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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.
Hedgeburners: An A~Z PI Mystery
I have only to visit bookstores and libraries to know how popular crime is. I think there are several reasons for this; firstly the structure of any crime story, much like those folktales read to us when we were young, is ultimately satisfying. The crime novel posits a bad deed that must be solved before the end of the book. The wicked are always found out and vanquished. I had already written two ‘cozy' mysteries for adults and similar to the Enid Blyton novels I read as a child about the Famous Five, and was interested in creating two present day youngsters capable of bringing wrong-doers to justice.
If the major difference between children's and adult mysteries is the age of the protagonists, the conventions are similar: order is disturbed and then restored, and the ending is a confrontation between hero and villain. But finding a suitable plot is more difficult. The stuff that makes up most adult crime - murder, incest, rape, larceny, kidnapping - isn't suitable for kids.
Melbourne is noted for its wonderful gardens, many protected by precious old cypress hedges. In both 2000 and 2009 some drew the attention of young firebugs. As I searched for a suitable topic, a newspaper report caught my eye: "Arsonists are believed to have caused fires that damaged two cypress hedges within a kilometer of each other in Melbourne's south-east early yesterday. Firefighters were called to a blaze at 4am after a 100 year old hedge was fired. Twenty minutes later, a woman and her baby were lucky to escape a similar fire in another suburb." When the arsonists were finally uncovered they turned out to be young middle class males. It was these incidents that finally inspired "Hedgeburners: An A~Z PI Mystery". (An Anna and Zach Private Eye Mystery)
Now I needed to create my characters. In adult crime, detectives can either be professional (Hercule Poirot) or amateur (Ms Marple). They have some trait that makes the reader feel empathy both for him and the dilemma the crime has produced. I needed a leader and a follower to play off against each other. I turned my leader into thirteen year old Anna (A) and her sidekick Zach(Z) also aged thirteen, who tells the story. As more quirky characters would provide subplots, I added Ruby the wrestler, Brett the journo, and a pet rat called M. All do their part in solving the mystery of Who is setting fire to the old cypress hedges in Anna's suburb.
Probably the most important element in writing is the axiom: Show, don't tell. In terms of characterisation, it can mean that instead of writing a paragraph of description, to use key phrases and relate them to the action. Ruby gave her volcanic laugh… The overhead light glinted off Dad's head... Under his leather jacket, his biceps bulge and his long nose and beady eyes remind me of a pelican… Zach compares most people he meets with animals; his next door neighbour Diana is a sexy-stick-insect, Ruby is a baby hippo. Brett is a red eyed mongoose. In this I was helped by the wonderful illustrator Marjory Gardner whose witty drawings appear throughout the text.
Dialogue also helped create characters. A mystery is basically ‘talking heads' as the young detectives interviewed various suspects and chased clues. Witnesses often refused to talk, so that provided necessary conflict. Some of the best dialogue written by Stephen King has his villains speak in verb-less sentences ‘Where you going?' But as this was writing for children, instead I hinted that certain words were mispronounced and my adults spoke differently. In a children's mystery there was the added problem that grown-ups presented an extra hurdle by just ‘putting up' and at some point, these young sleuths had to be told to back off because the job was too dangerous.
Stories with amateur detectives are frequently written in the first person. The advantage of using first person is immediacy. Very early in the book, I had to give the reader a chance to identify with the protagonist and my way of doing this was to ‘get inside Zach's head'. As I intended this to be a series, the reader had to not only like Zach and Anna but to go on liking them through several books. Also, I wanted the reader to be a step or so behind these youngsters, so that when the solution came, the reader said, ‘Of course!' and wasn't too bemused by the outcome.
In a classic mystery, there is a small circle of suspects. In ‘Hedgeburners' the characters all live in one small suburb as there are past connections. The basic point of the mystery is the use of logic; the reader must want to match wits with the detectives. My youngsters couldn't just stumble on the villain – they had to be seen to detect and the novel's structure had to permit this. Which brought me to the most important rule of writing crime; the criminal had to be seen or mentioned in the first three chapters. The detective could be fooled by false clues, the plot could go back and forth, but that rule couldn't be changed.
There's lots of thinking and running around in a whodunnit, sometimes in the detective's head, sometimes in dialogue, sometimes as action, and it's hard to keep that interesting, so I split up the information, inserted lots of red herrings to lead the reader astray, gave one vital piece of information early on and held the rest until later.
