Posts Tagged ‘ writers ’

Interview: Tansy Rayner Roberts

Large Greyscale TRRTansy Rayner Roberts is a fantasy novelist who shares a pair of typing fingers with crime novelist Livia Day. Livia’s first murder mystery, A Trifle Dead, will be released from Twelfth Planet Press on 28 March 2013.

Tansy’s recent releases include Power and Majesty, The Shattered City and Reign of Beasts, the three books of the Creature Court trilogy.  Her first novel, Splashdance Silver, was recently re-issued as an e-book.

With so much going on for Tansy and her alter ego, I thought it was high time I asked her a few searching questions. She repaid me with very thorough answers!

The Shattered City is a terrific book, telling a whole story yet still functioning as the middle book of a trilogy. You said to me you’d set a challenge to yourself to overcome the ‘Middle novel problem’. How do you define that problem, and how did you go about meeting it?

I think there are two sides to the middle novel problem – one is that narrative: the middle act in a three act structure is the one that has to hold everything together, and in the case of epic fantasy, that’s a really long time to keep everyone entertained while you move all the pieces into place for the big finale.  What you don’t want is your reader to think of the middle book as being the interval they had to sit through in order to reach the second half.

The second and perhaps more dramatic problem is one of reader perception – fantasy readers are pretty worn down and cynical these days, and the middle novel of a fantasy trilogy has acquired a poor reputation, I think unfairly.  If the middle novel is soggy or boring or has characters running around in circles for no good reason, then that’s the fault of the author and to some extent the trilogy – it doesn’t mean that middle books everywhere are unnecessary!

I rather like the middle book of a trilogy because it tends to be the one with the most character development, and more room to breathe because the readers know who everyone is now, and aren’t yet all tensed and psyched up for everyone to start being killed off. Which means, of course, that as an author, I can happily screw with their expectations.

In my own case, the secret was in fact to originally plan a four book series, agree to let it be a trilogy instead, and write two books worth of plot into the middle book. This meant paring down a lot of stuff, building up new characters, and sadly resisting the urge to kill off a beloved character as a cliffhanger to a volume. In retrospect, it meant that the middle volume had to be the tightest, and work the hardest, which is actually what I should have been striving for anyway.

After all that, though, Sarah Rees Brennan’s definition of the trilogy is one I now wave at people who suggest middle books are a waste of time. “Book 1 – Set up. Book 2 – Make Out. Book 3 – Defeat Evil.

shattered cityIf you’ll pardon the pun, the concept of Velody being a dressmaker is interwoven through the whole of the Creature Court stories. It’s not just her job, it’s fundamental to who she is and her approach to life, and that sense of creating new things permeates the politics and relationships we see. It is also, though, a catalyst for some pretty destructive plot elements. I suppose I’m asking if you’re a dressmaker and, either way, how that concept got woven into plotting the series.

I’m so not a dressmaker!

I love fabrics and textile arts, and I’ve always been fascinated by them. I’m a quilter and I love to play with the pretties. But my secret downfall is measuring. I sew like I cook (and like I write!) – madly, and without measure. Which means trying to make an actual garment that fits an actual specific shape is totally beyond me.

I have however spent my life surrounded by artists and creative people, and I am well aware that whatever your artistic obsession is, that’s how you see the world. So it was important to me that Velody’s Point of View voice would be wrapped up in her sewing terminology. I did need a friend to read the books over for clanger mistakes, though – and among other things, to make sure Velody could do what she actually needed to be capable of doing, I did shift the industrial level of the world just a tad, to let her have an early Singer sewing machine.

I knew Velody was a dressmaker before I knew what her name was, so it is an integral part of the story, but the most important thing to me was that she was a professional craftswoman, someone who was a practical producer of things, because of the conflict between that life and the insanely frivolous, beautifully dressed Creature Court. Sure, they save the world on a regular basis, but that’s their only contribution to society – in other ways, they’re quite parasitic.

Velody had to have a real job, because one of the essential questions of the book was – how can you save the world and hold down a real job at the same time? I wanted a woman as protagonist who had responsibilities, and valued what she did in the daylight, and had to weigh that up with what she could achieve during the battles of the nox. Not all superheroes are Batman – some have to pay the rent! And the contrast between Velody and Ashiol, who drops every responsibility he’s ever been given, never hurts for money, and constantly lets the people he loves down, because of that single justification that he’s busy saving the world.

Heroing is so often unpaid work in fantasy worlds, to the point where heroes who want to be paid are seen as unworthy of the role, and I wanted to write a fantasy which addressed how problematic that is from a privilege/class/gender point of view. Not that I’m preachy about it, I hope!

Frankly, one of the questions I want to ask is: “How do you manage to be so very, very awesome as a plotter?” but that’s a rubbish question. I still want to ask it, though. Do you do huge, 10,000 word story treatments, like PG Wodehouse used to do with his own convoluted plots? What is the secret of your success?

Thank you for the compliment! I work really hard on my plots, it’s not a magical talent that comes naturally to me. I tend to work fairly free form, with only a general idea where I am going, but a quite clear idea where I want to end up. Mostly I allow my plots to grow out of characters rather than the other way around, because I find characters more interesting.

I also try and stop and check in from time to time, to make sure I’m going in the right direction, and to run the story so far past other eyes to make sure I’m not majorly stuffing up.

