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Story inspirations
Please use the links below to read the stories behind my stories, and what inspired me to write each of them.
My Australian Story - Surviving Sydney Cove
FICTIONALIZING HISTORY FOR YOUNG READERS
Goldie Alexander (pub Viewpoint Spring 2000)
'The past is another country, they do things differently there.'
L.P. Hartley's 'The Go Between.
I enjoy writing about other times and places. Writing fantasy, science fiction or history means fewer worries about using contemporary clothes, music, or games. 'Other times' allows the writer to indulge the imagination without having to worry whether a certain colloquialism might be 'old hat' by the time the book is published.
My particular interest in writing history lies in bringing the past to life and comparing it with the present. In my first historical novel for Young Adults, Mavis Road Medley (Margaret Hamilton Books), two youngsters from the 1990's find themselves in the Melbourne of 1933.
"Jamie's heart was beating wildly as he saw that he was in the middle of a huge hall, facing a large screen. The tune from On our Selection still lingered in the air as the film rolled on before his startled gaze... only now did he realize that he was seated in a large, filled-to-capacity auditorium. And that everyone was watching a film."
Using this time-travel technique allows the reader to perceive events through modern eyes. Nothing is easier to lose than the past. Even when I look back on my own growing up years, they seem quite remote, the Australia of the fifties so different as to be almost unrecognizable.
My next historical fiction, My Australian Story: Surviving Sydney Cove (2000) is set in 1790. This is one of a number of diaries published by Scholastics, (and now published in the UK as My Story: Transported.) Like their American counterpart, these are intended to bring Australian history to life. When I began researching this novel, I found that I knew very little about our first European settlers. The more I read, the more I was struck by the difficulties the First Fleet suffered. Conditions in 18th century English jails and hulks, on board the convict ships and the early days of New South Wales, were appalling. I was particularly interested in that period of total isolation between April when the Sirius foundered off Norfolk Island and the coming of the 2nd Fleet in June.
"We... in Rosehill (Parramatta)... ' are a long day's walk from Sydney Cove. Any news is slow to arrive. However we now know that the flagship Sirius, which was coming from Capetown with food and other supplies has been wrecked on a reef at Norfolk Island.
'Have you anything else to report?' Sarah demanded of the sailor who came to deliver this sad news."
My research took me to many different sources, in particular Watkin Tench's diaries, and Captain Phillip's letters. The language might be archaic, but the contents struck a very modern note. Phillip's reasoning for sending Lieutenant Ross to Norfolk Island are not dissimilar from a contemporary CEO sending his difficult 2IC to an inaccessible branch of that same business. Watkin Tench could rarely remark on any person or incident without adding some sardonic comment of his own. They talk of 'Opened up a elderly convict's belly and found it empty.' 'Convicts refusing to share cooking pots.' 'A woman dying of over eating by consuming all her rations in one meal.' Provisions were running out and their first attempts at farming had failed. Governor Phillip had placed everyone - freeman and convict alike - on starvation rations. What they desperately craved was what they perceived as 'real food': that is pickled pork, mutton, and ships biscuits. With too few muskets to go around, fishing boats or lines, or a willingness to learn from the local 'indians', hunger prevailed. Meanwhile, as the historian Alan Frost points out, they were surrounded by a profusion of seafood, wild game, and Vitamin C iron-rich wild spinach and sarsaparilla. Perhaps this helped them survive. The evidence lies in the astonishing number of women that became pregnant. To become pregnant they had to be menstruating. It is also interesting to note that significantly fewer children died than if they had stayed in England's appalling 18th Century cities.
My challenge was to get this down in a palatable form for young readers as well as create 'a good read'. In a way it was those awful conditions that wrote its own story. Briefly: In 1790, Sydney is a convict colony. Elizabeth Harvey is sent there for stealing clothes worth seven shillings. Her diary revealed her struggles as she copes with starvation, disease, brutal punishment, isolation and drunkenness. Lizzie talks about tackling simple domestic tasks, homesickness, looking after the doctor's sick daughter Emily, her 'sparring' friendship with Winston, and defending Simple Sam from an avenging mob. Her diary, though imaginary, was partly based on the real life story of Elizabeth Hayward, the youngest female convict shipped to Botany Bay.
