind of nice. And being surrounded by other books. That’s a big thing.

What is your number one rule for writing, if you have one?

I think it is to sit still – and by that I don’t mean literally, but in my own mind – and to listen for things. I know that sounds very odd but to really listen to things. To sit there and hear the voices of what – as a history writer, hearing the voices of the things you’ve been reading, the sources you’ve been reading, they sort of talk to each other in your own head, which sounds slightly mad, but to be really alert for that, to be alert for the quieter voices, which often might have something more to say.  Often they’re women’s voices, too. Particularly if you’re writing medieval history, women’s voices are often muffled and in the background but you absolutely need to listen to them because often they’re not very impressed by these impressive men you’ve been writing about. And you absolutely need to listen for that.

And the other thing you need to listen for is to hear if there’s music in your prose. I was trained as a musician so I kind of like hearing a certain kind of cadence and if I don’t have it I find it very frustrating and I think the writing’s no good. And to begin a book with a certain kind of musical flourish and end with a coda is really important to me. So, like I say, sit and listen for a bit is good.

Sometimes actually you can do that in the shower, I don’t know why, but sitting on a problem with a book and going to bed with it, and then waking up in the morning and go for a shower, if you think about it, then you get the answer. And I think these things are given to us and I think that process is quite mysterious, and it makes me happy to know that these things are like that. So many writers I know and that I’ve interviewed in the past believe that they are given these things and it’s not necessarily from within themselves. So, yes. Sitting and listening, or standing and listening, as it may be.

Speaking of listening, and of cadence -- I listened to Sagaland on audio and it was brilliant. Will you be doing the audiobook for The Book of Roads and Kingdoms, too?

I have done! It has been done, yes.

Do you know what you’re working on next?

No. I’ve got a couple of ideas that are not quite coming into shape. Two very different ideas that are not moving quite right in my head at the moment, so I might come up with something completely different. And that might torment me for a bit to be honest. Because writing this book, wasn’t the book I was planning to write. This wasn’t the one I was planning to write after The Golden Maze because normally I rely on travel, I like to go to a place and have an adventure – or have had an adventure as I have in the case of Prague – but Covid prevented me from doing that. So with this I thought – let’s write about some people who were travellers just for fun because we can’t travel at the moment, and in my mind I can go to a place I can’t physically go to which is medieval Baghdad because not a bit of it exists anymore, it was all destroyed by the Mongol armies of Hulagu Kahn, grandson of Genghis Kahn. So I couldn’t get on a plane to go there if I wanted to anyway – I could go to Baghdad I suppose, I might have been able to do that – but that Baghdad that I’ve written about here, I can’t go to anymore. So I think I might – I’ve got a couple of ideas that involve travel. And I might return to that thing where I go to a place for a reason and then write a history of that place around it.

Are you reading anything at the moment?

Yes! I was just saying, I am so late to this damned party, but I’m reading Wolf Hall. I read that essay by Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books and I went Oh, oh that’s really good, that’s really good year that is, that’s very impressive. It was brilliant and insightful and weird. So I thought I better have a look at this Wolf Hall thing and see what all the fuss is about. And oh my god, holy crap, what a genius, what a capacious mind, that knife-like ability to cut through to the heart of things, that sense of what people are like. The way she’s overturned the historical perceptions of who Thomas Moore and who Thomas Cromwell really were. I think the whole history of that period had to be looked at again because of her deft insight. Reading some of the biographical sketches of Thomas Moore and Thomas Cromwell now, they seem hopelessly naïve after you’ve ready Wolf Hall! So I’m delighting in it, I’m reading bits out loud to my wife who’s getting annoyed with me because she says she can’t read it at the moment because she had to be reading something else for her bookclub. So she’s got to pick it up and try to catch up with me.

10 Minutes with Holly Ringland...

Do you have any writing rituals?

When I was writing The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, I would light a candle and some dried gum leaves in a bowl on my writing desk in Frenchie, my 1968 Olympic Riviera caravan that I bought in 2020 to use as an office. With the candle burning and the smoke rising, I would verbally pay respects to Yugambeh ancestors and descendants on whose land I was writing, and express my gratitude to be here. After that, I talked to the women of my line. I thought about what struggles they went through in order for me to have this life. I thanked them before I started writing. Doing so gave me a sense of mindfulness, settled the noise, but also allowed me perspective about how much bigger everything is than the fear of creating something new might have us believe. 

 Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I am honestly a combination: I’m all about plot points before I go to my desk, and then once I’m there and have started writing to follow those plot points, I’m a pantser with all the details. 

Something I've learned about my writing process is that the physical act of typing on my keyboard is often my very last stage of a writing project. 

