Interviews, Sessions and Chats with Authors

1.  Your first book BLOOD OF DREAMS is set in 1762 Venice - how did you go about researching and creating that world in your book.

It’s not just 18th century Venice – it’s 18th century Venice during Carnevale season!  I had a great time researching a city transformed by partying, gambling and riotous behaviour. Some years the season could last as long as six months.  Carnevale was all about disguise and role-playing.  Masks, costumes and cloaks were an essential part of this atmosphere of fantasy and concealment.  We can all appreciate the beauty of the masks and costumes of the time but it was intriguing to learn about the undercurrents at play – the darker more subversive psychological imperatives – and to weave these into my story. 

By the 18th century the Venetian Empire was in decline and I’ve always been fascinated by societies on the edge -- that sense that everything is about excess, past its use-by date and about to implode.  The boundary between reality and illusion is a major theme in my story so I found all of this irresistible material to research and bring to life.  I read widely, including the work of historians such as Christopher Hibbert and John Julius Norwich.  First-person accounts by visitors to the city at the time provided fascinating insights and the memoirs of that most famous of Venetians, Casanova (all twelve volumes!) were a crucial read.  And because I think very visually, the paintings of Canaletto, Tiepolo and Pietro Longhi were also a great stimulus.

2.  The book is an interesting combination of gothic horror and love, mystery and an intrigue.  Is there a particular trigger that interested you in writing this style of book?  Does that style present particular problems or opportunities?

Oh yeah, there was a trigger alright.  Blood of Dreams was inspired by a nightmare I had!  The nightmare began with a vicious attack outside a church in the middle of the night and a young woman rushing forward to save the victim.  She’s then taken into the crypt of the church where a priest reveals a vision of captives behind bars and announces that they are souls in Purgatory.  I knew I had to write down that nightmare, to get to the bottom of it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  Why was the victim attacked? What was the relationship between the characters in my dream?  And what the hell was going on in that crypt?!       

I don’t know what style Blood of Dreams is – it has elements of gothic, historical thriller, mystery and crime.  It’s been nominated for a couple of crime/mystery awards and speculative fiction awards and a couple of mainstream best first novel awards.  I don’t think anyone knows.  The problem all of this presents is for me to stay sane. I think I’m having an identity crisis.

3.  Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

One of the frustrating things about being a writer is that I don’t get to read spontaneously anymore.  I miss just randomly trawling bookshelves or following up books and authors that I’ve heard about.  I’d love to read some of Dorothy Porter’s work and also Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore, for example, but all my current reading, fact and fiction, is related to what I write about.  And because I’m in the middle of writing my next book I have to be very disciplined at the moment.

I’m pretty new to this scene as an author but both crime fiction and speculative fiction in Australia seem to be very vibrant and in particular, a lot of Australian crime novels seem to be getting published overseas and doing well.

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

That's a big question. As a first time Australian author I’ve found it very hard to get exposure in Australia.  It’s disappointing when you see bookshops full of mainstream overseas authors and Australian authors, unless they’ve done well abroad, lumped on a few shelves on the side.  This attitude seems to be pervasive in media as well.  I wish there was room for all of us!   But on the positive side, blogs like this and fan-base sites and organizations generate so much energy and enthusiasm about local products and that’s exciting.  There seems to be a lot of committed readers and reviewers in Australia who are involved in spreading the word.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

I think the entire uptight clan of Little Women should meet up with my main character Laudomia.  Man, do those girls need to party or what?

When she’s not tripping over a dead body, saving someone from attack or being attacked herself, Laudomia spends much of Carnevale season sampling the fleshpots of Venice in an opium haze.  Okay, call her a bad influence but those wallflower March girls spend far too much time hiding behind the punch bowl at parties, worrying about whether their gloves look worn.  Incidentally, Louisa May Alcott may have understood where Laudomia was coming from; like many 19th century authors she was a laudanum tippler and morphine user.   