I perceived Lizzie as brave, curious and somewhat rebellious, part of the new colony's emerging spirit. She says,
'Sarah says that the Governor think Master Dodd the most trustworthy man in all Port Jackson. Though she also adds that my Master puts too much faith in God - and not enough in hard work- to get us out of our misery. But it seems to me that if all my Master says about God is true, and if God were listening, then our poor lives would not be as sad. Yet, I would never dare say this aloud, as surely I would be flogged for blasphemy."
The writing had to be simple, yet sound authentic. No way could I use the complex and melodramatic language of the 18th Century. I kept sentences short and avoided contractions. Lizzie says to Winston, "Excuse me, sir. That book. Is it something I can write in?" Also, because this was a diary, I had to tell the action instead of showing it. She writes, "Sydney Cove is full of murderers & thieves." Plus I had to do something that was foreign to all my writerly impulses, and that was to tell the action instead of showing it.
However where possible, I used dialogue to show what was happening:
"My Master said, 'Many folk may not survive. It is hard to collect food when we have so little shot and only two fishing boats.'
At this such a gloom fell over us I was almost sorry that I am still alive..."
There's an automatic pruning in historical novels written for younger readers. Anything that doesn't move the story along must be eradicated. The historical background can only exist as an unconscious framework. The characters must live solidly in their world to make them credible. They must keep their feet firmly placed in their own reality. At the same time there was so much information I wanted to get across. If the reader is 'historically unsophisticated', the novel had to contain enough information to make sense of the story. My solution was for Lizzie to fill her brother in on everything that had happened to her since they were last together.
She says, "Though it is four long years since we last were together... I plan to use it (the diary) to describe my present life, and a little of how I came to be here..."
However certain frustrations ensued. So many facts that I had painfully researched couldn't be used - for example, a true account of the sexual misdemeanors of the 1st fleet, as that might have been a little too 'real' for many young readers. Also, I tried to make my convicts sound like cockneys by dropping letters and messing up their grammar. But my editor was worried that my readers might have problems with this, and she fixed it all up.
I supposed that I have always longed for a time-machine. How many of us have wished for the ability to reverse time? Then we could satisfy the confusion of a child beginning to work out some lost connection. Or even try a fresh start with a whole new set of people. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be assured that our present loneliness or sadness must, as surely as time itself, pass? My solution is to delve into history, and to hope that by presenting it as a story, that maybe I can interest one reader into looking beyond the immediate present and to see life as the continuum that it surely is.
25,000 copies of this novel have now been published!
Body and Soul: Lilbet's Romance
Article: RECREATING PAST LIVES
By Goldie Alexander.
I have always been fascinated by the notion that if Anna Karenina were alive today, that she would have left that dreary husband without a qualm, and taken her son to set up a new household with Count Vronsky. The same goes for other literary figures: Mrs. Bennett would never have been that desperate to marry off five daughters if they had been trained to support themselves. The orphan Jane Eyre would have been adopted by a caring family and given her startling intelligence, possibly moved into an academic career.
Much like those heroines who reflect the women of their times, and the list goes on, most families have stories about members who suffered because they lived into less sympathetic times. My own family tree has a history of profound depression that has debilitated at least one member in every generation. It saddens me to think that if those relatives were here today, they would have been fed Prozac or some chemical equivalent and led happier, more productive lives. Maybe because of this, and because I am naturally inquisitive, I have always made a point of listening to other families 'bad luck' stories. And it was one of those stories that struck the first spark and led me to the character of Lilbet in BODY AND SOUL: Lilbet's Romance
My husband had four 'maiden' aunts who stayed together until they died. Their lives spanning most of the 20th Century, these sisters loved and squabbled and protected each other with equal determination. One aunt was mildly spastic and deeply resentful of both her affliction and the treatment she received. She often said that she wished that she had never been allowed to survive. Until quite recently many disabled folk were perceived as mentally retarded and institutionalised. Or stranded in a permanent childhood with never any hope of independence. Intimacy with the opposite gender was discouraged, their sexual needs perceived as distasteful. The author Alan Marshall was a pioneer in an area that needed a lot of rethinking.
Body and Soul's setting is the summer and autumn Melbourne's 1938. In this Young Adult novel Lilbet, my eighteen-year old disabled protagonist, wants little more than to be respected by her father and the outside world, and allowed some autonomy. What makes things extra hard for her is that this is a time when contemporary thinking revolved around the notion of 'Eugenics'. Eugenics was a pseudo-science that advocated improvements of qualities of race by control of inherited characteristics. Like the ancient Spartans, the idea was that only the 'racially pure' and the 'strong and healthy' should breed and survive.