I did call upon a spreadsheet or two for this one, but that was mostly to keep track of character history rather than plot threads – there’s a complex back story and the hierarchy of the Creature Court meant I had to know the history of servitude and alliance that each character had been through – the fact that Mars was Livilla’s courtesi once and is now her equal and ally is important to how they behave towards each other, as is the uncomfortable, complex relationship between Ashiol, Garnet and Poet (which you’ll see more of in the third book!).  There are a couple of characters not alive for the entirety of the trilogy who are vital to how my sweeties interact with each other now.

But as for plotting forward… I’m actually a terrible leaper rather than a looker. I know the feel of what I’m going for, and I grope wildly towards it. More than once, I get it wrong, and have to recover fast.

I will admit that when I was writing the third book, I was still building the finale, and in many cases I only knew about particular events days or hours before writing them. Other parts had been planned out from the beginning. But I am a big believer in the idea that if you know the past of your characters in great detail, then their future will unfold with integrity.

Do you have any preferences for a fantasy casting of the novels? I like Johnny Depp for Poet, myself.

I want to say he’s too old, but Johnny Depp, of course, is never too old. You’d definitely need someone with his great capacity for being weird, scary and innocent all at the same time. I have a fondness for the actor who played young Octavian in HBO’s Rome series – I think he could pull off the part, in a few years, which is at least as long as it would take to get something like this off the ground as a production. If not, grab him from a few years ago via. time travel and he can do the flashback scenes.

After seeing all those beautiful stills of the Great Gatsby, I would accept Carey Mulligan as Delphine in a heartbeat. Joel Edgerton or Dan Spielman as Macready. Now I’m just totally rifling through old Secret Life of Us casting…

Nicholas Hoult is too pretty for nearly everything he is in, so I’m sure we could find room for him somewhere.

When it comes to my central protagonists, though, Ashiol and Velody, I can’t cast them at all. I know how they look in my head, but couldn’t match them to anyone real.

TrifleDead-Cover2Your new crime novel, A Trifle Dead, comes out through Twelfth Planet Press later this month, under the pen name Livia Day. It’s set in Hobart and features a pastry chef named Tabitha Darling. Is this a kind of theme of yours? Elevating domestic skills to literary greatness? What is it about the domestic arts you find so appealing?

Partly it’s a fantasy for me – I will never cook as well as Tabitha nor sew as well as Velody. But I do value the domestic arts highly. The combination of practicality with aesthetic pleasure is fascinating – there’s a narrative there, and it’s something I find excellent to make stories out of. Tabitha doesn’t just cook – she uses food to soothe people, and butter them up, and tease them. She even withholds food on some occasions, which proves she is a little bit evil.

I wanted to show what a good detective she would make through her other life – and her other life is about social skills and food. You learn a lot from Tabitha about her work and her attention to detail – that’s there in how she dresses, as well, and organises parties, and is the social centre of her friendships.

But I also think that the domestic arts are not valued as highly as they should be in our society, particularly in our history. There’s that whole bullshit gender idea that something women do is lesser somehow, that it’s compromised, despite the fact that female artists often have less to work with from a resources point of view. As a social historian, I think it’s brilliant that women have often used domestic arts as a foil or a cover for other freedoms.

For instance the whole thing about patchwork being invented out of frugality and the saving of every scrap of fabric, is an insanely beautiful con job that the women of colonial America played on their men – sure, fabric was scarce, but it’s ridiculous to believe that the beautiful quilts they made were the most efficient use of their time. They used the cover of frugality and housewifely virtue to gather in female social groups, to share information and gossip, to entertain each other, and to make beautiful art that also had a significant social value as well as practical use.

And maybe that’s not true at all. Maybe that’s my immense Western 21st century ignorant privilege speaking, that I even think that. But the narrative seems so clear to me – a combination of pretty things and practical function can’t help but tell a story.

Also, my heroines are always more stylish than me. That’s definitely a theme.

This book is set in Hobart: what about Hobart makes it an appealing locale for the story?

Pretty much that I know Hobart inside and out, plus that’s where Tabitha lives, which makes it convenient. It was never a conscious choice.

Having said that, if I had been going out of my way to pick a location for a murder mystery that was going to be on trend in 2013, Hobart would have been a genius choice. Our media is exploding right now with the artistic and tourist boom in Tasmania, and it’s a very creatively exciting place right now.

We’ve been a forgotten corner of the country for a long time, off on our little island, but over the last few years, Tasmania has become a Destination with a capital D. When I first started writing about Tabitha and her world, I remember an earlier version of the manuscript being rejected by an industry professional who couldn’t comprehend my Tasmania at all – she had visited the place once I guess, and was so wrapped up in the narrative of us as a ghostly colonial throwback, all old fashioned sweet shops and “an almost biting sense of cold” that she could not accept a book which showed Hobart as being vibrant and bright and, you know, occasionally had a bit of sunshine.

AS I WRITE THIS WE ARE IN A HEAT WAVE BY THE WAY.

So yes, it’s rather lovely that the Australian narrative about Tasmania has changed and continues to change, just in time for this book to be released. Because the idea that books can’t be set here without being full of sad people and grey skies makes me want to beat my head on a sandstone brick.

splashdanceYour first novel, Splashdance Silver, has just been reprinted. How do you feel you’ve developed as a writer since you won the George Turner Prize with that book? Do you have any advice for your younger self? Does your younger self have any advice for your current self?

Fifteen years, can you believe it? My first novel was published nearly fifteen years ago (the anniversary is in September this year).