Technorati Tags: Crime Fiction Interviews, Sessions and Chats with Authors Snapshot Interviews Susan Parisi Australia

1. Your first book is labelled as "science fiction comedy thriller" and the second book KILLING THE RABBIT is a "comic thriller". Labels make many people's brains hurt (including mine). Did you have to use a different approach / what were the different aims behind both books?

Labels are definitely a double edged sword. I write across marketing genres which can make it difficult for marketing departments to label them, thus the mind-boggling triple and quadruple-barrelled categories.  For instance, my  novel Killing the Rabbit is a crime thriller but it also has a touch of speculative fiction thrown in, as well as some very dark comedy. It was published by Spectra, the speculative fiction imprint of Bantam Dell, which is a great imprint for the book. However,  I recently received an email from a fan in the States who was worried that I was losing readers because he found Rabbit shelved in the Science Fiction section of his local bookshop when it should have been in Crime. 
 
There were very different aims with my first two books. My debut novel, Singing the Dogstar Blues, was a young adult novel and so was written for a younger audience (although it also crossed over into an adult readership). Dogstar was the first full-length novel I had ever written and I was aiming to write a SF novel that blended a fast-paced plot with the depth of characterisation that I had always longed for but did not often find in SF books. In contrast, Killing the Rabbit is a very adult novel - more sexual content and quite a bit of graphic violence - and when I started to write it, I was ready to challenge myself more in terms of technique and style. The driving idea behind Rabbit - that women could resorb their own foetuses in the same way that rabbits and small mammals can - had been with me since I was twelve so it was also one of those novels that stalk a writer until they are written.
 
2. Being a teacher of creative writing, how do you see your students approaching "genre" writing these days?
 
Genre is a slippery sucker of a word. There are marketing genres such as Crime, Science Fiction, Romance, Fantasy. And then there are genre categories that describe the type of story structure you are working with such as quest, adventure, etc.  The students that are keen on writing genre fiction tend to be very professional about their work, perhaps because they are rarely writing autobiographically and so are not as emotionally caught up in the action and characterisation. They are also very keen to workshop their writing to gauge reader response - there are certain story beats that need to be achieved in each story structure to create a satisfying read and a workshop environment is a great way to test these out. I have also found that genre writing students are more aware of writing for a reader, and more aware of the market at which they are aiming their work.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

Technorati Tags: Alison Goodman Crime Fiction Interviews, Sessions and Chats with Authors Snapshot Interviews Australia

1.  Given you have a large audience in YA and children's books how do you craft a mystery for a YA audience / what do you think you need to consider in doing that?

Often it’s the setting like Antarctica (Antarctica’s Frozen Chosen) or the outback (Outback Ferals) which attracts, and plotting a mystery or a crime, enables me to have variety in my participant-observation research, so the subject is fresh for me as well as the reader. I like to visit locations, so I can absorb the local language, conflicts and potential for something going wrong, but my major interest is the dilemma for my protagonist.

Writing for YA means considering the sleuth’s age, so, despite my readership of 13-18, my young eco-scientist Kyle had to be 21 because of Antarctic requirements for expeditioners. Generally I’ll have a sleuth about a year older than the readership, as in ‘Fake ID” which actually revolves around cyber family history sleuthing, Zoe is 14 and on the day of her Gran’s funeral she discovers her grandmother had fake ID for years. I researched with the genealogists from the State Trustees who track beneficiaries in intestate cases where no wills are left. They are magnificent sleuths and loved helping me because all their other clients are dead.I have had thousands of hits on my web site for Fake ID, but unfortunately not all were looking for my book!

Usually I have a strong male and a strong female as my sleuths, but with complementary skills. I’m really fond of my entrepreneurial Rogue Vogue Coco character who sells bush lingerie at night markets and challenges Aboriginal stereotypes. Feisty females and sensitive, active but thoughtful males make good combinations for story dynamics in a mystery.