 While writing The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding I was reminded that so much of novel-writing, for me, is thinking and gathering scraps and fragments of story, then researching them and falling down all the rabbit holes that going through the research door opens. 

At the very beginning, when ideas are starting to split open and shimmer, my typical writing day looks like me staring into space, and handwriting bits and pieces here and there. This is my connect-the-dot stage, when lots of ideas can sometimes come flooding into the room of my mind. I try to treat it a bit like being at a party of guests who don’t know each other. I mingle, find the ideas that seem interesting, get to know them a bit, then stand back and observe as the ideas bump into each other, seemingly not knowing each other, until, zing! Connection between ideas happens. This process involves constant self-discipline to stay the course and trust the process, so I don’t disregard any ideas out of self-doubt or fear.  

 Once I feel the shape of my piece of writing (an essay, a novel etc) is known to me, as much as it possibly can be, then I got to my desk and my writing day is like a typical work shift. This is when the marathon, the graft of plotting and pantsing, of day-in-and-day-out writing happens.   

How do you feel about the book now it’s out of your hands? 

The way I feel now that The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding is out of my hands reminds me of how it’s felt through my life to stand at the Departure gates of the International Airport, still there, standing in the same spot, after you’ve just watched someone you deeply love disappear from view in the boarding bridge. It’s countless emotions all at once: bereft, heartsore, wary, uncertain, grateful, excited, and buoyed by an awareness of what a gift it is to know this feeling firsthand. 

What is your number one rule for writing?

Write what you love, without shame. It’s as simple and as hard as that.

Before I’d finished my first novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, I was often confused, thinking that becoming a novelist meant I should be focused on the outer writing world as much as the interior – the world of agents, publishers, networking, social media, writing tips. Those elements very much have their place in an author’s life, but before I was an author, none of those things got my first novel written. The only thing that did was protecting the magic of my interior world, which we all have – our imaginations – and self-discipline. I realised I had to choose to use my will, over and again, to show up and to write every day, for however long I could. And writing was not always clacking away at my keyboard. It was staring at café walls and out of bus windows and into my garden and thinking about Alice Hart’s story. Thinking about moving it along. Every time I returned to my manuscript to write another line, I developed a habit of focusing on one question. 

Do I love this story? 

It felt to me that writing a novel alone, lonely, without any security or guarantee of being published was hard enough. So, while I was writing, whenever fear made me falter or stumble (which was every day) that question became my touchstone. 

Do I love this story? 

If my answer was ambivalent, I knew I needed more staring into space time to think, daydream, re-centre myself in the story until I felt reconnected. Until I felt that love firing in my belly again. I came back to this question again throughout the process of writing The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding and have continued to return to it through and after publication. 

Do I love this story?

 Are you reading anything at the moment?

I’m currently reading Homecoming, a painfully exquisite poetry collection by Elfie Shiosaki. I’m also very excited to get my hands on an advance reading copy of Meanjin, Brisbane author Claire Christian’s new novel, West Side Honey. It’s out in April 2023 and is about the ferocity of female friendships, taking up space, and all the delicious possibilities when we find the courage to dictate the terms of our own life and relationships. 

Ten Minutes with Diana Reid...

 Do you have any writing rituals?

It’s not really a ritual, more addiction-management, but I am quite particular about my internet access. I try not to write in the same room as my phone (and always turn it on Do Not Disturb). I also use an app on my laptop that blocks the internet, ironically called ‘Self Control’.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

 Both! I dispute that it’s binary! Once I’ve got the core idea, I like to write as many scenarios as I can think of so I can work out who the characters are and how they behave. Then I go back and delete a lot of those scenes and start to build a plot out of the ones that survive the cull. 

How do you feel about the book now it’s out of your hands?

 It’s such a relief. And it’s very special when people start reading it and these characters, who have been real to you for so many months during the drafting process, now exist in other peoples’ imaginations too.

 As you were writing, who did you have in mind as the ideal reader?

 It sounds counterintuitive but when I’m drafting I try to trick myself into thinking that nobody will ever read it. That way I don’t second-guess myself. But I suppose my ideal reader is someone who will take the book on its own terms; someone open-minded and curious enough to work out what you are trying to say and whether you’ve said it in a way that resonates—not someone looking for a prop or an accessory to their own intellect. 

 If Seeing Other People was made into a movie, who would you see playing the main characters?

 A girl can dream! I’m not sure about all three of the main characters but Angourie Rice is an Australian actress I’ve admired for a long time, especially for her comic timing. I can see her as Eleanor. 

  What is your number one rule for writing?

 Just do it! At the first instance, it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or not—you just have to turn up to the desk and put some words on the page. 

 What element of your writing brings out the grammar police in your editor?

 I’m extremely liberal with commas.