When it came to style and pacing, I decided that things should seem to take almost as much time as they seemed to take in real life. However, there was the impetus to keep things interesting and that is where subplots were useful. In Hedgeburners, Zach is in a constant quandary: he has to look after his large aviary and hand in homework so his father's threat to sell his birds if his next report isn't better, won't happen. In this he is opposed by Anna who is only interested in finding the criminal and bringing him to justice. In any confrontation between protagonist and villain, the good guy should seem to be winning, then the bad guy should gain the upper hand, much the same way it's done in the movies. Zach and Anna find themselves in constant conflict with their suspects and often narrowly escape being hurt.
Finally, one of the important elements in compelling writing is the use of contrast. In any action scene I placed lots of short sentences and avoided long descriptions. I tried to keep the writing short, snappy and above all, funny.
My Horrible Cousins and Other Stories - Writing Fiction for Girls
A common perception is that all girls read fiction. Even if many boys don't take to  reading like ducks to water, it is pretty well established that most girls do. Because there has been so much interest in encouraging boys to read, a lot of contemporary fiction tends to have boy protagonists and masculine concerns. Most of my recent short stories and novels feature issues surrounding boys. One of my latest "Bridging the Snowy" (an Aussie School Book proudly wearing the Aussie flag) is all about boys in conflict with each other and the environment. Writing for girls doesn't seem as important. After all women form a greater percentage of children's writers, tend to use female protagonists, female driven plots and feminine themes.
Because children's writers do their best to keep up with contemporary trends, it now turns out that in the usual pendulum swing writing for girls has been neglected. Yet social change for girls is galloping. Finding a satisfying ongoing career has assumed the same importance as finding a partner and creating a family. Those twin aims, plus the rapid growth of technology and the all consuming influence of the media, leaves many girls wondering what to expect of themselves.
As a result of better nutrition and more exercise, pubescence is happening earlier to girls, sometimes as early as Years 4 and 5. Adolescence can be a time of confusion. It is when the social group is everything, when both genders are fixed in their determination to meld with their peers and reject adult ideas and control. This is when a child's attention span will drop, and his or her interests alter. Adolescents find it hard to sit still long enough to work their way through longish fiction. Having once been a teacher myself, I remember 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. But a short story can be grabbed in one session. A good short story shouldn't be viewed as a snack but as a meal in itself. A good short story should have convincing characters, plot, theme, style, and a satisfying opening, middle and resolution.
Writers are by inference also great readers. They know that fiction can act as advisor, leader, and even therapist. Reading is what attracted them to this profession in the first place. I filled my own lonely adolescence with reading - it was the only way I could concentrate on the emotional issues that confronted me. Working through other women's problems helped me sort through mine. Not that I believe fiction should only act as therapist. Rather it is way of introducing youngsters to moral dilemmas, other worlds and new experiences. It should involve and entertain.
Recent studies confirm what many of us instinctively know. It seems that people who read fiction tend to be more empathetic and able to judge people and social situations more easily than people who read non-fiction. A study published in the Journal of Research in Personality by psychologist Raymond Mar, found that people who read narrative fiction often have improved social abilities, while for those who read non-fiction, the opposite holds true. "All stories are about people and their interactions - romance, tragedy, conflict," says Mar. "Stories often force us to empathize with characters who are quite different from us, and this ability could help us better understand the many kinds of people we come across in the real world."
All this leads to my newest collection of short stories intended to introduce girls to a variety of writing genres, improve their analysis and comprehension skills, encourage them to develop their own creative talents, and help equip them with enough communication tools to navigate the challenges they will face, involve and entertain. What I didn't want were stories that sounded like chatty trend-driven magazine articles giving advice on fashion, gossip or the latest pop heroes. Instead I wanted girl characters that were strong and resourceful, good at overcoming adversity in differing situations and able to solve any problems thrown at them.
This latest anthology "My Horrible Cousins" is intended to accompany "KillerVirus", my collection of 10 stories all about thirteen year old boys. Like "KillerVirus", the 11 stories in this new collection vary in length and difficulty. I am always aware that chronological age doesn't mean an equivalent reading age. Though most of these stories have twelve year old protagonists, they vary in complexity of comprehension, word usage and syntax. Most are split into small chapters to make life easier for the slower reader. But even if the language varies, the themes of self reliance and personal problem solving are consistent.
