Author

Anne Skyvington

5 Further Publishing Facts

NIELSEN BOOKSCAN

In December 2000 the situation for publishers began to change a little with the establishment of Nielsen BookScan, a local affiliate of US polling company A.C. Nielsen. Nielsen tracks book sales by barcode from around eighty-five per cent of all retail outlets selling books in Australia. Its main customers are publishing houses which, for an annual subscription fee of up to $100,000, are regularly emailed spreadsheets showing the best-selling books. These include details such as actual copies sold, average selling price and publisher across 140 genre categories and sub-categories.

Of the top 132 best-selling titles listed in the first two pages of the Nielsen top 5000 list for the five weeks ending 1 January 2005, 65 originated from Australia. Of these only four were literary novels: Tim Winton’s The Turning at number 9, Cloud Street at number 65, and Dirt Music at number 104. Winton is unique in Australian publishing, having both a literary and a large popular audience.

This is another problem for writers such as myself whose work might straddle the literary and commercial fields.

THE RISE OF THE GENRE PARADIGM

The appearance of genre fiction in bestseller lists with the advent of BookScan also granted it a new cultural and economic respectability. Genre fiction is highly author-and formula-driven and attracts reader loyalty, while its authors tend to generate new titles on a regular, often annual, basis, making genre fiction far more reliable than literary fiction from a publisher’s list-building point of view. The authors of popular fiction are also more likely to be granted celebrity status than literary authors, maximising their promotional potential.

The availability of data from companies such as BookScan means that publishers, for the first time, have access to accurate, up-to-the-minute sales figures that are transparent across the industry. No longer is it possible to fudge sales.

THE DECLINE OF LITERARY

Of the recent changes in Australian book publishing, among the most striking is the decline of the literary paradigm.

By the early 2000s almost no major Australian publisher was aggressively seeking or promoting new literary fiction at the forefront of their lists, and literary fiction was no longer the cornerstone of the industry’s self-perception. In the late 1990s Penguin Books, which had been at the forefront of the ‘cultural renaissance’ of the 1960s to 1980s period, first dropped its poetry list.

Literary fiction will otherwise become the preserve of independent or small publishers and self-publishing. The consolidation of publishing has resulted in a counter-movement from established independent publishers such as Text Publishing and Scribe, who have sought to exploit the potential of niche-audience mid-list titles as profit-making prospects with ‘a long tail’. Midlist is a term in the publishing industry which refers to books which are not bestsellers but are strong enough to economically justify their publication and likely, further purchases of future books from the same author.

In 2004 Text formed a partnership with Scottish publisher Canongate to maximise the value of both lists. New small presses such as Vulgar and Giramondo attempt to offer a home and space for aesthetic freedom an experimentation for mid-list authors disenchanted with mainstream publishers, such as Brian Castro now at Giramondo.

Confronted by the new market conditions, literary writers have begun to look at ways of reinventing themselves, either turning to a commercial model or else looking overseas.

The increasing difficulty of getting published has fostered an underground push for change and a search for new paradigms, reflected in the rise of alternative literary festivals, a live reading circuit, and self-publishing through make-your-own imprints such as Vandal Press and Cardigan Press both collectives that publish short story collections. Such developments point to how literature might become a do-it-yourself culture that will operate, for the time being, at least partly outside mainstream publishing culture, having cleared itself a space for experimentation and the development of new paradigms.

But publishers say there is no harder sell in the world of books these days than literary fiction.

OTHER OUTLETS

Meanwhile, writers around the world can bypass the traditional publishing process if they wish, and self-publish their work, enjoying unprecedented freedom and autonomy in delivering their work directly to readers.

You create an account with KDP and upload your manuscript, cover images and other required details onto Amazon’s KDP platform. https://kdp.amazon.com/ where you will find all the information you require for setting up and proceeding.

ONE SECRET IS the amount Amazon reports paying out in 2019 to indie publishers and authors through its Kindle Unlimited subscription program. That brings Amazon’s total payout for self-published authors up to $2.2 billion since 2012 when it launched this “pay as you read” program that’s much loved by readers around the world.

KINDLE UNLIMITED

Very few indie authors know what Kindle Unlimited is all about!

Kindle Unlimited is a ‘lending library’ that helps readers discover your books in dozens of countries, including the US, UK, Germany, Canada, Mexico, and beyond. Authors are paid by the number of pages read instead of outright eBook purchases.