 Do you have a favourite writing place?

 I’m pretty flexible but my local café Veneziano in Surry Hills has a lovely communal table and they’re very chill about people sitting for several hours over the same empty cup of coffee. 

 Are you reading anything at the moment?

 I just read The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst and was floored by it.

 What are you working on next?

 I’m working on another novel for Ultimo Press.

Ten Minutes with Fiona McFarlane

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I am somewhere in between a plotter and a pantser. I have learnt my lesson that I can’t be entirely a plotter because then I would never write a book, I would just plot and plot and plot. I definitely reach a point in the book where I need to step back and start doing some plotting. So I’ve sort of pantsed the opening, and then I begin to plot and it becomes a combination of the two as I finish.

Do you have a favourite place to write?

I don’t think I do. I think I have spent so much time writing about Australia from overseas that it’s almost like I create this little Australia overseas when I’m writing so it’s sort of… writing becomes it’s own space. Anywhere that’s quiet and solitary suits me. I don’t like writing in cafes and things like that, I find it too distracting. So wherever I have a table or desk set up and time to write away from my job.

What is your number one rule for writing?

I teach creative writing so this is the kind of thing we talk about a lot. If there’s a rule that means you write then follow it, and if there’s a rule that means you don’t write, don’t follow it. Writing advice is only helpful if it means you actually sit down and write.

Do you know what you’re working on next?

I’m working on a collection of linked short stories around an Australian serial killer, so it’s quite different to this one!

Are you reading anything at the moment?

Right now I’m reading Charles Dickens! I’m reading Bleak House right now, partly because it’s a very long audio book and I’m on the plane a lot this week, so I thought ‘what’s a book that’s going to keep me occupied?’ And it was Bleak House. And it’s very enjoyable! But I also have just re-read Lauren Groff’s Matrix, because she is coming to visit the university that I teach at next week, so I have just re-read most of her stuff to prepare for that.

Ten Minutes with Angela Meyer...

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

A little of both. I don’t start a novel project until I have a decent idea of the character motivations and where the story might be going. As I write, I think a few steps ahead, though I often don’t know how it will end until I’m halfway through. I tidy up the foreshadowing and other plot elements on the second draft.

How do you feel about the book now it’s out of your hands?

Like it’s a bit miraculous it even exists. The past few years have been a blur – the pandemic and the lockdowns, of course, but also family care, a whole lot of work and deadlines… I’m proud of Moon Sugar; I think I allowed myself to play in a way that was a bit scary. It’s possible the book may date, but if it captures the moment it certainly has been an interesting moment to catch. And books that ‘date’ can still become a part of some readers’ nostalgic landscape.

As you were writing, who did you have in mind as the ideal reader?

The ideal reader for Moon Sugar is probably in the range of the age of the characters – 20s to 40s – any gender, and I hope it will be enjoyed by queer readers. When I was writing, I was thinking about growing up in a very specific age (or two very specific, close together generations, and the similarities and differences between them). That said, some people outside those demographics have got in touch with me and said they really enjoyed it!

If Moon Sugar was made into a movie, who would you see playing the main characters?

This is such a fun question and not one I’ve put much thought to yet, other than that Josh could be Timothee Chalamet? Kyle could perhaps be played by Alberto Rosende. It would really suit Mia as a character if she was played by someone who had been underrated so far, but who could shine in the role. Of course, they should probably all be Australian, if this was a real fantasy… (Could Chalamet do an Aussie accent?)

Are you reading anything at the moment?

Very much enjoying Claire G. Coleman’s latest literary sci-fi, Enclave.

Ten Minutes with Sophie Cunningham

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I’m a bit of both. A plotter and a pantser. I plot, and then the plot doesn’t work out and I end up pantsing it.

Do you have any writing rituals?

No. I tend to write obsessively for several weeks and just get behind on all my work. Or then I ignore the whole thing for a while. So the opposite of ritual, really.

How do you feel about the book now that it’s out of your hands?

Relieved.

What is your number one rule for writing?

I really want to connect with readers. And I want it to feel real. By real I mean sincere or true – I don’t mean that everything that happened in it is true, but I want it to feel real.

Do you have a favourite place to write?

In bed. With pillows behind me.

Are you reading anything at the moment?

I have just bought Peggy Frew’s Wildlowers, which I have not started yet but am very keen to get to.

THIS DEVASTATING FEVER

By Sophie Cunningham

Alice had not expected to spend most of the twenty-first century writing about Leonard Woolf. When she stood on Morell Bridge watching fireworks explode from the rooftops of Melbourne at the start of a new millennium, she had only two thoughts. One was: the fireworks are better in Sydney. The other was: is Y2K going to be a thing? Y2K was not a thing. But there were worse disasters to come: Environmental collapse. The return of fascism. Wars. A sexual reckoning. A plague.