I know that I’ve developed a lot as a writer since then because I have had the charming and alarming experience of proofing the books for e-release (Splashdance is available now at Wizards Tower, Weightless Books and via Kindle, the rest are to follow shortly). Aargh! I also learned that my publisher really had stopped caring about me by book 2 because oh my goodness, the errors that made it through to the printed version, they make my head hurt…

My advice to my younger self would simply be not to get ahead of yourself. Selling those books was a brilliant moment of my writing career, but it was not the gateway to a consistent or easy career and there were a few painful bumps and jolts along the way. Then again, if I’d told my younger self that it would be another decade before she had another year of Real Full Time Income from writing, then it probably wouldn’t have good consequences for either of us!

I would like to tell her to get more manuscripts under her belt before having children because OMG what did you do with your time before then?

I’m not sure if that younger self has much useful to offer me in return (though I would totally take any free babysitting she’s offering) but I’m glad her books are back in print. Every now and then I get an email, or meet someone who genuinely loved those books and it’s so nice to hear because I have a tendency to put down my early work, and I shouldn’t. You have to own your history, all of it, and those books were a really important stepping stone for me.

Coming back to them, I still love the characters and the world, even if I would write them differently now. It’s quite fun to think back to where I was when I wrote them, and what I was bouncing off. It’s not until the third book (written more recently) that it really felt like they were MINE, though, rather than that faraway twenty-year-old

What’s coming up next for Tansy and/or Livia?

Livia has to finish the second Cafe La Femme book and get it to the publishers by May, which is exciting. I do love me a deadline. Tansy, meanwhile, is writing a lot of shorter pieces right now, while gearing up for the Next Big Fantasy Series. I have stories due to appear in anthologies such as One Small Step (Fablecroft), Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe (Lethe Press) and Glitter and Mayhem. I’m also working on a bunch of non fiction commissions and will be announcing a new online creative writing course later in the year.

Plus, WORLD FANTASY OMG! I’m going to Brighton in October, and ridiculously excited about it.

**

Check out Tansy’s blog at http://tansyrr.com/, and follow her on Twitter as @tansyrr. You can hear her talking about the publishing industry on the Galactic Suburbia podcast, and about Doctor Who on the Verity! podcast.

  • Get A Trifle Dead by Livia Day, available from 28 March, from Twelfth Planet Press
  • Get Splashdance Silver by Tansy Rayner Roberts for Kindle or  Weightless Books
  • Get Power and Majesty, The Shattered City and Reign of Beasts and other books by Tansy Rayner Roberts on Amazon.com

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, smartphone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

2013
03/29
CATEGORY
creativity
Interviews
writers
writing
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Everything old is new again

xmas carol

My father recently gave me a charming anthology called The Family Book of Best Loved Short Stories, a Doubleday edition from 1954, edited by Leland W Lawrence. He said he’d seized upon it long ago because it had Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King in its contents.

I took it with me on my recent reading holiday because it contained a lot of stories I’d heard of but never read, including the Kipling piece.

While some of the stories in the book didn’t work so well for me – I’m still not sure of the point of Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – it was delightful to be reminded, once more, of the joys of reading stories from earlier eras: especially if  they are stories that you think you know well.

It’s tempting to steer clear of 19th century writing, for example, as the writing style is so much more complex and circumlocutery than contemporary fiction. Perhaps there’s a tendency to think of writing from the era as stodgy and earnest and lacking in humour. But you’d be wrong.

There’s a rakish delight in Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s epistolery Marjorie Daw as two friends exchange letters, and I had to read sections aloud to my other half because they were too funny not to share. I was surprised by the ending (and found a definitely more modern homoerotic subtext that may not have originally been intended). Bret Harte’s The Outcasts of Poker Flat had its devilish moments too, and reminded me of Eric Frank Russell’s later story, Somewhere A Voice.

The greatest treat of the collection, however, was Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s a story we know well – or think we do – due to countless rehashings in Christmas films, holiday specials and the like. The Blackadder Christmas Special is one of my favourite send-ups of the tale!

But on receiving this book, I realised I’d never read the original. And what a revelation it was!

The story has a flow and elegance, and a distinct rhythm to the language. While the language can be archaic, there’s real music in it, not to mention wit, and some truly splendid imagery. The description of roasted chestnuts piled in ‘apoplectic opulence’ captures beautifully the picture of glossy brown nuts bursting open. The reference to a household full of exuberant children – ‘they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty’ – reminded me happily of my childhood, where my four brothers and I conducted ourselves in this manner most holidays.

There’s even the quite adorable description of Scrooge’s small house tucked into the back streets as though ‘it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again’. Not only is it a wonderfully playful, whimsical description, it gives the reader some hope that, miserable as Scrooge is, maybe there was something innocent about him once and, like the house, perhaps he just got lost and forgot the way out again.

It turns out that returning to the source of a well-worn story can lead you to rediscovering gems, and learning why these writers are considered to be Great Writers in the first place. Dickens has more eloquence and humour than I’d realised; O Henry’s Gift of the Magi isn’t anything like as maudlin and sappy as the story is annually portrayed.

I resist making New Year’s Resolutions, but I think this year I’ll make an attempt to read more of the classics and redisc0ver for myself what all the fuss is about.

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, smartphone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

2013
01/02
CATEGORY
creativity
language
writers
writing
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Genrecon: Help! My brain is full!

Well, it’s Saturday afternoon at Genrecon, and my brain is way too full. I need to jump up and down a bit, like packing flour into a container, to let the contents settle and make room for more.  Instead, I’m taking some time out to sit quietly, drink a hot beverage and update my blog. Outside I can see cloudy skies and a gusty wind having its salacious way with the fronds of a palm tree. Ah, Parramatta, you sexy beast, you.