Kindle Unlimited is just one of many great sales and marketing opportunities available at Amazon, and self-published authors have found great success using them to launch and promote their eBooks.

Establish a price for your book and list your book’s genre and categories. Choose keywords so readers can find your book, and supply more information, called metadata, about your book.

Your book, digital or printed, will go live on Amazon just a few hours after you’ve uploaded it correctly. Millions of potential readers can now find your book. It’s part of a relatively new distribution process called Print on Demand or POD. Amazon sends out royalty payments to authors each month of 12 to 20 percent of the sales price for the physical POD books and 70% for the eBook sales.

You need an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) to distribute your book through retailers globally. Amazon can provide one for you, or you can purchase your own from Thorpe-Bowker Identifier Services https://www.myidentifiers.com/

KBoards is a website devoted to all things Kindle. They’re a small family operation, but they’ve become the largest independent Kindle user site on the web.

April 1, 2020 0 comment

Publishing

5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing

Someone said it takes a village to bring up a child; it’s the same for writing a novel. This was certainly true for me.

Experts say you should write about what you know, so I wrote about my parents’ love story, set in country New South Wales, as Australia was exiting from the Second World War. This was a time when big changes were happening in this part of the world.

I probably showed my work too soon, and to the wrong person/people early on. However, I found an excellent manuscript assessor, and finalised the novel, utilising skills I’d developed over years of creative writing practice and research. I’d also learnt, after long hours in feedback groups, how to self edit my work, both at the macro level and at the micro and middle levels.

I then taught myself how to upload an ebook to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. [KDP]. It proved to be tricky at first.

Going Back to the 2000s

As Amazon released its first eReader, the kindle, in 2007, I became increasingly interested in the slowly emerging ‘Internet’, and the opportunities it brought to writers everywhere. Just as I was experimenting with all things digital, I joined a writers’ group at Waverley Library and ended up volunteering as a creative writing convenor in 2009. My first step was to create a list of guidelines for giving and receiving feedback; I’ve found that it’s essential for the happy functioning of a group and many others have caught on now.

I had completed Creative Writing Studies at The University Of Technology, Sydney in 2005. And gradually I’d become fascinated with the concept of ‘blogging’, digital marketing and self-publishing. My own blog The Craft of Writing, journals the past ten years of my educational experience, beginning as a complete Internet newbie, to a digital expert in the field of publishing and creative writing.

What I learnt about Traditional Publishers

A Definition: To greatly simplify matters, a traditional publisher acts as a gatekeeper and pays an advance to authors.

It wasn’t long ago that if you wanted to be published, there was only one route: submitting to a publisher. A traditional publisher, if you are lucky enough to have your manuscript accepted, will pay you an upfront amount of between $5 and $10, 000 or anything up to $50 000. Obamas, the former first couple of the United States, received $60 million for two books. There are exceptions. The catch is that royalties gained are deducted from the cash payment.

Most of the large publishing houses require an agent to represent you. It’s almost impossible for a new writer or author to get published in Australia by the big 5 unless an agent is involved. And it is just as difficult to gain an agent as it is a publisher. Pan Macmillan, Penguin Australia, Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins and Simon and Schuster are busy representing established authors, or taking on famous people such as presidents, sports stars and politicians.

With the onset of digital publishing, printing a book has become cheap. In fact, you can use POD (Print-On-Demand), which prints and mails books out as they’re ordered. To order one of my own books from Ingram, I pay about $25, of which half is the printing and half the shipping costs.

In the US fewer than one percent of submitted manuscripts are published. Without counting self-published titles that makes upwards of 300,000 new titles a year. (If you count self published works, it’s 600, 000 – 1,000, 000 books. Publishers nowadays are positively swamped with submissions. There is so much material to choose from that naturally publishers have become more selective. Queries outline ‘the bones of the story structurally and thematically’ and are written by the author. The competition is intense. 90% are culled just from a query letter. (Source: Jane Friedman).

Large commercial publishers receive hundreds and even thousands of unsolicited manuscripts each year. Some, such as HarperCollins, read only half of them and of those that are read, only about five end up on the shelves of a bookstore. In 1998, Penguin publisher Julie Gibbs noted that her company received an average of 70 unsolicited manuscripts per week – that is, some 3,640 a year – of which only three or four were considered worthy of publication.

