1. What did you like reading when you were a teenager?
Back in the dark ages when I was a teenager, books weren’t actually invented. Well, that’s not quite true but there wasn’t really anything that could be called Young Adult fiction except ‘jolly hockey-sticks’ boarding school books for girls – a bit like Harry Potter but without the three-headed dogs – and rip-roaring adventure books for boys. None of which were written by Australian authors for Australian teenagers. You read The Secret Garden (about twenty times if you were me) or Anne of Green Gables and when you ran out of those you read your parents’ Readers Digest Condensed Book collection – adult books but with all the dirty bits taken out. I also loved books like Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth & Me, Tom’s Midnight Garden and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds.
2. Tell us about an embarrassing moment from when you were at school
My whole school life was one big embarrassing moment. I was always in trouble because I was a total smarty pants and I had a big mouth. Apparently I was also famous for having the shortest uniform in the whole school. One year we did a production of ‘South Pacific’ and I played Liat, the young Tonkinese girl who falls in love with Lieutenant Cable. Which would have been fine except that Lieutenant Cable was played by this guy that I thought was totally gorgeous and we had a scene together where he sang this very romantic song to me and I was supposed to listen shyly and smile occasionally. However, when we actually performed the show I got so carried away ‘acting’ that I was in love with Lieutenant Cable that I leaned across and kissed him in the middle of the song – which we hadn’t rehearsed and which surprised him so much that he stopped singing and just stood there looking at me wondering what the hell I was doing.
3. Did you enjoy school? What was your favourite subject?
I did enjoy school most of the time – apart from the odd sadistic teacher (actually quite a lot now I think about and definitely one or two who should have been locked up!) and that special someone who decided for no particular reason that they hated you on sight and were going to persecute you every day for the rest of your school life. You know who you are!
I loved English – and I was lucky enough to have some really fantastic teachers who encouraged me to read new books, and to write and to love words and language for their own sake. We also had a really good drama department – and of course I was in the school musical every year – but I also loved ancient history. I’d like to write a historical novel one day.
4. What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?
I took a writing course at uni with Alex Miller and he told me that the only way to write anything was to treat it like a job. You get up in the morning and you sit down at the computer and you write for eight hours. Part of what you write each day is always going to be rubbish but it’s the routine that pays off in the long run.
5. When did you start writing?
I’ve been writing all my life in one way or another. I wrote hundreds of short stories & plays when I was a kid – all of them rubbish – but hey you have to start somewhere. When I went to drama school, I wrote comedy skits and revues which we would put on at the end-of-year performances – and actually I think some of them weren’t bad – and I continued to write performance pieces as a professional actor because it was a great way to ensure that you actually had work. I think I probably started to write a novel twenty times before I actually did it. It took me a long time to figure out that to write something as sustained as a novel you actually just have to keep writing. The penny dropped when I went back to university and completed an honours degree in English and then decided to go on and do a PhD in 19th Century Australian Writing. Academic writing has to be so precise. Your research must be accurate and your logic flawless – and to get complex ideas across succinctly you have to choose exactly the right words. Ironically, I never finished the PhD but it taught me the skills I needed to finally write a novel – persistence, discipline & precision.
6. What are the best and worst things about being a writer?
The best thing about being a writer is that you get to make things up. It’s a great profession for control freaks because you have total control over this world that you create. You literally have the power of life and death over your characters.
The worst thing is the sense of isolation – necessary for creating anything – but difficult for a social person like me. It’s one of the reason’s why I love having another job – I work part-time as a theatrical agent – because I get to interact with other people and lots of young people in particular. I think I’d go quietly nuts if I didn’t have that.
7. Where do you write?
I write at home in my study. I have a lap-top so theoretically I could write anywhere, but I find that having a space dedicated to writing is much more conducive to actually getting something done. It’s part of having a writing routine and being disciplined about your craft. I’m always very envious of people who say they can go and sit in their local café and write. How they can hear themselves think over the noise of the espresso machine and the radio set slightly off the station, I’ve never figured out.
8. What piece of advice would you offer to a new writer?
Firstly - just write! Writing is not so different to playing sport or a musical instrument. If you don’t practice you don’t get any better. You need to develop your writing muscles.
Secondly – read! Read for pleasure once but then go back and read again so that you can figure out what makes a particular book work. How is the plot presented? What imagery does the writer use? Relate what you read to your own work and set yourself writing exercises to see if you can achieve similar effects.