Much like my husband's aunt, Lilbet lives under the constant threat of being sent to a Home for Spastics and Retards if she tries to exert 'a little too much independence'. She is constantly supervised ' in case she hurts herself', discouraged from attempting some of the simplest household tasks, given very little education, subjected to some dreadful surgical procedures, and denied any normal intimacy with the opposite sex. These days some of her spasticity would have been resolved. An intelligent and well-read woman, she would have been encouraged into a career and a more normal existence. She might even have married and had children. So it was when this aunt went down in family legend as someone to whom nothing ever happened I took on the challenge of making something happen.
Authors have a lot of fun creating disagreeable people. Perhaps this is one way they rid themselves of their less pleasant feelings towards the world. In Lilbet, I created a character who, because she exists in a frighteningly constricted environment, must manipulate her family to suit herself - a task she accomplishes altogether too successfully. In this novel I am aware of being 'politically incorrect'. I tried to create a more fully rounded character by stepping aside from the conventional view that anyone disadvantaged will always be 'nice'. And because Lilbet's family are altogether too trusting and innocent - much like many Australians were in the first part of the 20th century- they are totally charmed by the sophisticated and worldly wise Felix.
I already had some experience in recreating history. Mavis Road Medley (1991) is set in 1933. My Australian Story: Surviving Sydney Cove (2000) set in 1790 is one of the My Story series published by Scholastics UK. 2000. This fictional diary describes the trials and tribulations our First Fleet suffered.
In Body and Soul I wanted to lead my readers into a different world, yet make that world utterly convincing. Sixty-five years later, some of our moral dilemmas appear to have changed, though some are universal. But syntax and vocabulary have altered. My problem was how to achieve a thirties 'voice' without becoming too wordy. And I needed to use historical facts without letting those facts intrude into the fictional flow. All this meant lots of reading of the literature of the time. And much rewriting. I also took certain liberties in that that the true 'Lilbet' would have been far older than eighteen in 1938, but then this was such an interesting year.
1938 was when everything pointed to the beginning of World War 2. Australia was still recovering from the worst of the Great Depression. Swaggies who had lost their families through extreme poverty, and often their self-respect, still knocked on suburban doors looking for a cup of tea and a slice of bread and jam. In Europe, there were two conflicting ideologies; Fascism as espoused by Mussolini in Spain and Hitler in Germany. Communism, as espoused by Stalin in Russia. Having suffered huge losses in World War 1, the Americans preferred to stay out of world affairs. And in Asia, the Japanese had invaded Korea and Manchuria and were gradually gaining control of China.
It was those Japanese invasions that mostly bothered the newspapers of the time. Perhaps Europe was still too far away, though folk still referred to England as 'Home'. But Australia with its small population of mostly Anglo Saxons had a strong White Australia policy. Back then we were either deeply suspicious of 'foreigners' or stupidly subservient before 'European sophistication'. And what was most relevant to my novel, a woman's place was in the home. A respectable middle-class girl had only four career paths open to her - she could teach, nurse or become a secretary. But mostly she was encouraged to marry and marry well. Once she did, running a household became her full time activity. And then as George Eliot says in Middlemarch "A woman... has got to put up with the life her husband makes for her"
The Marks girls' lives - Julie, Ella and Lilbet - pivot around domestic tasks in a motherless household. Though Ella, Lilbet's twin, insists that 'nothing interesting ever happens', I wanted to record that domestic existence where even managing the weekly wash becomes a formidably muscular achievement; the buying of an electric refrigerator, an unnecessary extravagance; pre-prepared food, a complete unknown.
What complicates things even more is that the Mark's family, again based on my husband's, were transported to Australia in the 18th Century. After serving their terms, these convicts became respectable citizens. Their descendants saw themselves as totally Anglo-Saxon whilst still retaining their ancient religion. There were very few of these families before 1945, and they blended into the general population. But by 1938 things were very bad for European Jewry. Only four hundred were accepted in Australia as migrants and Anti-Semitism was running deep. Thus Lilbet feels estranged from everyday society both by her religion, her disabilities and her dour father. And though she is most sympathetic to any new arrival, she distrusts the smooth talking Felix, and does everything in her power to keep the 'status quo'.