2.  Your comment about the fine line between mystery and crime, and your preference for motivation rather than violence is very interesting - what do you see as that fine line and how does that affect your writing?

I don’t know much about guns, post-mortems, forensics or police procedures, but I‘m fascinated by deviant or original thinkers and questions of amorality.

Consistent viewpoint without betraying the ‘twist’ is a challenge, such as in ‘Stalker’ where I wrote alternately from the viewpoint of the stalkee( Lily, the 17 year old radio presenter) and the stalker, who is actually female, not male as most assume until the end.

I’ve experimented with male viewpoint via Kyle in ‘Antarctica’s Frozen Chosen’ and in the ‘Outback Ferals’ sequel.  Since I’m not a 21 year old blokeⁱ, that required listening and some trialling with ‘blokey’ readers.  I always run my story past ‘experts’ in the field ( e.g. chopper pilot) for technical checks and my son who works in Darwin helped with the ‘pandemic’ scientific research for ‘Outback Ferals’

Often I prefer to give my ‘sleuth’ an ethical dilemma, such as in ‘Duty Free’ where the mother may be asking the daughter to smuggle ‘ideas’ via a formula, but for altruistic pacifist reasons.  My ‘Kyle’ has to say no to his mates during a possible mutiny, and also resolve ‘spying’ on housemates in his Darwin sharehouse.

Media manipulation interests me and I’ve utilised my atypical , Nordic eco-terrorist Nick in the Antarctic and whether the end justifies the means, becomes an issue.

I also enjoy creating eccentric secondary characters like A.N.Zac who enable me to satirise events such as Reality TV or government bureaucracy.

Recently I’ve started writing short adult crime, and my ‘Making a Killing at the Pokies’ is also a satirical look at addiction via the irritant philosopher Ghost of Monies Lost who morphs from the Info pokies button.

3.  Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

Increasingly I’m attracted to short crime collections. Enjoy Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne character and her period settings. Goldie Alexander’s culinary murders (Unkind Cut, Unjust Desserts) explore the poison/food link in a realistic bayside setting.

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

Authors are intellectual property which can be even more valuable, long term, than land.  Often their use of local settings making the inhabitants view their surroundings with more pride. Publicise the locales which writers have used. Instead of a pub crawl, encourage Tourist authorities to have a literary walk to author significant sites.

More mainstream reviewing. More podcasts.More radio interviews.  More panels at low key festivals as well as the big literary ones, but get double value by broadcasting later.

More anthologies of short crime, which are also available in the latest audio formats as many ‘read’ only in their cars or when travelling.

Often writers are categorised by genre. I’m known as the children’s author of ‘There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake’ and some people find it unacceptable that I might also write crime. So maybe there could be more promoting of cross-genre writers, as the skills are the same.

The Genre Flash has been a brilliant way to pr crime titles and I;m reading my way through some of them now.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

Mid-book, I actually interviewed my Kyle expeditioner to see how he’d like the story to finish. Maybe he could meet my as yet undeveloped, next, adult female sleuth who will be a funeral/wedding celebrant. They could both complain about their author-parent.

Hazel is a well known local author with a large list of excellent books for a range of readers, for more please visit her website (particularly if you're looking for Young Adult literature).

Technorati Tags: Crime Fiction Hazel Edwards Interviews, Sessions and Chats with Authors Snapshot Interviews Australia

1. You are now the author of 3 series novels.  What do you see as the likely reader's for your books.

As the books are classed as “cozy” I imagine that the reader base would largely be female, and to tell the truth that was the market I was aiming at. And from what reaction I’ve received, that policy seems to have paid off. Sorting through various online book groups etc., the readers of mystery novels of that genre seem almost predominately female. I don’t believe that this limits the reader to that sex: so long as a “cozy” is well written and the plot and characters are engaging, I don’t see why readers of either sex couldn’t enjoy it. I’m not entirely sure that I like the idea of the books being classed exclusively as “cozy”: I prefer to think of them as an “entertainment”. Cozy suggests tea parties and knitting, and my books are far from that scenario.