Uncertain of what to do she picks up an unfinished project and finds herself trapped with the ghosts of writers past. What began as a novel about a member of the Bloomsbury Set, colonial administrator, publisher and husband of one the most famous English writers of the last hundred years becomes something else altogether.

Ten Minutes with Karen Martini

Do you have any processes or habits leading up to writing a cookbook?

I do. When I’m writing a cookbook I tend to – when I’m thinking about writing a cookbook – there’s a lot of scribbling and notes on pretty much anything I can get my hands on. Sometimes I have a little book on me, sometimes it’s the back of a bill – usually it’s about key ingredients I’m using in a dish for a creativity point of view or it’s about ‘this must go in’ these recipes, or it might even just be a bullet point of ‘got to cover a kitchen essentials’. For instance, it dawned on me that we needed a more expansive thought process around a glossary, that there needed to be a key. 

Essentially, with this particular book, it was a cook’s brain dump. Like I literally wrote and wrote and wrote and I had someone help me compile into chapters that a sensible organised person would then utilise to cook.

Talking about ingredients, what is your all time favourite ingredient to use?

Fennel. Fennel seed, fennel flour, fennel pollen. Fennel, when it’s in season, is great – it’s sweeter, it’s plump, it’s juicy, it’s great roasted, it’s very lovely raw. There is a story about fresh fennel as a kid - I didn’t really realise what the fennel was. I just thought it was this anise-y flavoured water with chunks of white crunchy vegetable on the table and I didn’t realise that everyone else didn’t eat it. And we all used to drink the water as well from the fennel.

This might be a little like asking who your favourite child is – what is your favourite recipe from this cookbook?

My favourite child is always the one sitting on my knee – and my favoruite recipe is whatever I’m feeling like eating. I’m driven by my curiosity and I’m eager to learn all the time but it’s usually my hunger. So it’s whatever I’m feeling like at the time. Quite often when I’m travelling it’ll be the broths and stocks with simple noodles or poached chicken or something quite soothing because I get a bit of travel sickness sometimes. That is quite often what I love, and I love that chapter of the book because it really extends people if they haven’t made their own stock before. Even though there are a lot on sale these days I think it’s a great place to start, and to understand the fundamental flavours.

What is your favourite meal of the day?

Dinner. Cheeky lunch is great too, but I think by the time I get organised – quite often my husband will say to me ‘let’s just throw one thing on the barbecue and maybe have a salad’ and by the time I’m finished we’ve got – by the time it’s the end of the day, if I’m committed and I’m not working – there is whatever’s going on the barbecue but it might have been the chicken that’s been marinaded, and then there’s a separate sauce that goes with it, and then there might be some peppers that have been grilled that get dressed as well and then it becomes an elaborate meal to share, if you like. Very convivial.

What’s your favourite cooking hack?

Actually it’s one I saw just recently – it was on Instagram or TikTok, but I haven’t tried it yet so I don’t know if it works!

The other one I saw that I will be doing from now on to peel potatoes – because when you boil a potato and it’s really hot, especially a larger one, it’s really hard to peel all the skin for a great potato salad. But if you score the potato evenly all the way around quite deeply, then boil them – once they’re boiled you can literally just pull the two ends off the potato, and you don’t end up with little bits of starchy skin all over you.

The other hack – the one that I saw that I haven’t tried yet – was again peeling something. Being able to peel a tomato without blanching it and it was one of those supermarket tomatoes, quite hard. Where you get a chopstick and you rub either side of the edge of the tomato, and then turn it over and poke the chopstick through the middle, and the skin just slips off.

The potato one is definitely one I do.

10 Minutes with Jackie Bailey

Do you have any writing rituals?

If I haven’t been writing for a while, I write my morning pages, which is just a brain dump of whatever is in my head. That clears it out like a good blow of the nose. 

I might also do ten minutes of meditation, especially if I am in the creative phase of making up words. 

I make sure my phone is off and in another room, and then I sit down and have to do at least an hour, preferably more, before I can do any other work for the day.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

A bit of both really. I initially like to find the voice, and that can take a lot of words. But once I have the voice I am happy to plan – not every detail, but the overall architecture. Sort of like deciding which way to drive from Sydney to Brisbane, but not where you will stop for lunch or wee breaks.

How do you feel about the book now it’s out of your hands?

Relieved! I am also so moved when I read a message from a reader. There is this great little poem by Sean Thomas Dougherty, ‘Why Bother?’ Because right now, there is / someone / out there with / a wound / in the exact shape ‘ of your words.’

As you were writing, who did you have in mind as the ideal reader?

My sister Allison. The book is basically written to her.