Some of the issues explored include coping with difficult relatives (My Horrible Cousins), the environment (Lame Duck Protest, The Great Google, Raising Ella) a folk tale in a modern context (Jacqui and G.M. Beanstalk) displaced people (Space Gypsies) keeping animals ( Byrdie Byte) humor (An UnHappy Story, Lucy's Instant Spelling Program, The Stranger) and bullying (Ferals). To accompany these stories are photo-copiable Teacher Notes with information on background, comprehension, vocabulary. Oral and writing exercises are provided for that dreadful ‘what will we do next?' every teacher seems to experience sooner or later.
I supposed that I have always longed for a mechanism that would make sense of our existence and explain all those things that seem inexplicable and unjust. Might reading help us believe that our present loneliness or sadness must surely pass? If fiction is an attempt to put order into a disorderly world, my personal solution is to write stories that might persuade readers into seeing life as diverse and wonderful as it surely is.
Lame Duck Protest
Published by Interactive Publications
Young readers have several standard questions they tend to ask visiting authors. Sometimes my answers are facetious.
Q. 'How old are you?'
A. 'I'm a hundred and two.'
Q. 'How much money do you make?'
A. 'Not enough.'
But the idea for 'Lame Duck Protest' story picture book came from a dare. An author- friend saw a real sign with LAME DUCK PROTEST on it. She dared me to write a story with that title. So I did. Taking a dare is an unusual way for me to work. Everyday things like chocolate, noisy neighbours, current events, and public transport where I listen in to loud mobile conversations are my usual idea-starters.
Often things go wrong and authors write about that... though they do tend to exaggerate. For example, I had really noisy upstairs neighbours in the flat above my bedroom. Couldn't sleep. So I imagined a circus coming down from the ceiling and 'Trapeze', a short novel for older children, was born. 'Starship Q' was fuelled by coping with clashes between locals and newly arrived migrants; 'Shape-Shifters' by being bullied as a child; 'Bridging the Snowy' came from a holiday in the mountains.
Birthdays are popular subjects. The idea for 'Party-Plan' in the collection 'Killer Virus' came from a boy who described how he set about throwing himself a birthday party. 'My Horrible Cousins', the lead story of that anthology, was suggested by a girl who flew to Europe with her unpleasant cousins. In the same collection, 'Space Gypsies' was triggered by the plight of refugees, 'Spelling Bee' by the interest taken in spelling competitions, and 'Seagrass Cafe' by frequenting the numerous cafes that have sprung up along the bay.
My two YA historical fictions, 'Mavis Road Medley' and 'Body and Soul' were based on family, one on my parents' first years in Australia, the other on a mildly disabled aunt.
Sometimes a story can be told in more than one way. Or even as a picture book AND a short story. 'Lame Duck Protest' was originally published in NSW School Magazine Touchdown in 2004 as a short story (It also appears in 'My Horrible Cousins and other Stories.') But if a story is really worth telling, you wonder if it might work better in another format. The original short story was 2000 words. By editing it down to a 600 word text, I faced the challenge of only keeping what was important.
Whenever I'm invited to talk about writing for a young audience, I share my discovery that the younger the child, the more difficult it is to write for that reader, and picture books are the hardest. Short doesn't mean easy. Celebrities are churning out (not very good) kids' books. I suspect many are ghosted by editorial staff. In a story picture book with minimal words, every syllable is significant so being a bit of a poet helps in saying a lot in few words. Not all celebrities can do that. There must a good story—one that the reader can't put down. A strong beginning will captivate children who have short attention spans and be as satisfying as it is simple. It's important that there be 'music in the text', and enough spaces left between words for the illustrator to work on. I try for rhythm and repetition if not always rhyme. A successful picture story book should encourage little ones to enjoy hearing and reading stories over and over again.
'Lame Duck Protest' had to overcome all those challenges.
Interactive Publications was happy to publish and suggested that I help find an illustrator. I looked up those smart enough to place their folios on line and found Michele Gaudion. She has responded with wonderful illustrations, both black and white and colour and often intermingled. Much of Michele's work has been for advertising agencies so she has an excellent sense of what attracts the eye. She is also highly equipped as a children's illustrator as she lists a 'sense of humour' as one of her many qualifications.
In "Lame Duck Protest", the characters protest over the proposed opening of a shopping centre in their local reserve. I did my best to avoid preaching by using a lame duck as my metaphor. Kids like the humour of the duckling imprinting Zoe as her mum and even following her into the toilet. Living in St Kilda I am surrounded by proposed developments and some are totally inappropriate. This is my way of fighting back. A protest book but hopefully, not a lame one!
"Lame Duck Protest" 2009.
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.
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.
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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