Australian writers are often chastised for writing about the past instead of the immediate present - as if only 21st Century problems are relevant. Nevertheless I agree with those who argue that 'those who are ignorant of history are destined to repeat it'. The number of emigrants this country should accept is still a hot issue, and many of us reject other cultures and religions. As each wave of migrant has come into this country, they have had to face hate and bias until time sorted things out and they were eventually absorbed. Australia is one of the few countries to do so successfully. There seems no good reason why this shouldn't continue.
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I have always been fond of science fiction. Through science fiction, a writer can create a separate world with its own clothes, music, language and customs. I also admire spiders. I see them as interesting insects with some amazing skills in climbing and spinning. Nevertheless, lots of people find them scary. So it seemed a fun idea to create a peace loving vegetarian telepathic alien who just happens to look like a spider.
This early chapter book was written specifically for a reading age of 7- 9. It's wise for parents and teachers to be reminded that a child's reading age can be different from the child's actual age in years and months. Early chapter books are helpful in that chapters are short and there is a great sense of achievement as each is read. If a child is still finding reading hard, why not help them by reading aloud?
Some of my thoughts on the importance of READING ALOUD for aspiring writers:
My Creative Writing class had settled down to workshop the shy young woman's first chapter. 'Speak up,' came from the back of the room. 'We can't hear.'
'Yes,' others cried. 'We can't hear.'
Though I stood only two paces away, I still had to strain my ears. I knew that this young woman wrote delightful prose. I hoped that one day she would get her first book out in print. But what would happen to her when the publisher demanded that she read her work in public? Or worse still, be asked to speak about her writing to a critical teenage audience?
'Thus is wonderful stuff,' I said trying hard not to be too confrontational. 'But some of our class are having trouble hearing you. Please read a little louder.'
Head down and scarlet faced she did - though the words were still unintelligible.
The class shifted uneasily. This session was going nowhere. In desperation, I said, 'Would you like someone else to take over?'
Openly relieved, she handed me her work. I read it through very slowly. Only then was the class able to offer her some important and constructive advice.
In an age when voices spruik from every corner, and when music is most public places is either mind-blowingly bland or ear-deafeningly noisy, reading aloud is a forgotten skill. I have attended too many Writers' Festivals and Readings where the audience was flummoxed by a general lack of correct enunciation, and where the experience ended up as a frustrating waste of time.
But there is another and more immediate reason for reading one's work aloud. Writers need to hear their own words, if only to acquire the right tempo and phrasing. How easy it is when tapping on a computer to rattle away and not be aware that sentences are overlong, convoluted, repetitive or just plain boring. I taught high school English before I became a full time writer. Back then I would instruct my young students to read their work to a sibling or parent before putting it in for assessment. I'd say, 'You'll hear the mistakes. They'll jump out at you. Promise.'
'But miss, they won't listen.'
'Then go into the bathroom and read your work to the toilet. The toilet will listen.'
This always aroused great mirth. But I had made my point, and the students would bring in wonderful essays and stories that proved they had actually listened to their own words.
How sad that so few people know how to read aloud and make the experience pleasant for both reader and listener. Reading is the other side of acting. A writer should be able to present his characters well enough to show changes of atmosphere, setting and plot. Reading aloud is very different to silent reading - particularly for rapid eye readers which I suspect most writers are. But it's hard to remember to slow down enough for each phrase to sink in; to remember to pause between sentences; to emphasize questions and exclamations; to allow pregnant pauses between chapters; to give each character some unique tonal quality.
Reading your work over community radio is one way of honing your technique. Community radios often have segments for new writers' works and are usually happy to provide airspace. There's nothing like listening to yourself on playback to allow the message of careful slow reading to sink in. I have often read a new piece of work into a tape recorder or over radio only to realise how much more editing was needed. The experience can be most salutary. And don't forget your local school. Schools love writers coming in to read their work. Those young listeners are highly critical, and you will soon learn when your work is overlong, or boring or not correctly pitched to your audience.
Thank heavens for audio books. They are another way of reaching a wider audience as busy folk work, walk, cycle and drive. Only I sometimes find that even professional readers speak too quickly when they have to compete with noisy traffic. Just like less can be more, maybe slow can be faster?