If The Eulogy was made into a movie, who would you see playing the main characters?

Ooh, I love fantasising about this. Sandra Oh has to be in it, right? Maybe as the mum? Apart from that I really don’t mind!

What is your number one rule for writing?

Just keep going.

What element of your writing brings out the grammar police in your editor?

I am truly terrible with tenses. When did this or that or the other thing happen, exactly? My editors and I had to make multiple timelines to sort that out!

Do you have a favourite writing place?

I wish I was the type of person who could write in cafes. I am best in my little office, with the blinds down. Which is where I am right now.

Are you reading anything at the moment?

I am reading This is not a book about Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan, which is making me laugh out loud with satisfying regularity. I was on a panel with Tabitha Carvan and Cadance Bell, hosted by Tom Gibson, at the Canberra Writers Festival a couple of weeks ago and it was a lot of fun. I also just finished Cadance’s memoir, The All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody. That was funny, sad and excellent in every way. 

 What are you working on next?

I am working in a nonfiction book about how to live a spiritual life without religion. I studied a Masters of Theology in interfaith studies and was ordained an interfaith minister after my sister died. My peers became hospital and prison chaplains, that sort of thing, but for me it was always about writing and death. I became an independent funeral director, celebrant, and author.

10 Minutes with Sally Piper

Do you have any writing rituals?

Oh… get up? I write in the morning mostly, and I usually do my new writing in the morning and I look at it again in the afternoon and edit. But I don’t have any little quirky things where I have to have any special clothes or cups or socks or anything like that. I’m just very disciplined. Get up and turn up. It’s a bit different at the moment because it’s different sort of stuff I’m doing at the moment for promotion – bit different from writing.

What element of your writing brings out the grammar police in your editor?

I guess for me it’s probably my sentence structure that I really look at – they can be too long. One thing I’ve learnt with each progressive book is I actually like to read short punchy sentences so I try and write those more myself. So that’s probably one of the big things I look at to try and pull in is long sentences that probably have a bunch of extraneous words that don’t need to be there.

How do you feel about the book now it’s out of your hands?

It’s a fairly personal story this one, so it’ll be interesting to see how other people perceive it when they’re taking a little bit of your heart with it when they read it. So far the feedback’s been fantastic, that it resonates with people on so many different levels. So I feel good about it, actually! Hearing different people’s interpretations of things has been really lovely.

If Bone Memories was made into a movie who do you see playing the main characters?

Geography of Friendship is going to be made into a series and people ask me this – I’m a reader? I don’t watch television or film much! To be honest when people ask me about Geography and who I’d like cast in that I actually want to give new people a go? That’s what I want them to do. I want them to go to NIDA and say “here’s some really upcoming rising talent”. And I’d love them to use that. I would probably say the same for this one.

When you read, do you see it playing out in your mind or do you just see the words?

I’m a visual writer, so I’m a visual reader. I teach landscape writing, and it’s called ‘witnessing landscape’ because that’s what I do when I’m in nature, and so for me I don’t want to just be told what a place looks like, I need to have that as a felt experience so anyone who does good place writing has immediately got me.  And it’s the same with characterisation - I need to see a three dimensional character.

What are you working on next?

I’m not working on anything at the moment but there is an idea percolating and it’s still this elusive little chimeric thing  that I really can’t get my head around at the moment. It’ something about women who are in service to other women. I’m a bit intrigued by that. Just that alone makes me think it’s going to be a novel about class. That’s about all I’ve got at the moment.

The stepping off point for it was a poem I read by Robin Morgan, an American Poet, and it was from Dark Matter, I think the collection was called. And it was about a young girl they found in the tomb of a Moche woman from the 4th century and surprisingly this Moche Empress was a great warrior because she was buried with shields and swords and had many scars from battle, but sort of tossed alongside her was this fifteen year old girl who was obviously a servant, and Robin Morgan has done a beautiful re-imagining of that girl’s experience and I would love to somehow weave the contemporary with that sort of experience. And that’s all I’ve got!

10 Minutes with Sarah Schmidt

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I’m a pantser!

How do you feel about the book now that it’s out of your hands?

I feel happy that it’s out. I also feel like I want to cling onto the family because I miss them, even though they drive me nuts. I feel good that it’s out but I want to hold them.

Are you reading anything at the moment?

I am! I’m reading The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight and I LOVE it.

What is your number one rule for writing?

Go with your gut instinct and try to stay true to that.

What is your favourite writing place?

Because I write long hand, I like to write anywhere that I can just be with that notebook and be off by myself – no distractions.

What are you working on next?

I think what’s about to come out of me is a very dark fairy tale for adults about a little monster buy who seeks his revenge on a village. That’s what I think I’m doing. Failing that – maybe some historical figure or something like that! It’s very early days.

