My new short story collection Dreams They Forgot has been described as ‘a mix of history and imagination’, but not all these twenty-three stories are set in earlier times. Several use the past as an echo reverberating into the present day. I’ve always been interested in the kind of people who don’t make it into … Continue reading Author Talks: Emma Ashmere with Writing Us In
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Author Talks: Monique Mulligan on Nurturing the Seeds of Inspiration
One of the most-asked questions of authors is ‘What inspired you to write this book?’ Some authors hate this question; others don’t. I fall into the latter camp. What inspired me to write Wherever You Go is something I’m passionate about. I could talk about it endlessly and I do, which sometimes earns me a … Continue reading Author Talks: Monique Mulligan on Nurturing the Seeds of Inspiration
Behind the Pen with Lili Wilkinson
Lili Wilkinson is the award-winning author of eleven YA novels including After the Lights Go Out, The Boundless Sublime, Green Valentine and Pink. Lili established the insideadog.com.au website and the Inky Awards at the Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria. She has a PhD in Creative Writing, and lives in Melbourne with her … Continue reading Behind the Pen with Lili Wilkinson
Author Talks: Christie Nieman on Using Place to Find Your Stories
Place is where I find my stories. Start with a place, I recommend to young writers, and you will find stories, from the journeys of a tiny beetle to the machinations of an elderly patriarch. I forgot about all that though, when soon after my first novel As Stars Fall was released I had children … Continue reading Author Talks: Christie Nieman on Using Place to Find Your Stories
Behind the Pen with Jules Van Mil
The fashionista in me is delighted to welcome Jules Van Mil to Behind the Pen. Jules is about to release her first book, a gorgeous middle-grade fiction called, Gemma Riley and the Fashion Fiasco. When did you start writing and what was the catalyst? I've always loved writing. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I … Continue reading Behind the Pen with Jules Van Mil
Author Talks: Josephine Moon – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Love
Love stories are never my first line of narrative in a novel (with the exception of perhaps The Chocolate Promise) but play a secondary, supporting storyline. I knew that my main character of The Cake Maker’s Wish, Olivia Kent, would have a love interest but that was as much as I knew when I began … Continue reading Author Talks: Josephine Moon – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Love
Author Talks: Nicholas J. Johnson – You can’t make this stuff up
I tell people that I write fiction because I can’t be trusted with the truth. After all, I’ve worked as a professional magician for almost thirty years. My entire life has been dedicated to fabrication. I’m not just a regular magician either. I play an ‘honest con man’ swindling audiences with card cheating demonstrations and … Continue reading Author Talks: Nicholas J. Johnson – You can’t make this stuff up
Author Talks: Sandie Docker on The Power of Feel-good Fiction
Feel-good fiction sometimes gets a raw deal as being ‘light-weight’ or an ‘easy’ read, but an easy read simply means it is a page turner. And while feel-good fiction may leave us, as the name suggests, feeling good at the end, it doesn’t mean it can’t deal with some fairly heavy issues. And for me … Continue reading Author Talks: Sandie Docker on The Power of Feel-good Fiction
Author Talks: Leah Swann on Inventive explorations of motherhood in fiction
The eagle-featured mother in Angela Carter’s Bluebeard story “The Bloody Chamber” was an electrifying discovery as a student and lives on in me to this day. Back then, I’d read about oppressive mothers, unreliable mothers, fearsome mothers and loving mothers but never a fierce, swashbuckling mother like this one. Early in the story we learn … Continue reading Author Talks: Leah Swann on Inventive explorations of motherhood in fiction
Author Talks: Kirsty Manning on Discovering hidden jewels through research
A little over three years ago I was in the final stages of researching and writing my last novel set in Shanghai in World War Two—The Jade Lily—when I stumbled across an extraordinary newspaper article that completely knocked me off track. It was a review of an exhibition of 500 priceless pieces of Elizabethan and … Continue reading Author Talks: Kirsty Manning on Discovering hidden jewels through research