Astronet
When I thought about how swiftly fashions change, it occurred to me that a future hair trend might be to have none at all much like the ancient Egyptians who plucked out every hair. Imagine my amusement when shortly after this book appeared, folk started shaving their heads.
Hair styles have often been used to signal cultural, social, and ethnic identity. Men and women naturally have the same hair but generally hairstyles conform to cultural standards of gender. Hair styles in both men and women also vary with current fashion trends, and are often used to determine social status.
For example, in the 17th century, Manchu invaders issued the Queue Order, requiring Chinese, who traditionally did not cut their hair, to shave their heads like Manchus. The Chinese resisted. Tens of thousands of people were killed due to their hairstyle. In the 1920s, the evangelist Billy Sunday popularized the phrase "long-haired men and short-haired women", a term he meant to encompass his disapproval of radicals, liberated women and artists. Until the Beatles came along, classical music was called longhaired music because a longer style was popular among male orchestral musicians and conductors.
There is also another and more serious intent behind Astronet. Many children live a 'cut-off' life style where they have little to do with kids from different socio-economic levels. The contrast between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' is on the rise. Though I try hard not to be overtly political, it seems that my own views do appear when such issues come up.
Cowpat$
This story was inspired by frequenting many art galleries. I always eavesdrop on  comments made by other visitors. People rarely like the same paintings or sculptures. It occurred to me that creating a 'being' a stranger who admired cowpats enough to frame and display them as fine works of art was funny enough to turn into a story.
As for having your own business: the contrast between rundown Geribilt Farm and poor Red trying to run an efficient small business, also made me laugh. Hope this makes you laugh too.
However, as always, there is a serious thought behind this story as it is a reminder of farmers struggling through this prolonged drought. My other intention was to write something that would entertain both kids and grown-ups, though possibly at different levels. Kids can be amused by the idea of a mysterious stranger offering good money for cowpats. Adults might be amused by my suggestion that art is always in the eye of the beholder and often culturally driven.
Easternport Bay
When I was very young I loved reading stories about kids who solved mysteries and  crimes and had lots of adventures, and mostly by Enid Blyton. Having listened to a number of children exchange jokes and riddles, I thought to combine the two ideas in one novel, only to make my youngsters more 'up to date' and from different ethnic backgrounds.
Readers sometimes ask why I decided to publish "Easternport Bay" as an eBook. My answer is to remind them how often the medium has changed and how beneficial these changes have been. E-publishing is timely. It is the next significant change in the way stories can be told.
The first revolution occurred when printed books liberated books from the monasteries' monopoly. In the 15th Century, the number of books in Europe surged from a few thousand to more than nine million. The second revolution came with the paperback. In 1777- 83, John Bell's version of 'The Poets of Great Britain' cost six shillings each instead of the usual guinea. It was the introduction of the paperback that forced the price of books to dive.
It's possible that eBooks will do what paperbacks did to hard-covers. I imagine a future where readers will be able to select from publishing back-lists and front-lists comprising millions of titles. Millions of authors are now able to realize their dream to have their work published cheaply. The monopoly of the big publishing houses on everything written will be a thing of the past. eBooks may help restore the balance between best-sellers and mid-list authors.
I wouldn't dare suggest that eBooks are problem free. They are dependent on technology. Changes are liable to render many eBooks unreadable. Portability is hampered by battery life or the availability of electricity. People still desire the smell and feel of 'real books'. We are still in the experimental stage. However eBooks save on publishers' resources and warehouse space. They are light on readers' pockets and shelf space. They are wonderfully transportable. I think they are the way publishing will go. eBooks could be our future.
Starship Q
I have always been fond of science fiction. Through science fiction, a writer creates a different world which contains new ideas for clothes, music, language and customs. The writer can also use science fiction to make some important point that would sound too improbable or far too moralistic if placed in a familiar setting.
Though the humans and Igs in this story look different, they share many common interests. They must learn to recognize their prejudices and try to get on together before they can save themselves.
Every single day we watch, listen and read about groups of people who live near each other but find it hard to get along. This often leads to bloodshed and death. Even in this peaceful country there are many different groups who find it hard to see another point of view. I wonder if it would help if we could all speak a common language like 'Universal'? Is it mostly incomprehension of another's point of view that keeps us apart?
