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My writingIf you're interested in a particular novel or anthology, follow the links: My first novel. Rose and Guenloie and Ailinn and the case of the mysterious manuscript.
Where I go suddenly modern and introduce the world to a very charming mirror. Also to the Boss From Hell. Also to ants. Many ants. Nominated for a Ditmar.
My new anthology. My dream anthology. These writers are awesome!
My first anthology, shared with Scott Hopkins with so much important behind-the-scenes work done by Elizabeth Fitzgerald.
Questions I get askedDo I research Arthurian/Medieval18th century things, or do I mug up for my fiction? I am afraid I was an Arthurian and Old French epic legend and all sorts of other Medievalist way before I wrote a novel using those stories. I used my undergraduate history to create the background for New Ceres (which no-one asks about, so I won't go into it here) and my postgraduate and later research for everything else. Now I can split the historian from the novelist much more effectively (look Mum, no footnotes!!)- but I was a novice at dividing my brain down the middle at first.
People always ask me how much of my fiction is based on real life.I am very impressed that people believe enough to ask me about specific characters, but my characters are entirely my invention. Some incidents are loosely based on things that I have experienced or heard about, but it is more in the nature of being inspired by than recounting things as they happened. And to the kind person who walked right up to me to count my grey hairs to see if I had twenty-one (the number of the male narrator in "Happy Faces for Happy Families") - there are quite a few more since you counted, but I am not there yet. With my novels, even my footnotes are fictitious and should be treated as such (and if I sound pompous, it is because a lot of people have believed that, because something is in a footnote, it is true - one person even told me a footnote which I know is fictional because I wrote it, refers to some sort of external reality). None of my characters is me. I have never swum naked in the Murrumbidgee or discovered a floating island.
Did I base Rose/Ailinn/Elizabeth/miscellaneous-other-character on myself?Well, sort of. I base all my characters on what I see of the world through my own perverse vision. So even the most horrible ones express bits of me. But they are not me. Thank goodness. I get asked about Rose and Elizabeth more than any other. Rose is a Medievalist who is travelling in France and lo, I am a Medievalist who has travelled in France. Elizabeth is a retired public servant and lo, I am a retired public servant. In fact, my characters and I have fundamental differences. I do, however, rather enjoy messing with the minds of readers. TwistsI don't intend to put twists at the end of my books. They happen all by themselves. I must just have a twisted brain. US TourIt was great, it was wonderful - and here is the stuff we put online during it. Travels in a red mustang convertible My name has been in lights and I can die happy? Well, not yet. The accentI am very happily Australian. I do not sound like Steve Irwin because I sound like someone from Melbourne. I guess this has something to do with growing up there. (Why do I always feel like apologising for my sense of humour?)
Several people have asked me about the addresses in my books.I invented them. In fact, where Louise lives in Illuminations is actually a bedding shop. Please don't write to these people I did not invent the coffee and chocolate places on Rose's website. Alan Frew is not fictitious. I asked him about Rose's preferred blend and he says it would be his Espresso Meridionale. My favourite coffees are his Nicaraguan Maragogype and his Yemen Mokha Ismaili. I also did not invent Canberra.
CanberraCanberra gets a bad rap everywhere. Because it is the city of Australian government, it tends to be seen as a bunch of things it is not, the main one being boring. Life Through Cellophane is not a good promotion for it as a city. Despite my mistreatment of it, I love this city. I came here over two decades ago. I planned to stay one year, to be close enough to my father so I could visit him heaps when he was dying (which I did). I never quite got around to leaving, despite vast pressures from family and friends all over the place. They couldn't see why I stayed. This says a lot about the difference between how Canberra is seen from the outside and what it really is. Canberra is unpretentious (well, mostly). A giant village, full of informed and thoughtful people. A good sense of humour (we need it to deal with Canberra jokes) and amazing libraries. It's also very pretty.
I adore the layering effect of the mountain ranges, and the snow on the high peaks. The view that you get driving down Hindmarsh Drive past Red Hill is just spectacular. And then there are the ancient rock paintings, and...
ReviewsI'm not particularly good at chasing up reviews. Here are a few:The novels http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6970310-life-through-cellophane http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/2009/12/03/life-cellophane-gillian-polack.html http://aussiespecficinfocus.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/life-through-cellophane/
http://www.arthuriana.org/access/
The anthologies http://aussiespecficinfocus.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/baggage/ http://charles-tan.blogspot.com/2010/07/bookmagazine-review-baggage-edited-by.html http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/2010/07/four-new-australian-anthologies/ http://www.fanaticspace.com/2009/04/29/masques-an-australian-anthology/
Non-fictionI've produced a few articles on this, that or the other over the years. By 'a few,' I suspect I mean over three hundred. Rather than answering questions about them, I put a few of the older ones online. Note: These are the unedited versions. So blame me and not the editors for the writing quality. |
A favourite bit of France.
Snowy Mountain flowers