Genrecon is a conference for writers of genre fiction, and Rydges Hotel in Parramatta is full of writers of romance, crime, fantasy, SF and horror (and a lot of other genres besides). It’s also full of editors, publishers (both large and small press) and agents.

So far I’ve attended panels on Writing Effective Fight Scenes conducted by writer and martial artist Simon Higgins, how to make a living as a writer in an era of the dwindling advance, and ways of approaching Villains, Monsters and Cads in your writing. Tomorrow I’m looking forward to panels on The Future of Agenting and The Three Stages of The Writers’s Career.I’ll also be participating in a debate about how approaching plot outlines – I’ll be speaking for the Plotters against the Pantsers (‘flying by the seat of your pants’).

Things I’ve learned so far?

  • Historically, the deadliest ninjas were girls.
  • Adrenalin gives short bursts of power, but there’s a cost for it.
  • Even big, tough men can cry if they are unexpectedly punched in the face.
  • Anyone who is in writing to get rich is both hilarious and deluded. (Or JK Rowling.)
  • Almost all writers get income from something other than their writing. If they’re lucky, they get it through public speaking and workshops.
  • When creating villains, it’s a great idea to take something traditional and then approach it from a different perspective.
  • While the villain is the hero of his/her own story, the gothic anti-hero knows that they are the villain of their own story, and must overcome his/her own flaws.
  • (I think BBC Sherlock is may be a gothic antihero in this sense.)
  • Traditionally, female villains are either thwarted in love or trying to make their son Emporer. Surely there are other motivations out there.
  • Kim Wilkins feels there are not enough Vikings in literature. I find myself suddenly agreeing with her.

Other things I’ve gained, outside the panels, is that it’s wonderful to spend time swapping war stories and successes with fellow writers; that it’s encouraging and even necessary for your own motivation to hear people say they like what you do and to tell others how much you like their work too.

Writers generally work in such isolation that it’s a huge relief to talk to others about their writing habits, approaches that work (or not) for them, to see that others struggle, and others succeed, so you know you’re not alone and that success is possible.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from an industry conference for writers, but so far I’m finding it intensely stimulating, challenging, inspirational and reassuring. The Queensland Writers Centre has done a great job of organising guests, panels, workshops and an opportunity for writers to talk to agents. Bless them all!

(As an aside, I had the best street conversation ever on my walk to the venue today: some kids asked me if I’d seen a goat. Yes. A goat. Yes, I did ask twice, to check they meant ‘goat’ and not ‘coat’. Having ascertained that indeed, a goat was what they meant, I confessed that I had not seen one, but if I should, where should I direct the beast? “To the school” they said, pointing. As both a writer and as a human being, I was very disappointed not to see the goat between the school and the conference venue. I sincerely hope the horror, crime or thriller writers in attendance were not responsible for its disappearance. If the romance writers were involved, I definitely don’t want to know.)

2012
11/03
CATEGORY
conventions
Events
writers
writing
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Lessons in Language: Eponymous

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I would like my name to go down in history as a standard word in the English language, despite the inherent pitfalls in the idea.

Several people made entertaining suggestions for what my name might mean, if the circumstances were ever right for it.

  • Alan Baxter suggested: To narrelle (v) – to worry existentially about the mark you leave in history.  narreller (noun) She can’t stop writing because she’s such a nareller.
  • Seantheblogonaut said: To narrelle (v) – to approach someone with exuberance and excitement on a certain topic, a pleasant onslaught.  He was narrelled into a corner, overcome by the young man’s exuberance.
  • George Ivanoff said:  To narrelle — to make a great show of having a difference of opinion with someone, only to later discover that you actually share the same opinion. Especially in reference to Doctor Who.

I promised a copy of Walking Shadows to the entry that made me laugh the hardest, and I have to say all three of these people know me rather well! But the winner has to be Sean, because that’s pretty much a perfect way to be remembered for a slightly scary thing I do but in a nice way. :)

In that last post, I also cheekily suggested that a carmody (noun) was a period of 13 years between one instalment of a book series and the next. (I hope Isobelle Carmody doesn’t mind…)

Of course, a few more ideas then came to me.

For example, I suspect that Tara Moss will have a big impact on the language.  ‘Moss’ will be an adjective meaning ‘elegant and articulate’. However, the phrasal verb ‘to moss up‘ means for a writer ‘to attempt to become more elegant and articulate (perhaps by scrubbing off the worst of the ink stains), but not quite getting there’.  Using both of these words in a sentence:  Narrelle mossed up for the television interview but she had to face it, she would never really be moss.

Hazel Edwards is going to make her mark as well, as a noun:  hazel: an entrepreneurial writer with a generous spirit.  As Stefan began his career, he knew that one day he wanted to be a hazel.

On Twitter, @angryaussie and I were talking about what gaiman might be (surely Neil Gaiman will become part of the language, if he isn’t already). @angryaussie thought ‘to gaiman (v): To reimagine existing mythologies in completely new ways. (see Sandman and American Gods)’. I thought a gaiman (noun) might be a writer who successfully creates work across multiple genres (books, comics, films and tv scripts, songs and so on). I’d quite like to be a gaiman one day.

Of course, it wasn’t enough for me to get folks to define me in a future lexicon, no! I invited some other writers to suggest what their names might mean, if they entered the language. Here is what a few brave and creative people sent to me.

Trudi Canavan: to be trudied is to have whacky homebaked cookies brought to your ‘do’.

Gillian Polack: A Polack, of course, is what Hamlet’s father killed on the ice, so a gillianpolack is someone who lives in many timelines, with a deep understanding of the foodways of each but who has a secret fear of Shakespeare.