Trapeze
This story was inspired by a very noisy neighbour who lived directly above me. Her  intermittent thumps and bumps were intensely annoying. I spent many nights wondering what could create such a terrible racket? Was she running a printing press? Printing counterfeit money? Or illegal documents? Maybe she was renovating, pulling down walls? More importantly, how could I prevent those thumps and bumps from waking me?
In the middle of the night I would wake and ponder what might happen if something unusual appeared on my ceiling. When I tried to imagine what it could be, a circus came to mind. After many inquiries, I heard that some hard to close windows and balcony doors were responsible for all that noise. Unfortunately, though I love circuses, not a single one ever appeared on my ceiling.
Ritchie's situation of trying to cope with his parents' separation is only too common. In some districts more children live in single parent homes than with two parents. I hope that they can receive some inspiration from reading fictional accounts of their own situations.
Seawall
Delving in the future the writer can create whole new worlds where clothes, music and language never date. Old stories can also be retold.
There is a famous Nineteenth Century story about a Dutch boy who held his finger in a dyke and saved a whole village from flood. I transplanted this idea into the future - a future where climate warming has taken place to a horrific degree.
This story was written some time ago purely as fiction. However since then to my horror some of the dire predictions I make in it seem have come true; sea levels have risen, there are more destructive storms, and many folk have been forced to leave low lying areas as the sea has washed in.
Killer Virus and Other Stories
A common perception amongst educators is that boys regard reading fiction as wimpish and therefore an activity more suitable for girls. They claim that if boys do read, that  they tend to prefer reading non fiction. They argue that boys want material that supplies them with facts. They point out that as women form a greater percentage of children's writers, that these women tend to use female protagonists, female driven plots and feminine themes.
The well-known author Mario Vargas Llosa backs this argument up by pointing out that only a minority of grown men read fiction. When queried, their usual response is that fiction is a female middle class activity. Busy men don't have time to indulge in fantasy and illusion when there is so much else - sport, business, stock-market reports etc.- to catch up on. So it's easy to conclude that if fiction is seen as wasteful and an indulgence, that their sons will quickly adopt similar attitudes.
I don't want to get into the argument of who reads more and why. Or even what they read. However decades of teaching have taught me that many boys and girls are reaching puberty while still in primary school. It is then a boy's attention span will drop, and his interests become vastly different to a girl's. I know that adolescent boys find it hard to sit still long enough to work their way through longish fiction. I know from bitter experience how difficult it is to maintain interest in a novel from one lesson to the next, when due to time-tabling difficulties, there might be several days between classes. I suspect, though I have no indisputable proof of this, that these days the emphasis in schools isn't on reading for pleasure.
Writers are first and foremost readers. Reading is what attracted them to this profession in the first place. I filled my own adolescence with reading and going to the movies. I would argue that if there is some truth that boys no longer read as much, then we writers must come up with new ways and means to involve them. The idea-mongers and creators may change the medium - more film and multi-media - but never the message. ebooks are still in their infancy, but as a quick, cheap and paper-saving device, I am sure that their day will come - no matter how often older readers assure me that they couldn't do without the smell and rustle of paper.
My solution was to construct a short story collection - a genre that has in recent years gone out of fashion - using only teenage boys as protagonists. Thus I set about putting together ten stories of varying length where each story involved a boy in some interesting and relevant experience. In some ways I was lucky. Though I was no longer working in schools, I knew a number of pubescent boys who could provide me with excellent role models as well as a few ideas. Though these boys still had girl-soft skin, they spiked their hair with green and purple jell and wore t-shirts bearing rude messages and baggy pants. Pubescence being the time when the social group is everything, all were fixed in their determination to meld with their peers and reject adult ideas and control. I understood how they felt. Writers often have latent alter-egos, and under my grandmotherly exterior, an army of angry adolescents was just itching to get out.
Llosa argues that 'literature is one of the common denominators of human experience… that it helps us understand each other through time and space.' He points out that there is no more effective method to protect us from prejudice and injustice than learning about other lives and experiences.
Extensive Teacher Notes for Killer Virus can be obtained from www.phoenixeduc.com.
Captain Gallant 
The idea of a very junior novel with a science fiction theme had long intrigued me. So "Captain Gallant" came out of a grandson's request. A poor reader, he watched a lot of TV where cartoons were often based in science fiction and fantasy. But he couldn't find any books to match his reading age. Thus I created "Captain Gallant", which is simple to read but adventurous enough to satisfy any Sci Fi aficionado.