The Truth Will Set You Free

First the bad news: Most people who write a book will never get it published; half the writers who are published won’t see a second book in print; and most books published are never reprinted. What’s more, half the titles in any given bookshop won’t sell a single copy there, and most published writers won’t earn anything from their book apart from the advance.

The truth is that you and I will still go on writing and enjoying writing because of the passion involved. And you might find that your writing improves greatly, when you are freed from the pressure of seeking a publisher. Plus, there are nowadays other options to the traditional approach.

For a long while, I decided not to expect anything from my writing apart from the personal fulfilment of having learned my craft and believing that I would, maybe, one day create a work that hadn’t existed before.

Authors seeking traditional publication undergo a tortuous procedure that involves identifying appropriate publishers, querying, pitching, contract negotiation…. I went through the hoops, even though I was already published on my own creative writing blog, where I’d learnt how to be correct and dot all the I’s before I ever pushed the publish button.

A blogging mentor suggested that I go through the ropes of being published traditionally and trial the ‘literary speed dating’ event held by the Australian Society of Authors (ASA). All six of the publishers and an agent I met at this event expressed glowing interest in my pitches for Karrana, and gave me their cards. I tried about seven or eight in the Independent Publishers stream. Nothing much followed my queries and written approaches.

One of the problems for me was that learning how to write these written pitches involved using the left (logical) side of my brain, and took me away from creative writing, which had become my passion.

For a new writer, especially, this process is intimidating and scary as they try to navigate the competitive, unfamiliar territory of the publishing world. It’s exhausting and, at times, disheartening. No one likes rejection. It’s your baby, for goodness sakes!

Reputable Independent Traditional Publishers in Australia, such as Text Publishing, Scribe Publications, Ventura, Allen&Unwin, Affirm Press, and Black Inc are also often unwilling to accept a writer’s unsolicited manuscript without an agent’s referral, even though they may advertise to the contrary.

There are Small Presses and Small Presses…

Small presses are an important alternative for writers who don’t want to go the agent-to-big-publisher route, but prefer to avoid the DIY work of self-publishing. Most reputable small presses cannot afford to pay advances, but nor do they charge you an upfront fee.

Respected Small Presses, such as Pantera, Giramondo, Cordite, and Transit Lounge, usually cannot afford to pay advances or assist authors greatly in having their books placed in large bricks-and-mortar bookstores.

These smaller publishers are often under-staffed and not always able to provide complete editing or distribution facilities for new writers. But they’re a good option for a writer starting out.

If a small press requests payment for services, this should be a red light to a writer. Legitimate publishers do not charge an author to publish their book. Important side note: If the small press makes you pay upfront for their in-house editing, design, or production—or makes you pay for copies of your book—they’re not a traditional publisher, but a hybrid publisher or a publishing service. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with utilising these services if you choose to. And you may finish up with a book, or a publishable manuscript, of which you can be proud.

Hybrid publishers combine certain aspects of traditional publishing and self-publishing.

In the case of assisted self-publishing or publishing services (called ‘vanity presses’ in the old days), these companies sometimes adopt the moniker of ‘hybrid publisher’ to look more innovative or attractive to authors. You can’t blame them for doing this. But know that they’re not really a hybrid publisher, unless they can offer value and/or distribution and marketing muscle that can’t be secured on your own as a self-publisher, or with a small publishing press.

The best hybrid publishers conduct some level of gatekeeping, offer value that the author would have a hard time securing on her own, and should also pay better royalties than a traditional publishing deal. (Fifty percent is common). If the hybrid publisher presents itself as little more than ‘Here’s a package of services you can buy’, then it’s most likely a dressed-up self-publishing firm.

Keep in mind that…

Traditional Publishers get a lot of manuscripts, and may take a while to respond — preferring to work on the basis of ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’.

March 23, 2020 0 comment

Mythos

Births Deaths and Marriages

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet [Act 1, Scene 5]

Something extraordinary occurs at the occasion of a birth, and also at the time when a loved one is dying. If you are open and ‘tuned in’, you will experience this as something otherworldly and mysterious. William James coined the word ‘numinous’ to explain what can only be otherwise understood as the holy.

Since these are highly charged events, you might be inclined to say that it’s only natural, and nothing-out-of-the-ordinary that loved ones are hugely impacted.