I wanted to be dark but full of joy as well because I’ve gone back to – I guess because of the pandemic – I went back to read fairy tales and things I loved as a kid, the really dark stuff, and I just thought… I feel like as an adult these are the kinds of stories that often build and shape who you are and I wanted to go back to that and just have fun with it. So yeah, I hope that’s what happens!

10 Minutes with Toni Jordan

Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Pantser, 100%.

How do you feel about the book now it’s out of your hands?

Once it’s on the shelf, it doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s got nothing to do with me at all.

What is your number one rule for writing?

Read more. Reading other books is how you understand the way narrative works, the way sentences work, the whole shebang.

What elements of your writing bring out the grammar police in your editor?

Oh, where do I start? In this book: not enough commas, and complete inability to spell the word ‘yoghurt’, which appears more often than you’d think.

Do you have a favourite writing place?

Either my study at home in Collingwood, or Central Library at the University of Queensland.

Are you reading anything at the moment?

She is Haunted by Paige Clarke

What are you working on next?

I’m not done with the Schnabels yet!

The Riverbend Regulars Series - Michelle Davies

Michelle Davies

 Q1. What do you think makes Riverbend so special?

Personable staff, a friendly face, a nice chat, local knowledge and feeling like home.

Q2. Do you have a favourite memory from riverbend?

More and ongoing preference, I love coming in to purchase books for our kindergarten library. It's always a joy.

Q3. How has reading impacted/ influenced your life?

My mother was a teacher librarian and so we grew up surrounded by books and learnt to read early. I used to spend some of my school holidays covering the library books, which in retrospect was quite a dull pastime. But reading has been really integral to many parts of my life, my career, for relaxation, for pleasure, for learning and for cooking.

Q4. What have read recently?

Give unto Others by Donna Leon, The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim, Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, plus a large pile of cookbooks!

Q5. What’s your favourite book of all time?

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Q5. What are you most looking forward to reading?

Sally Vicker’s The Gardener and Helen Garner’s How to End a Story.

10 Minutes with Hayley Scrivenor

Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Oh that’s always a fun question, isn’t it? Because everyone has such a — I think writers are very superstitious. Once you’ve done something one way, that’s it. That’s how you have to do it forever. I’m definitely a pantser, but I have to have a bit of a lighthouse to know where I’m heading. So with Dirt Town I knew that a girl had died - and that’s not a spoiler, that’s in the first two pages - and I personally as the writer knew who had killed her. But that was before I understood who everyone was and I spend a lot of time writing and re-writing and so I definitely think I’m a pantser in that sense. But if I didn’t have that end point that I was shooting for I think I would have really struggled. And now I’m working on my second book, superstitiously I felt like I had to have those same things, where I know an end point that I’m heading for but I really like to let the characters dictate what happens, and you have to get to know them for them to do that otherwise you’re just moving around pieces on a chess board.

Before you start, do you do a map of who your characters are or do you figure them out as you write them?

I didn’t for Dirt Town but I’m doing it more for my next book where I’ve figured out it is like getting to know a real person, you have to see them in a bunch of different situations and you have to spend time with them and often what’s most fun is when they surprise you, they do something that’s kind of the opposite of what you think they’re going to do. And so I do start out not having a sense of what they look like, but I’ll just put them in a series of situations. I throw away a lot of writing, but I think that’s okay because it’s the only way I can do it. I don’t start with a fully formed character who strolls in. Often I’ll cheat by giving them bits of myself or giving them bits of people I know really well. That’s always an easy way to do it.

Do you have any writing rituals?

I do think if I can get to my study from bed - if I can literally get up, make a cup of tea, and be sitting down and not have to talk to anyone, those are always good writing days for me.

Do you have a favourite writing place?

I have a little study in my house which is far too hot in Summer and far too cold in Winter, but it’s where I wrote Dirt Town. And particularly with lockdowns I’m very fond of that room and I’m very fond of having a door that I can close.

If Dirt Town was made into a movie, who would you see playing the main characters?

It’s so funny - I joke with a friend of mine that everyone should be played by Cate Blanchett. Everyone, from the eleven-year-old boy through to Detective Sargeant Sarah Michaels, Cate Blanchett. I think if anyone could pull it off Cate could do it.

What are you working on next?