Alan Baxter: I can’t stand it when people are douches and get away with it because no one will ever call them on it. I always do. So maybe “alaning” someone could be calling out their bad behaviour or bullshit.

Rowena Cory Daniells: I would like my name to mean: rowena… One who brings Calm

Kaaren Warren: I’m hoping that to warren will mean to burrow into the subconcious leaving disquieting deposits behind.

George Ivanoff: to ivanoff — to insert a Doctor Who reference into a piece of your own writing. He’s ivanoffed twice in his new novel.
(And yes, I have ivanoffed once in Gamers’ Quest, once in Gamers’ Challenge, and thus far twice in Gamers’ Rebellion [which I’m currently writing]).

Helen Lowe: a helenlowe: just one umlaut away from a lion.  (This suggestion comes via Helen’s partner, Andrew Robins)

If you want to play the game, feel free to leave a comment defining your name in the future lexicon!

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, iPhone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

2012
09/17
CATEGORY
language
writers
writing
2 comments

Interview: Rowena Cory Daniells

Rowena Cory Daniells’ latest book, The Price of Fame, has just been released through Clan Destine Press. Set in St Kilda in both the 1980s and the present day, it’s a paranormal crime thriller, engaging both music and painting in the unravelling of the murder mystery.

The storytelling is vivid, the characters strong and the distinctive sense of place combines with a slow-building creepiness to make The Price of Fame a compelling read. And it contains so many of my favourite things: Melbourne, mystery and rock and roll!

To celebrate the release of the book, I asked RC Daniells a few questions about the book, music and art.

Q: The Price of Fame is set in St Kilda: what relationship do you have with that town?

When I moved to Melbourne at the age of eighteen, I ended up living in St Kilda and stayed there (in several different flats) for the next twelve years. I loved Acland Street with its continental cake shops. I used to wander along the Esplanade to look at the craft markets and I used to go for early morning jogs through the Blessington Street Gardens.

Q: The Price of Fame combines crime, the paranormal and rock music. What do you think makes those three concepts go together?

Perhaps I’m weird but to me this seems perfectly normal. We lived in a grand old mansion that had been turned into flats. Below us were the members of a punk rock band who would practise all hours of the night and have noisy fights. One of our friends was a taxi driver who used to pick up street kids and try to help them. I was reading a lot of SF, fantasy and horror. It seemed only natural to combine all these elements. I wrote the early narrative thread of the novel when I was twenty-three, then added the contemporary thread more recently.

I should say here that the people in this book are invention. Like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, they are an amalgamation of lots of people, fused together to drive a narrative.

Rowena and Lindy Cameron

Rowena (right) and Clan Destine publisher Lindy Cameron

Q: What music influenced the book?

Suffering through nights of trying to sleep while the band rehearsed. Someone told me they were The Boys Next Door (later known as The Birthday Party). I don’t know if they were, but I do know they were doing the whole Punk Rock thing. There was a vibrant music scene happening in Melbourne at the time. My husband Daryl was going to hotels like The Prince of Wales where bands like The Models, The Ears, Midnight Oil and Men at Work were playing.  He says if you want to get a feel for what it was like, watch the movie Dogs in Space, directed by Richard Lowenstein, staring Michael Hutchence.

Q: Does music influence your writing generally?

I’ve done some surveys with writers on this topic and I’ve found about 75% of writers are music oriented. They’ll play certain songs to get them in the mood for certain books, even make up a play list to listen to. Music is powerful. It goes straight to the hind-brain and draws on our emotions so it’s not surprising authors use it to help them find the ‘zone’ when they’re writing.

The proportion of writers who are visually based is much smaller. I’m one of the visuals. I can go to the art gallery and come out feeling like I’ve reached a zen state. I dream vividly in full colour (sometimes with a sound track, sometimes with people singing in rhyme. The night zombies did a 1940s song and dance routine down the street was pretty amazing). But I’m not a writer who will make up a play list for my books.

Q: Do you have favourite music to listen to while you write, or do you prefer to write in silence?

Looks like I’ve answered this one. When I was illustrating, (I used to illustrate children’s books and I painted super-realist), I would play classical music. But when I write I don’t seek out music. If something is playing in the background with lyrics, I find the words get in the way of what I’m writing.

Q: What artists do you find most interesting/stimulating or are just your favourite? 

Ahh, artists. You can hear me drawing a big breath. There are so many, I’m sure to forget a few.

There’s George de la Tour (1592, 1652), who did amazing things with light. He brings the intimacy of a life lived by candle light to us five hundred years later.

There’s Joseph Leyendecker, who was a homosexual immigrant to the US, yet he shaped the way US citizens thought of themselves and created the ‘look’ for a generation. You’ll recognise his work from the many Post covers and advertisements he did.

There’s the Pre-Raphaelites who reacted against the establishment until they became establishment. Their woman are beautiful, romantic and haunted. (I’ve blogged about them here).

There’s Maxfield Parrish with his saturated colours and idyllic settings.

I’ve blogged about Art Nouveau and Art Deco in the past because both these styles inspire me.

Sigh. Just writing about them makes me happy.

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, iPhone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

2012
08/29
CATEGORY
Interviews
writers
writing
7 comments

Clunes Back to Booktown Festival

Sherlock Holmes, between Erotica and Cats. I suspect the bookshop is using slash fiction as an indexing model…

I’d heard that Clunes and books were on intimate terms, but I didn’t really know what to expect when I showed up on the first weekend in May for the Clunes Back to Booktown Festival. Well, apart from lots of bookstores and a program of speaking events.