But I’m referring to something much deeper and more mysterious than simply the extremity of the effects of births and death. Special feelings and resonances occur, accompanied sometimes by omens and portents. The dying person calls out: Lift me, as he smiles, tranquil, and subsides into peaceful stillness. The newborn comes out quietly, blinking up at the lights, as if pleased to be here.

Sometimes there’s a shattering of the laws of cause and effect; a breaking down of the veil that separates our three dimensional world from other, perhaps parallel, universes.

Around the time of my father’s death, and for many months, probably years, afterwards, time and space changed for me. It was not that my earthly relationship with my father had been a deeply intimate one. In fact, quite the opposite. He was a quiet and deep thinker, whose ambition for land was a driving force. I was deep but bookish and in search of emotional fulfillment. We weren’t that close in a pragmatic sense. But on a deeper level, we shared important things.

It was simply that matter, phenomena, moved aside at the time of his death, and I had a glimpse, for a moment, into a different dimension. When I try to explain what happened in words, it comes across as the utterings or ideas of a religious nut, an extremist, a fundamentalist freak, a fool. I suppose it is akin to being crazy; I had a breakdown at some stage afterwards. I lay in the foetal position for months in front of the open fire. But then, a moment of grace: the madness lifted, and the light descended. Afterwards, it was as if my whole psyche had been shaken up and reformed into a different mix by the descent into the underworld. Afterwards, I was free of that demon Depression, which had shadowed me up until that time.

In other words, I had learnt that a wish for enlightenment involves a breakdown, a falling into the abyss, and a slowly coming up, shaken to the core. At least, that’s how it had been for me. I arose from this experience with a message for others: Be careful what you wish for.

A similar, if reverse, phenomena happened at the time of my children’s births. They were radiant experiences, even though the second one ended up as a caesarian. With my first baby, Kate, I experienced a change in consciousness as I opened up like a giant evening primrose and offered her up to the world and to the light. You might say it was the drugs; my bed was surrounded by entities, whom I later learnt were student doctors; but they played a role, like actors, in my super-charged experiences. You forget the pain afterwards, and the bundle of joy placed into your arms makes up for the struggle, the hard labour and the exhaustion. But I still remember the strangeness surrounding the birth events, reminiscent of stories of near-death experiences (NDE’s) I’d heard of.

During my first grandson Lee’s water birth, there were suddenly, and without explanation, five of us: the midwife, the husband, the mother-in-law, the mother and the father, surrounding Kate and her oversize stomach, as she lay in the tub of warm water ready to push. Andrei got in with her to support her body, and the rest of us each fulfilled a small task or offered a word of encouragement as the birth progressed. The energy and love in that small room was evident for all of us to witness. Warmth and the light of love seemed to flood us with its wonder and miraculous energy.

I felt alive for the first time in a long while, aware that this was what life was all about: giving birth, nurturing and developing a human soul, so precious, so vulnerable, so strong. There is nothing quite like it on earth, no feeling so powerful as that of pushing out a little human into the world. This is what has made me stronger, capable of protecting another life against all adversity, of mustering up courage in the face of fear, of drawing on all my human strength to nourish and nurture another being. Does this sound far-fetched, extreme, the mouthings of a fool?

If this is what a fool is, then, yes, I am one!

Marriage, too, arrived with foolish trappings. I’d been lonely and falling into negative relationships for a long while. My main focus had been on gaining higher degrees; I was a perpetual student, striving to prove that I was not stupid. It wasn’t even making me happy. In fact, the academic exertions, although successful, had played their part in my breakdown.

I was thirsting for emotional success, not intellectual satisfactions.

I hurried along the bleak corridors of Fisher Library, surrounded by rows and rows of books in metal and timber shelvings, the musty smell, the cold. I was crying silently. I don’t know if it was my spirit guides, or a god that I scarcely believed in, that I summoned that afternoon. But it was to someone or other that I cried out, wordlessly, pleading for them to come and rescue me from my alonenness. Perhaps it’s just that I was ready for change, ready for the next stage of beingness. Or maybe I was heard. Within a very short time, I’d met my life’s partner—an unlikely soul mate, in the person of an unemployed actor, ten years younger than me—at the theatre we’d both joined. It was as if that unreliable narrator that is Life, were playing tricks on me once again: I’d have to support us for years, for God’s sake!