My next book is kind of - I’m quite superstitious again about not talking about it too much because I think when you open the door and you show everyone what you’re working on the light comes in and makes it all look a bit… you go “Oh, really? Is that it?” I keep the details fairly close to my chest, but I would say, like I said before, it’s similar in that hopefully a propulsive plot follows from knowing the end point that I want to get to, and knowing the kind of ride that I want to take the reader on. Which is kind of like Dirt Town in that I want you to pick it up and be so compelled that you have to find out what happens next. But I’m always a character writer first so I’m getting as deep into the characters as I can right now. I would say it’s not a sequel to Dirt Town and it is set in a different kind of community, but a small community. I’m interested in those kinds of spaces. So not the same geographical location, but certainly similar. I’m interested in how we define ourselves in opposition to other people - how the people in our life shape us and we shape them. So that will be a shared thing between Dirt Town and the next book.

The Riverbend Regulars Series - David Farrell

Q1. How long have you been coming to Riverbend? And do you have a favourite memory from Riverbend?

For about 12 to 15 plus years.

Yes, every day I arrive and get to chat to the friendly team. I really enjoy the Book Clubs, especially Classics, and especially when I've read the book beforehand!!!

Q2. How has reading influenced and impacted your life?

It has taught me more than anything I ever learned at school and has made me appear more intelligent than I really am!!!

Q3. What is one of your favourite books that you have read recently?

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Q4. Do you have a favourite all-time book or author?

Pre Riverbend - Jeffrey Archer and JK Rowling/Robert Gailbraith

Riverbend - The Girt Series by David Hunt

Q5. What do you think makes Riverbend so special?

The Wonderful Team!!! They are truly passionate, prolific and professional readers!!!

10 Minutes with Dervla McTiernan

It’s not a surprise that we love Dervla McTiernan here at Riverbend Books. We were excited to catch up with her recently when she came to sign copies of her new book, The Murder Rule.

1.       Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I am such a plotter it is not even funny. I am like colour-coded spreadsheets level of plotting. Yup. Has to be done.

2.       As you’re writing, who do you have in mind as your ideal reader?

Oh man, that is such a tricky one. I don’t ever have an ideal reader. I write the story that I would like to read! It’s so selfish. But I do, I write the story that I would like to read. So, myself.

3.       That makes sense. Isn’t that what they say? If you’re looking for a specific kind of book to read but you can’t find it, you should write it yourself?

They say that. I’ve heard screenwriters talking about that about movies, you write the movie that you want to see in the world so it kind of makes sense to me.

4.       Do you have a favourite writing place?

Home. Home with a cup of tea and a warm room.

5.       What element of your writing brings out the grammar police in your editor?

Repeated words I would say. It’s not a grammar thing so much as I tend to repeat words. Or there’s always something like with The Ruin it was ‘looking.’ Everyone was looking at each other constantly. So I had to cull all of that and I was over that by the time The Scholar came along but then I had something else, some other repeated little thing like a phrase or a word that you’re suddenly fascinated by that you’re just using to death. So that is probably what happens more than any grammatical thing.

6.       Are you reading anything at the moment?

Oh! What did I just read? I read Jane Casey’s new book, again, on the plane back for an event and it was brilliant and I wish I could tell you the title, to tell you! But it’s really really good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and very very clever and sharp. (We looked this up after the interview and Dervla is talking about The Killing Kind.)

The Murder Rule

by Dervla McTiernan

First Rule: Make them like you. Second Rule: Make them need you. Third Rule: Make them pay.

They think I'm a young, idealistic law student, that I'm passionate about reforming a corrupt and brutal system. They think I'm working hard to impress them. They think I'm here to save an innocent man on death row. They're wrong. I'm going to bury him.

The Riverbend Regulars Series - Rose Thrupp

Rose Thrupp

Q1. What have you been reading lately?

Well, there are four books. Period Power by Maisie Hill, I am, I am, I am by Maggie O’Farrell, The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth (which is very Eleanor Oliphant-esque) and most recently, Beach Read by Emily Henry. This is by far the romance novel I have read in a very long time! I have just ordered all of the other books because I love how she writes, and she is so funny!

Q2. So, of the enormous number of books you read, Rose, do you have some real favourites?

Yes, lots of favourites. But I would say in recent years that my great favourites are Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton and Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.

I picked up my copy of Boy Swallows Universe in Type Wronger Books in Edinburgh and it made me very nostalgic for Brisbane, the way he writes about it. I loved it so much and gave it to heaps of my friends in Scotland and said “read this, you are not biased towards Brisbane, you tell me - is this not amazing!?” They said 100%. They loved it. I recommended it to so many people over there.

I am such a huge fan of Maggie O’Farrell and have loved everything she has written, especially Hamnet. Such an amazing story. I think the way she writes is actual poetry.

Q3. Do you have a favourite Riverbend story?

Yes I remember coming in here and telling you that my friend had acknowledged me in her book It’s Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake by Clair Christian.

Q4. What do you think makes Riverbend so special?

Books are 100% my favourite topic and I love walking into the atmosphere of this bookshop.