Clunes, north of Melbourne and tucked conveniently between Ballarat and Daylesford, is a lovely little historic town.  It was the first Victorian town in which gold was discovered in the 19th century, and after a lull it was used as a location for both Mad Max and, later, Heath Ledger’s Ned Kelly film.

Now it’s the newest member of the International Organisation of Booktowns, the first in the southern hemisphere.

In its workaday clothes, Clunes boasts a number of second-hand and collectible book dealerships, mainly open on weekends. (It also has a surprisingly interesting bottle museum, a gold museum and a main street that looks like a time warp to 1875.)

During the Back to Booktown Festival, however, Clunes transforms into a bibliophile’s paradise.  This town’s normal population of around 1000 swells to about 15000 over the weekend.  A program of talks presents guest speakers and literary topics for the discerning reader. This year’s guests included Alice Pung (Unpolished Gem) and Gina Perry (Behind the Shock Machine).

Alongside the regular bookshops, shops along the main road and in the town hall throw wide their doors and become temporary bookshops, selling books both new and second hand. Several antiquarian dealers set up shop as well, and vast tents appear in the street filled with tables teetering with tantalising volumes. Of course, there are also food tents, activities for kids, a bandstand with a brass band playing unlikely hits from Abba and costumed folks to entertain the revellers.

Mostly, though, it’s packed to the gills with booklovers. We shuffle together, tightly packed, through the wares on sale (many of which are displayed in no particular order, so we move slowly, picking through the boxes for that one treasure we need to fill a gap in our collection). It’s crowded and bustling, but good natured.  We’re all steeped in the joy of being in a whole town devoted to books.

All of these old books, some of them quite dusty and stained, are strangely exotic. They are musty paper doorways into other times; not just the worlds of the stories they contain, but the worlds in which those books, as objects, were new. These old hardbacks and their dust covers remind me of the scent of my grandparents sun room, which was full of books like these.

I only just restrained myself from buying old copies of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger series, just because the books looked so marvellously old and of their time. (I did succumb and get Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters for only $5 because how could I resist?) That’s certainly the reason I picked up Lola Montez’s Arts of Beauty, a 1982 hardcover reprint of her 1858 guide to the Art of Fascinating.

My favourite buy of the weekend is a 1948 Australian edition of Georgette Heyer’s Beauvallet, not because of the story (I’m yet to decide if I like Heyer) but because of the inscription.

This is an Elizabethan romance set on the high seas, with the fiery Dominica stamping her little foot and attempting to resist the charming advances of the roguish English pirate, Nicholas Beauvallet. Pirates! Bodices! Star-crossed Lovers! Haughty ladies having tantrums! Spanish booty, of all kinds!

The inscription reads: ‘To John, Xmas 1949’.

And so begins a whole mysterious back story! Why did someone buy a romance book for John? Did they not realise it was a bodice-ripper and thought ‘Mmm, pirates, that’ll suit a boy’. Or was John a mad keen Heyer fan? Did that boy love a high adventure romance? Did he rather fancy Beauvallet himself? Was he disappointed with the not-quite-right gift from a family member? Did he secretly love it? Am I being too limited in my interpretation of Heyer readers?

The simple contrast of the style of book with the name of the recipient sets up a dizzying array of potential backstories for this objet de livre.

I can’t help spinning stories, and this simple hardcover has a secret history which I’ll never know. That’s a little sad, but it’s sort of thrilling too. The world is full of small, secret stories.

Whatever the future holds for storytelling formats, maybe these old hardbacks, these mundane yet magical objects, will survive, because there’s more to them than the story printed on the pages.

And thanks go to: Tourism Victoria and VLine who arranged our travel and accommodation for the weekend. Keebles and The Dukes were lovely guest houses, and thanks to the train that now goes to Clunes, I’ll be able to read my booty on the way home.

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, iPhone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

2012
05/06
CATEGORY
writers
writing
7 comments

F2M: the boy within – The book that scared libraries

Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy

In mid-2010, I reviewed a fabulous book by Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy called F2M: the boy within. It’s a warm, moving coming of age story about transgendered Skye who is becoming his true self, Finn. Co-author Ryan himself transitioned from female to male in his 20s. He brought that experience and courage to the collaboration with his long-time friend and respected children’s author, Hazel Edwards. Together they have produced a work that is both an excellent story and an important insight into what life for transgendered people and their family and friends. F2M: the boy within is also about friendship, punk rock, secrets and truth.

Bloggers wrote about it, and psychologists and gender counsellors have picked it up. In talking about the reaction to the book, Edwards and Kennedy noted “We assumed that YA librarians would welcome the fictional opportunity to encourage ‘distanced’ discussion of gender, including gay issues although our Skye-Finn was not gay. Suicide occurs in trans communities, and maybe we could save a few lives by reducing ignorance and fear of the unknown. Suicides also occur in gay communities, due to family, religious and social pressures. Maybe our book could prevent ignorance contributing to further deaths.”

Unfortunately, regardless of how sensitively, intelligently and well written it is, it seems that libraries are frightened of F2M: the boy within. Ford Street Publishing was willing to bring this book to the world, but school and public libraries, spooked by the spectre of controversy, have shunned it.  The risk of backlash from conservative groups has kept the book from shelves that would otherwise normally carry Hazel Edwards’ books. Literary awards have likewise overlooked it, in spite of  Edwards’ long association and regular appearance on such lists.

Recently, I spoke to Hazel about the book and its reception.

Narrelle Harris: Hazel, you and Ryan have known each other for a long time. What made you decide to do this project together?