But I was in love and ready to try out this new togetherness thing. Little did I know that the struggles that would confront us would be like those of Sisyphus with his ruthlessly downhill-rolling stone. And I learnt that no one survives this period without a struggle, especially if children are involved, as they were soon for us, too.

And then one day, out of a clear blue sky, the future and the past were conflated with the present. And we arrived at middle age with our lives intact and without having suffered any great tragedies. And with the ability to share a sort of peace and satisfaction together, just the two of us, at last.

February 1, 2020 0 comment

Mythos

The Myth of Persephone and Demeter

The Myth Linked to the Earth Today

We earthlings are being jolted by human damage to our natural home. Climate Change is causing huge shock waves to register throughout the globe. Fierce fires have broken out this summer here, and recently in California and even in Athens, Greece. The temperature of the earth is climbing steadily towards a tipping point. Damaging floods have been increasing in intensity in China, Europe, India and in South East Asia, as the level of the sea continues to rise.

With bushfires ravaging our country at the moment, this ‘myth‘ about transformation may be more than ever relevant to us today in Australia. The feeling that many of us are experiencing is of hopelessness, depression and ‘falling into the abyss’. Like a descent into Hades. Others are asking what it will take for Climate Change deniers to wake up to the fact that something urgent needs to be done.

Like the cycle of the seasons, like death following on after birth, we must also try to keep in mind that ‘this too will pass’. And then, following on from recovery—that may take us months, if not years—let’s be motivated to work courageously together. Let’s work together to make changes, either via the body politic, or as individuals—in whatever capacity we can—so as to ensure that such terrible devastation may not happen ever again in this country in the near future.

Let’s take heart from the firefighters and from the amazing actions of volunteers; and from the outpourings of empathy, of money and of supplies from ordinary citizens here.

Let’s determine to fight for change that needs to occur.

Australians must become ‘climate change warriors’, world leaders in environmental matters, such as replacing the use of coal with energy renewables. For the environment of this country is fragile, something the indigenous owners understood eons ago. We are now playing the role of ‘the canary in the mine’ for the rest of the world to see. Let’s hear and heed the call to action.

We Australians are grieving for our country and for the people and animals who have lost everything, even their lives.

Can this myth assist us in understanding a little better, and in coming to terms with what is happening here? It is the deeper meanings of this myth that resonate with me, and which reflect the experiences of all who must suffer from pain and loss. And isn’t that all of us?

The Meaning of the Myth

Kristina Dryza is recognised as one of the world’s top female futurists, that is, scientists and social scientists whose specialty is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities about the future and how they can emerge from the present. She is also an archetypal consultant and published author. In defining a myth, she referred to James Hillman, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, experts on mythology. For the purposes of Kristina’s workshop, myths represent the human search for what is true, significant, and meaningful from our cultural past.

Her talk on Persephone and Demeter at the Sydney Jung Society opened me up to some of the more meaningful concepts to do with this archetypal pair. Together, they represent the idea and experience of despair (Demeter) and shock (Persephone), when something untoward happens to you, for example a betrayal, a sickness, or a broken leg. It often comes like a jolt out of the blue. The extreme nature of the bushfires has taken many of us by surprise.

It’s our journey of pain, and no one else can take it for us. No one can understand what it’s like for us while in the underworld of despair and fear. And the hardest thing at the time is to tell ourselves that this too shall pass.

I have for a long while been drawn to the archetype of Persephone. Personal attraction to an archetype is like an urgent calling, something that really speaks to you and urges you to investigate it further. Only recently, have I realised that Persephone must be, necessarily and forever, coupled with the other archetype of Demeter. This, too, makes sense to me from a personal perspective.

What are the transformative aspects of this myth?

The overarching symbol of the underworld is ‘the unknown’. Because it is hidden from view and unseen, it is a realm to be feared. However, one can learn to love the underworld, too, or at least to withstand it. And by so doing, one can gain in fortitude and in endurance.

The Pairing of Persephone and Demeter

The relationship between Persephone and Demeter is basic to the whole myth. Persephone is the golden, naiive child of her mother, Demeter. She lives and plays in the apparent safety of the fields and sunlight provided her by Demeter, Queen of the horizontal world above ground.