2.  How did you originally develop Belinda- your central character?

Having decided that the market for my books was most likely female, it seemed sensible to create a female character that women could relate to. Setting her age at mid-twenties it allowed for character development as the series proceeded. Although, I didn’t set out to write a series: Capable of Murder was just conceived as a one off mystery. Also by making Belinda, the central character, an Australian who was working in England and on the point of returning to Australia, I felt that there would be some point of recognition for Australian women who have had the European experience. It also allowed for her to experience locations and events that were foreign to her, and to the reader, and as the settings for the books always have some historical background or point of reference, it allowed her character to explore the historical reality in a natural manner, and the reader would discover this also but through the eyes of Belinda, rather than having to wade through tediously presented facts, which is often the case in some books. Belinda herself is probably modelled on a combination of some of my friends over the years. Australian women who have been spirited and outgoing. Belinda’s character was aided by the discovery that one of the minor characters in the first book, Hazel Whitby an older, worldly wise and gregarious personality, demanded to be listened to and so she became Belinda’s partner in crime, so to speak.

3.  How does the process of writing a series work for you.  Are you plotting the next book, as you work on the current, or do you have a draw full of possible scenarios for your central character Belinda?

I don’t plot the next book, although I have few vague ideas for possible development. I do have a new book planned in which Belinda returns to Melbourne and is involved in a new mystery. While writing, my concentration is on that particular story so I don’t really think beyond that. At the moment I’m “hunting & gathering” for plot and character developments in the new book, tentatively titled, Small Vices Do Appear. There is a political background to the story.

4.  Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

I have to admit, sadly, that I don’t read much Australian crime fiction. I have and do read, Peter Corris and Kerry Greenwood. My preference in mysteries is English writers and English settings. Agatha Christie has a lot to answer for!
Also, from what I can establish, most Australian crime fiction is of the ‘hard core’ variety, (I may be wrong about this) which personally I don’t find attractive these days. Put it down to my age: I find that these genres, hard core, police procedural, etc., have got into a rut. The writers spend more time telling us about the loves and hates of the investigating team than on the murder or mystery at hand. There is a welter of police procedural programming on television, so I don’t feel the need to read about it as well. And I don’t feel the need to know in detail how an autopsy is carried out: that also is bleeding from the TV screens.

My preference is having a crime committed and the resulting unravelling of the clues. Also, part of my not reading Australian crime fiction, relates to the next question.

5. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

These days it seems that newspaper reviews of books, when they do bother to review them, is limited to PR handouts from the major publishers for their established writers. Journalists have little time to bother exploring the changing face of publishing. With the said publishers taking on fewer new writers and the growth of small on-line publishers taking risks on new authors there is a need for an outlet to bring local works to the reading public. On-line book groups do a certain amount in resolving this problem, but are limited to their members. Magazines, by and large, tend to review literary works, so there is a niche for commercial popular writing to be reviewed and promoted.

Libraries could also help: I’m aware of financial restrictions but it would be helpful if they were more active in purchasing and promoting Australian works: essentially they have a captive audience. Readers could also help: if they discover a new writer they can ask their library to purchase the book, thus making it and the author known to other readers.
So, to sum up: the media to be more open to local books, literary or otherwise. Maybe programmes or articles that are exclusively Australian orientated. Australian films are endorsed in the media (cinema attendances is another matter) as is the local music scene. Writing lacks that promotional back-up, yet the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008 Year Book claims Australians spent $1.5 billion on books in recent years. How much of that money went on Australian works?

6. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

I‘m not sure how to answer that question. Possibly Belinda to meet with Becky Sharp, if only because they are two young women from different period of time, but both faced adventures and stood on their own two feet, although Becky of course had a much more robust persona.

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