Hazel Edwards: I knew Ryan as a family friend from about age 9 and had kept in touch across his adolescence and early twenties. I enjoy his mind and sense of humour.  He is around the age of my adult children. I’d also done some gender research in connection with a medical project about children and was aware that transitioning  was a controversial subject about which little had been written in fiction. Even the appropriate  vocabulary ( or pronoun) was a challenge.

Since Ryan is NZ- based, I hadn’t seen him since his ftm transition, but he came to Melbourne for a computer conference in connection with his work. He looked so much happier. Simultaneously we decided to co-write, via Skype and e-mail , a YA novel utilising his experience, but it was not to be autobiographical.

f2m The Boy Within

Ryan had experienced what it would have taken me years to research. As a published author, I was able to place our book proposal with Ford Street Publishing and gain a contract before we started the intensive year-long writing and about 30 drafts. I knew Ryan was a hard worker. But he was also far more IT skilled than me. It has been an equal collaboration. We were aware that ours might be the first  ftm YA novel internationally co-written by an ftm, but we also wanted to write ‘a good read’  of a ‘coming of age’ story. Thus, I had to learn punk music, another area in which Ryan is far more skilled.

Fiction provides the opportunity to discuss issues, at a distance, removed from the individual. Family can be given a book like F2M: the boy within as a ‘gentle’ introduction  and an informed  way of  handling prejudices

Narrelle: F2M: the boy within has received excellent reviews, but it has also met with reluctance from libraries and schools. How do you feel about how the book has been received?

Hazel: We knew the subject would threaten, especially libraries and schools who fear even one parental complaint. Often it is the anticipatory anxiety about potential complaints that cripples possible exposure to a ‘mainstream’ story where the subject is controversial, but not our handling of it. We have no ‘bad’ language. But we do have the opportunity to learn a new vocabulary and diplomacy about how gender issues might be phrased. Not just whether you say ‘He’ or ‘She’.

I have been shocked by the ‘ignoring’ by groups whom I would previously have  expected to be open minded. Some of the reactions have been aggressively negative, and they haven’t even read the book.

I now realise how courageous Ryan has been in co-writing.

Fan art by Rooster Tails

Narrelle: Given the difficulties you’ve encountered getting the book to its readership, do you have any regrets?

Hazel: No.  If we’ve saved one life, it’s been worthwhile. And if we’ve enabled readers to view from our 18 year old character’s perspective for the length of the novel and beyond, it’s been worthwhile.

We knew that some readers would expect F2M: the boy within to be like my picture books for young children like the cake-eating hippo series. It isn’t. But I have also co-written a psyche text on Difficult Personalities , including sociopaths, and written of scientific material from an Antarctic expedition.  An author can write in multiple fields. What matters is how well they write.

I also have growing admiration for some of the volunteer gender counsellors I’ve met. My regret is that I haven’t known about some of these issues earlier.

Narrelle: What is the best response you’ve had to F2M: the boy within so far? The worst?

Hazel: Ryan has received poignant e-mails about how significant this book has been to individuals and how they wished it had been available earlier. I’ve had much favourable contact from parents of gay children (even though our character is not gay) who are grateful for the opportunity to open family discussion via the novel. Being listed for the 2011 White Ravens, top 250  children’s and YA books internationally. Word of mouth recommendations  are slow but genuine and significant. Being recommended via the Safe Schools Coalition was helpful.

My worst experience was at a literary festival  where a student from a Catholic school reported that his teacher had put ‘that disgusting’ book and the brochure  in the bin, in front of all the students. Being ignored or ‘left off’ lists where my works would normally be included, thus depriving readers of the opportunity to even know the book existed.

Narrelle: Since both public and school libraries have been reluctant to risk controversy by getting it in, what do you think the best way if for people to get hold of it? Would it help if people specifically asked their library for it?

Hazel: Yes to all of the above. And our websites have material and links which are useful for Book Discussion Groups. One soccer parents book discussion group read and recommended it.

I still think this is the most important of all my 200 books, and hope it gets a fair reading in the future. It is not just bibliotherapy about gender, it’s a novel novel. At times, Ryan has had to make difficult decisions about refusing some kinds of highly paid magazine interviews which wished to concentrate on his private life rather than the book. That takes courage too.  Working with such a courageous man as co-author has been the other bonus of this novel.

**

If you think anyone can benefit from F2M: the boy within, whether they are a transgendered person, their family or friends, or just people you think would enjoy a coming of age story with a difference, you can get F2M: the boy within via the following links.

Ask your library to order it in for you or recommend it to your book group.

You can download a study guide here or from Hazel Edwards’ website.

Read more:

2011
10/31
CATEGORY
e-books
Interviews
writing
25 comments

SheKilda Thoughts

The SheKilda Women Crime Writers’ Convention is over. Most of us hope it will not be ten years until the next one, though perhaps the convenors may need a longer break. Lindy Cameron, perhaps unwisely, suggested she might be ready to do it all again in five years. We’re still waiting to see if she ends up stabbed to death multiple stiletto heels, Murder on the Orient Express-style, by the aghast committee.

The attendees are not aghast at the prospect. In fact, we’re rather keen to do it all again next year, no waiting! As I wrote in my previous post, I certainly found the conference rewarding, inspiring and heaps of fun. I also learned a few things and had a few insights.

In the Chills and Thrills: The Why of Crime panel, writers spoke about why that began to write crime and why they chose the kinds of stories they wrote about. Talking about ‘chills and thrills’ in this context, I realised that, for me, chills referred to the fear experienced when our characters (or we ourselves) become powerless, unable to protect ourselves or our loved ones from harm. Being at the mercy of things we cannot control or evade, especially if those things are unjust and unforgiving, is very chilling. The thrills then come in finding the courage, strength and determination to stand up to the fear. Personally or in our characters, taking on the threat (and hopefully beating it!) definitely provides a sense of thrilling energy to me.