As goddess of grains and harvest, Demeter lives on the surface of things, unaware of the dark lurking out of sight; she is therefore lacking wholeness. Kristina reminded us of Jung’s words, that you can either have goodness or wholeness, not both together. In other words, experiencing the dark is part of becoming whole. Demeter imagines that her daughter is safe from harm, happily picking flowers in the sunshine with friends and animals above ground.

Out of a crack in the earth, four black horses appear. Driving a chariot, Hades kidnaps Persephone and takes her against her will, down into the subterranean depths of the underworld. The earth closes up again, and all that is left above ground is the flowers that Persephone was collecting for her mother. She is to be married to Death, the consort of the King of the underworld. The black horses that draw Hades and the chariot represent intelligence, but, in this case, dying consciousness.

Demeter, whose domain is ‘cornucopian’ consciousness, is bereft and enraged over her daughter’s abduction. On a deeper level, however, the rape of Persephone represents for Demeter, a jolting of consciousness. This enables her to access, eventually, deeper levels of herself in order to grow.

The Rape of Persephone
C. Schwartz 1573

The Transformative Meanings of the Myth

Demeter must learn that it cannot be always spring. She starts a relentless search for her daughter, but she remains depressed and angry; these negative emotions cause her surface domain to be depleted. If Persephone receives a shock at her abduction and kidnapping, Demeter is jolted out of her complacency, out of her superficiality. It’s a painful but necessary psychic shift that takes place within her. She experiences loss for the first time, and a new order, a new narrative, is born out of her despair and suffering.

Kristina notes that destruction is often the right hand of creation and creativity.

Persephone represents transformation itself. She can and must go beyond her mother. In order to fulfill her destiny, she must undergo a rebirth into a new narrative, a new consciousness. The underworld is the interior world: that of the unconscious, the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the unknown and unseen worlds. She now has a chance to become more complete, to find deeper levels of herself through interior work. Persephone also represents victim energy and the wounded healer.

Her journey toward wholeness helps others to heal.

Demetrian consciousness is depth potentiality: the gift of the shadow. She must experience famine, as well as fertility. And when her daughter is taken away, her grief produces that famine on the earthly horizontal level. Persephone, however, is beginning to thaw towards her abductor, and to enjoy her role as Queen of the Underworld. There is much work to be done at the vertical subterranean level. However, her mother’s despair—causing the continuing famine above—convinces Hades that he must relinquish his consort for six months of each year, during which time, she can return to her mother’s embrace, and enjoy the sunshine and fertility above.

The Myth Linked to the Seasons on Earth

Persephone and the Pomegranate

However, Persephone cannot return to the upper world without bringing some of the underworld with her. After all, she is the very bridge into the underworld. When she agrees to eat six pomegranate seeds offered to her by Hades, the deal is done. She must spend half of the year above ground, and the other half in the underworld.

Listen to Kristina’s TED talk on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o4PYNroZBY

January 13, 2020 1 comment

Book Reviews Writing

Creating Karrana

Writing a Novel

Writing a novel has been one of the most exciting and difficult activities I have ever undertaken. It’s something akin to giving birth and bringing up a child; not quite…. You have never done this before, and there is no foolproof manual on how to be successful at it. I don’t believe anyone just knows how to write a novel. Much of it is trial and error. There’s a degree of theory involved, which might include studying the masters, and, it goes without saying, reading modern writers, too. That is, if you want to be a modern author.

Karrana: An Interview

Following is a Q and A interview carried out at the Book Launch of Karrana by a friend, G, and answered by myself, that reflects much about the structure of the novel.

G 1: In reading your book I was struck by the lusciousness of the novel, both the physical and the emotional aspects of life on the north coast after WW2.

If I start with the physical, the Australian bush with its lilting birds and the fiery orange boldness of the trumpet vines is an integral part of the story.

As a writer what did you draw from to create such vivid bush scenes?

A: As a little girl I was free to roam in nature, where I became a part of it — its rhythms, its colours. That vine covered an old barn on Grandma Walker’s farm, opposite our rented house on the Gwydir Highway, drawing sightseers in vehicles to stop and gawk from their car windows in winter and in spring. I felt lucky to be part of this environment.

It was even brighter to a child’s eye; magical, like the multicoloured iridescent feathers of rosellas; and I rolled, competing with hovering bees, in pure white-and-green clover, so abundant and fragrant on the farm; and then riding our horses surrounded by gum trees out in Dad’s bush paddock, a nutty, gorse-like perfume in the air; the silence, broken only by the sound of a kookaburra or water gurgling in pristine creeks, or a wallaby scuttling away.