There is also a story behind the illustrations. Dion Hammil, the talented young artist, found me via the internet. Though we have never actually come face to face, so far worked he has illustrated five of my books. I'm still waiting for the day that we actually meet.
A Hairy Story
An old 'shaggy dog' story, this is great fun as a read aloud to all primary school  children. Kids love the idea of hair enveloping a city and then a whole countryside. And don't we all suffer with 'bad hair' days?
This was my response when asked if people are still reading…
'No one reads any more,' said a young critic after asking what I do for a living. He had me thinking. Can this be true? In the twenty-first century, are there too many other ways to use our imaginations? Have we become viewers, players and listeners instead? It seems that a percentage of youngsters remain functionally illiterate but graphically, they can manage to read the signs. How will these kids operate in a world that demands the ability to read in order to gain a driver's licence, run a computer, handle money and even understand the contents of a supermarket shelf? Is there anything we authors can do to make the learning process less arduous?
Playing with words and ideas is what we writers do. We can help our audience solve current situations, take them into the past, help them imagine the future, or travel to far away lands. It's just a question of how we do it. Words? Graphics? Illustrations? Audio? Performance? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be assured that our present loneliness or sadness must surely pass. Ultimately, the best thing about reading is that it can offer the reader comfort in what is often a difficult and puzzling world.
So my advice to aspiring writer is to read your work over community radio. That's one way of honing your technique. Community radios often have segments for new writers' works and are usually happy to provide airspace. There's nothing like listening to yourself on playback to allow the message of careful slow reading to sink in. I have often read a new work into a tape recorder or over radio only to realise how much more editing was needed. The experience can be most salutary. And don't forget your local school. Schools love writers coming in to read their work. Those young listeners are highly critical, and you will soon learn when your work is overlong, or boring or not correctly pitched to your audience.
Also thank heavens for audio books. They are another way of reaching a wider audience as busy folk work, walk, cycle and drive. Only I sometimes find that even professional readers speak too quickly when they have to compete with noisy traffic. Just like less can be more, maybe slow can be faster?
Mavis Road Medley
My particular interest in writing history lies in bringing the past to life and comparing it with the present. In my first historical novel for Young Adults, Mavis Road Medley (Margaret Hamilton Books) two youngsters from the 1990's find themselves in the Melbourne of 1933. I wanted to create a historical fiction that would allow youngsters to see the past with contemporary eyes. "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there."
Using this time-travel technique allows the reader to perceive events through modern eyes. Nothing is easier to lose than the past. Even when I look back on my own growing up years, they seem quite remote, the Australia of the fifties so different as to be almost unrecognizable.
It is a truism that most writers write about themselves in their earlier novels. My father arrived from Poland in late 20's 'Just in time for the Depression.' I wanted to show succeeding generations what life was like then. My windfall was finding so much material on Wirth's Circus. This circus used to set up a giant tent every Christmas on the site which is now the Victorian Arts Centre. One of my earliest memories is the smell of sawdust, the uncomfortable wooden seats, and the wonderful performances of both people and animals.
Shape Shifters
When I was little, there were lots of bullies at my school and they usually got away with it. Bullying happens everywhere, even to grown-ups. I love the idea of finding a sure way of stopping it.
Working together to stop bullies soon as they start is the best way to prevent this from happening. You need to show that they don’t scare you. You need to tell a trusted adult what is happening. You need to support your friend if this is happening to her or him. You must never let bullies get away with it.
Bridging the Snowy
Aussie Aussie Aussie 2nd series
Published by Blake Education 2008
I was a fat and awkward child. In a way this stood me in good stead as those very misfortunes pushed me into becoming a great reader, and from there into writing. Perhaps if I had come from a different background, things might have been different. Perhaps I would have overcome many of my fears. But as it was, my migrant parents didn’t like to see me in any situation that could involve any risk. I was the only child in our neighbourhood who never owned, much less learnt, to ride a bike. Like Rowan I was teased and tormented by more athletic children. When it came to physical education and jumping over the ‘wooden horse’, I was the only girl in my class who never managed it. So it was fun creating a situation where a boy with a similar problem finally displays his innate bravery and courage to save his bullying cousin.
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