I think the best start to the day is to meet friends and come to the bookstore and talk about books. And I love the staff at Riverbend. Holly, Jessie and Vicky always remember my name and have some great recommendations.

10 Minutes with Tom Tilley

We were lucky enough to have a chat with Tom Tilley when he visited Riverbend Books this week and signed copies of his newly released memoir 'Speaking in Tongues'.

Did you have any writing rituals when writing this memoir?

I wrote the book by hand with pen and paper. I mostly wrote outdoors, usually at a park bench by a beach in Sydney. I loved the ritual of looking at the horizon and then looking at the page. Just taking moments to think, jog memories, then going back to writing by hand. I also only liked to write if I had at least three or four hours of space. I never needed a whole day, but I couldn't just go for an hour or two. I needed the right vibe.

How do you feel about the book now that it is out of your hands?

I'm really happy with it and loving the reactions I have been getting from people. I thought it might give people hope who are, even broadly, in similar situations. What I am amazed by is the people who have been in very similar situations telling me that they feel like I am telling their story. The power of reading something you can relate to seems to be really liberating. Somehow people feel supported or acknowledged or even seen by just reading a story that is similar to their own. I think it's because no one had really explored this tiny corner of the Pentecostal experience.

And also it's representation. To see yourself somewhere else can be hugely impactful for people, especially when it comes to minorities, or a sub group of a minority.

Yeah, and I hadn't understood that as well as I do now. Even after being on radio and putting everyone's stories to air for years and hearing people respond on talk back. But this is a whole other thing - and this story is told in the kind of detail you can only do in a book, where you have that much space.

If 'Speaking in Tongues' was made into a movie, who do you see playing the main characters?

I would like to have Aaron Eckhart from 'Thank You for Smoking' and 'The Dark Night'. We have a real resemblance and I like him on screen. So he would play me. Maybe Ron Howard for later in my life?

What are you reading at the moment?

I am reading Kate Langbroek's 'Ciao, Bella!' We are going to speak together at a writer's festival next week. It has lots of cute Italian texture and a heart-felt family at the centre of the story.

What are you working on now?

I'm thinking about documentary ideas that might be adjacent to my book. But that's in very early stages.

---

Tom Tilley is an Australian television and radio presenter and journalist who is currently a reporter for the news talk show The Project. He was previously the host of daily radio news program Hack on Triple J between 2011 and 2019.

The Riverbend Regulars Series - Dame Quentin Bryce

Q1. What do you think makes Riverbend so special?

There are so many things that make Riverbend so special but really, it's the atmosphere and and the warmth and the welcome. You come in and you know you are going to have a good time and you are going to go home loaded with books, absolutely loaded. That you’ll be here four times longer than you thought you’d be and there is absolutely no chance of not grabbing something.

It's the engagement of people here too, everybody's talking, and you hear people engaging in such interesting conversations. And there are so many little treasures, I'm just sitting here looking at the Imagine and Magic Beach trinkets by my very favourite Alison Lester. I could go on and on, I love to come here, and I always look forward to coming. I could sit at this table all day; this place is so special to me and my family.

Q2. Do you have a favourite memory from Riverbend? How long have you been coming to Riverbend?

Well, I’ve been coming here for a long time but definitely much more regularly since I came back to live in Brisbane after having been away for a number of years. I’ve got so many very happy memories here, times that have been such fun. Book chats with Laura are what first come to mind, just the laughter of those nights and my admiration for the way she prepares so thoroughly. I love the way people who come to the book chats engage, they all feel like old friends. Many many happy memories.

Another truly happy memory is sitting at this table with Michael (late husband) amongst piles of books and being here for 2-3 hours choosing Christmas presents for the little ones.

Q3. How has reading impacted/ influenced your life?

Enormously. It has brought be every sort of emotion. When I look back, I can remember the first time I stayed up really late reading long after everybody else had gone to bed. I can remember that book so clearly; it was about kids living on a farm. It was the first time I had that wonderful feeling of not being able to wait to see what was coming next, it’s really never left me.

Reading is so important to me as a companion. There is nothing like the excitement of getting into a book that you can’t put down. I always think of a book as a best friend.

Q4. What have read recently?

I just finished April in Spain by John Banville… I’m still thinking about the ending of it.

I’ve also just reading the 2021 booker prize, The Promise by Damon Galgut, which requires a much more thoughtful read than the Banville. At one stage I had Banville upstairs and The Promise downstairs!

And of course, The Burnished Sun by Mirandi Riwoe which has won the UQP Quentin Bryce prize, so of course I’m feeling very proud about that! It is such an honour to have a book prize in my name at UQP.

Q5. What’s your favourite book of all time?

The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, I absolute loved that book and there are some quotes I can rattle off that I have used again and again in speeches.