Much of the flora and fauna on the farm was non-native, like the vine, but well-suited to our sub-tropical climate.

G2: Bridie the young woman “with tossing dark hair that cascaded around her shoulders like Vivien Leigh or one of the other Hollywood stars” as one of the main characters has big dreams and they don’t always coincide with reality. This story is her chance to shine.

How did you get Bridie to take her place in the world?

A: I showed her through the prism of the post-War years, with Australia on the brink of huge changes. As a butterfly-like creature cocooned in a narrow universe, Bridie’s narcissism is put to good use in attracting a mate. She is getting ready, like the nation, to break out and demand more from life than the one her family has allowed her. The question the novel sets up is: Will she be victorious in finding fulfilment, in re-gaining a missed education, or will it be a question of ‘fools rush in’? (ii) If Bridie really existed, I think she’d be a composite of several women from my childhood, both in flesh and on the big screen or in magazines.

G3: In the novel there is a delicious sense of dramatic irony between the two main characters, Bridie and Will.

What characteristics did you set up to test and re-energise their relationship?

A: I’m glad you recognised that. I think a note of irony runs throughout the novel, from the beginning with the sexual symbols of frogs and spiders on the path to the lavatory, to the forced wedding and sexual fulfilment.

Fiery passion causes both to act impulsively in the beginning. However, Bridie learns too late what Will’s plans are. They don’t discuss their differences, assuming that love will win out in the end. It is inevitable that conflict ensues.

G4: There is an interplay of mystery throughout the novel, the unknown lights in the bush; Richard, their son’s accident; the other man Bridie reached out to.

What were you trying to achieve with this interplay of mystery?

A: Well, I’ve always been interested in the interplay of light and dark motifs in fiction, as well as in life. Seasons play a large part in the structure of the novel: Starting out in the spring of rebirth and renewal, and continuing through seasonal fluctuations to a return. Bad things are sometimes presaged by dark imagery, such as blackbirds; awakenings and positives by light motifs. I’ve for long empathised with the underdogs in history, the Jewish people during the War, as well as the Aboriginal Bundjalung tribes of the north coastal region before the English settlers arrived. They are linked to the light motifs in nature.

What was I trying to achieve? Just that, the mystery of Nature, and the mystery within nature. A sense of light and of darker forces at work, beneath the surface of things. Within people, too, of ignorance versus enlightenment that comes through education and progress.

G5: The historical placement of this novel is just after WW2 and Bridie and Will, the two main characters, meet at a Victory dance. In developing the story, you had to go back in time and undertake a certain amount of research.

What did you uncover in your research that helped to drive the novel forward?

A: I researched war songs such as Bless Em All, and Don’t Sit under the Apple and the foxtrots and pride of Erins and waltzes, played at country dances of the time; other songs and movies expressed the blossoming love between Bridie and Will, such as the one my Dad sang to Mum ‘I’ll Take You Home again, Kathleen”.

Great changes were taking place, especially in the cities after the War. I Imagined Bridie hearing American accents and seeing soldiers with war injuries in Sydney. Learning about the new role of women in the War effort is also touched on. I discovered that ignorance and stigma existed at the time. Can you imagine how she must have felt when she heard from a Jewish refugee about the truth of the Holocaust? I made this part of Bridie’s experiential education, learning about it from the doctor. And then I tried to imagine the horror of a mother receiving a telegram announcing the death of a loved one; often delivered on bicycle or on horseback in the country.

G6: In conclusion what were the highlights of writing this novel?

A: It was great being able to draw on childhood and my own life experiences, and to utilise my early outpourings of emotion, a healing component in writing memoir pieces, and then this novel.

I was part of a small, tight-knit writers’ group, Randwick Writers, during which I was able to develop the first draft of the novel; meeting once a fortnight over more than a year. Encouragement from colleagues in the larger group, Waverley Writers, at the Library in Bondi Junction, also played a huge part in giving me the confidence to move forward with the novel and to finish it. Learning how to upload documents to Amazon and Ingram Spark (print-on-demand facility) have also been part of the journey towards publication and distribution. And now, educating myself on the notion of discoverability, which I am still working on.

January 2, 2020 0 comment