The Bending the Rules panel on crime that crosses with other genres, like SF, fantasy and horror, offered a few other interesting ideas. Mariane Delacourt (who also writes as Marianne de Pierres) pointed out that a crime story provides a natural narrative drive for any genre. I felt that the nature of a crime story, which gives the character an excuse for poking into different levels of society and explores transgression from society’s norms, gives a writer a great framework for exploring alien or fantastical societies, their ethics and their social layers.

That panel also veered off onto a discussion on the role of sex and violence in stories and what might be ‘too much’. Generally, the panellists felt that as long as the scenes served to explore or extend the story, you wrote what you needed to write. I mentioned my issue of the porn-to-plot ratio too. I’m no prude, but I prefer more plot than porn. If the porn is also plot, it counts as plot, I guess. It was an entertaining discussion, anyway.

Finally, Meg Vann’s Just the Facts, Ma’am panel on researching crime novels was a terrific session, providing ideas for the different kinds of crime books and how each type needs different kinds of research. A police procedural needs different types of information and detail than a whodunnit. One insight Vann gave was that for stories involving investigative technology, writers really need to be absolutely on top of all the current developments and then predicting where those will be five years ahead.

Another broad lesson learned was how every writer has a different process. Some plot out a story in very detailed story boards long before they start writing. Others totally wing it from the start. Some research for months before they start writing, others write a first draft and then decide what needs more detail. In the end, it seems there is no ‘right way’ to write – only the way that is right for each individual author.

Of course, this is just a little taste of what I gleaned from the conference. Thank you again to the organisers, volunteers and guests who made it such a memorable and energising experience.

2011
10/10
CATEGORY
writing
2 comments

Saturday at SheKilda

It’s been a decade in the making, but Sisters in Crime has brought its second SheKilda crime convention to the good – and slightly nefarious – people of Melbourne. For two and a half days, women and men (but mostly women) are gathering at Rydges hotel in Carlton to discuss, disect and plot crime and crime writing.

On this Sunday morning, I am multi-tasking at a panel on Sidekicks and Duos, on the role of partners and helpers in crime fiction. Later today I’ll be exploring Crime Travel and something called Just the Facts, Ma’am. I can’t recall what that one’s about, so it’ll be fun to find out. That’s aside from all the other fascinating, concurrent panels I can’t attend without the assistance of Hermoine’s time turner.

Friday night’s cocktail part has already thrown me together with fabulous, smart, talented, wise and funny women who are generous with their time and advice. So clearly the convention has started as it means to continue.

Saturday morning’s plenary session introduced us to SheKilda’s three overseas guests. (SheKilda features a lot of guests – over 70 Australian writers!) Margie Orford (South Africa), Vanda Symon (New Zealand) and Shamini Flint (Singapore) all have different approaches that spring very much from the places they call home and widened my view of the world in a single one-hour session. Flint is also so charming and hilarious I’ve broken my No New Books embargo to pick up the first of her Inspector Singh series.

Actually, I’ve broken my No New Book embargo for six books so far, inspired by the women I’m meeting and hearing. I have had to construct a psychological time bubble around these books so that they have, in my head, been purchased before the new book embargo began. I have a lot of time bubbles of that nature, as witnessed by the still-growing pile of books in my book stash. (See, I still read paperbacks, even though I love my e-reader.)

I have bought The Trojan Dog by Dorothy Johnston, a crime novel set in Canberra. Dorothy spoke on a panel exploring how the panelists came to crime writing in the first place. I also bought Scarlet Stiletto: The Second Cut, a collection of previous winners of the Scarlet Stiletto awards. These are the crime writers of tomorrow and I want to see who to look out for. Karen Healey’s The Shattering was always on my list, after the marvellous Guardian of the Dead, and seeing her on a YA Crime panel reminded me to grab it quick.

Arabella Candellabra was co-written by a couple of terrific Sisters In Crime, Mandy Wrangles and Kylie Fox, and published by Lindy Cameron’s Clandestine Press, so how could I say no? Finally, after being on a panel with Tara Moss, and being utterly charmed by her intelligence, wit, thoughtfulness and general loveliness – and then learning her new book has vampires in it – naturally, I’ve picked up The Blood Countess.

This blog wasn’t supposed to be ‘What I bought at SheKilda’, but perhaps it best shows how inspired I am by this event. There are so many more books I am adding to my Kindle wish list because these writers all have a unique voice and a textured story to tell. I hear that they go through the same challenges, crises of confidence, oxygen-giving breakthroughs and joy of defeating the tyranny of the blank page that I do.

These shared experiences, leading to such different stories, remind me that persistance, imagination and hard work will see writers through some difficult times. They remind me, too, the important of mentoring and share your own experiences with others. No-one can write your book for you, but they can shine a light on the process. You can see that others have survived those trials of doubt, of stealing time from your other responsibilities and of the inevitable rejection slips.

So, my sisters (and brothers) in crime at SheKilda and in the writing world in general: thank you all for your blogs, your panels, your corridor conversations and your books.

I am looking forward to my Sunday. If you have time, you can slip on over to Rydges and get tickets to individual sessions too. Look up the program at www.shekilda.com.au

* *

The conference is over. Read some of my thoughts on the overall experience.

2011
10/09
CATEGORY
writing
3 comments
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