Tania McCartney

TREES, TRAINS & HOSPITAL TROLLEYS: WHERE WRITERS WRITE (PART 1)

by Irma
7 July 201529 August 2017

Writers write in weird places.*

I do all the standard things: scrawl notes in the middle of the night, while I’m out walking, when driving in the car (I pull over, of course, often bunny-hopping to my destination). I’m forever using the back of receipts or whatever I can lay my hands on (I’ve always been disorganised with notebooks, even though I’m always buying them).

Cafes are hands down my favourite place to write but I’m not fussy. I’ll write any time, any place. This has included in the back of a tuk tuk in Chiang Mai as it veered all over the road, in a tent in Tanzania with the sound of hyenas scuffling outside, and in a hospital while I miscarried. It’s possible that only writers will understand that last one.

But perhaps the most bizarre experience was going into labour with my third child while writing a grant application for The Invisible Thread anthology I was editing. The deadline was just around the corner and I knew that if I didn’t finish it right then and there it wouldn’t happen. So I kept going, pausing every ten minutes to breathe through the contractions. I managed to finish the application and submitted it (cursing the absence of a special consideration category for completed-while-birthing-a-small-human). I shut down the computer, called my husband, went into hospital, and 90 minutes later had my little boy in my arms. Oh, and we got the grant.

After posting this more benign tweet, fellow writer Kaaron Warren suggested I collate a post of the strangest places writers have written. So I put the word out to my writer friends and their stories came flooding in, so many in fact that I’m going to split them into two posts. So here goes number one (you’ll see that hospitals emerge as a bit of a theme).

Brooke Davis: As a kid, I wrote sitting in a favourite pine tree, and in a paddock full of long grass, and while watching the tennis at the Australian Open. As a teenager I wrote on long car trips around Australia with my family. I had to hold my notebook above my head and almost write upside down because that was the only way I wouldn’t get car sick. As a uni student I once tried to write at Oktoberfest in Canberra. It was the kind of experiment you do in your 20s: What level of genius will I come up with when drunk? You probably know the answer: No level of genius in any way whatsoever. These days, I’m writing on lots of things that move. Ferries, buses, trains, cars, bikes, my own feet, planes, trams. I like how the movement gives me the feeling (i.e., tricks me into thinking) that my writing is moving. But to be honest, the older I get the more boring I am about it. These days, I crave places where I can hole up in a corner somewhere and think I’m invisible while I look at all the weird and wonderful people, like a creepy ghost with a laptop. This mostly happens in cafes and pubs and parks. Maybe I should go back to climbing pine trees?

Rosanna Stevens: I am currently writing in the only place that has Internet for five kilometres: I’m sitting in a garden, in the dark, listening to the shouts of women performing a fire ceremony at a shamanic women’s mysteries retreat in Las Chullpas — an hour from Cusco in Peru. I am also surrounded by puppies. Come at me, deadlines.

Susanne Gervay: Post operative after major surgery with drips and drains, I couldn’t move with pain and I kept thinking, I have to finish my novel in case I die. That’s what I did. Write my novel, not die.

Tania McCartney: Probably the ‘weirdest’ place I’ve ever written is super ordinary — my bed. Sometimes, if I wake in the depths of night with some urgent prose, I’ll fumble for my phone, set it to video, hide under the covers and whisper the text into the phone for transcribing the next day. My husband sleeps right through!

Craig Cormick: That was probably on a trolley about to go into the operating theatre for day surgery, telling the anesthetist guy, ‘Just a moment, just one more moment, I have to write this down before I forget it.’ Second weirdest would probably be in Antarctica, sitting down to write some notes by the edge of a penguin colony (where you are not allowed to get closer than a few metres to a penguin), and looking up and finding all these penguins waddling up to check out what I was doing (clearly the exclusion distance rules that applied to us did not apply to them).

Lee Kofman: The most bizarre place I’ve ever written in was in my living room, this week, when I sat on the couch with both my laptop and my toddler on my pregnant lap, while my boy’s nanny sat close by my side trying to cajole him away. She wasn’t successful though. My child wrapped his arms around my neck, teary, while I kept typing away an essay I had to send to an editor within an hour. The nanny kept talking to my boy, he kept sobbing, and I kept writing, feeling trapped, guilty and loved. I really don’t know more bizarre place for me to write from than this metaphorical, yet very tangibly claustrophobic, space of motherhood.

SJ Finn: One of the more obscure places I’ve found myself writing is on a support boat for an outrigger competing in a marathon race, 72-kilometres long, in the Whitsundays. While the outrigger was a slender boat — full of women going hell-for-leather with a fat-ended paddle — the support boat (a tag-team arranged on its deck) was a large wooden affair, more like a fishing boat than one for leisure but without the fishy smell, or the equipment of nets and pulleys on its deck. As a support boat was paired to every rigger it made for a busy flotilla of twin vessels on a choppy sea. I can, however, be pretty sure there was only one writer. Head down in the beautiful wooden cabin for the entire 8 hours, I wrote as my partner coordinated the ‘changes’ (baton-relay-like) for the paddlers to get spells from the gruelling effort to get to the finish line. Head down amongst the yells and cheers and instructions (when paddlers saw their number held up they had to jump from the rigger and swim to the support boat, another teammate already swimming to replace them) I blocked all this frenetic activity out and became a little famous — at least among a bunch of very excited outrigger competitors — for doing so.

Paul Daley: When I was a full time journalist, I, like most, found myself writing in some unusual places. The great thing about journalism is that it conditions you to write anywhere, no matter the degree of discomfort and regardless of noise. There’s really no such thing as writers’ block when you’re punching out words to a deadline. So I found myself writing: in the backs of cars; in burnt out hotels; on helicopters; in too many bars; in frozen fields; from police stations and court foyers; while sitting in gutters and on roofs.

With my creative fiction I’ve been more choosy. I started my last novel with a few scrawls in a notebook on a sun lounge on a remote Greek Island and while most of it was written at my desk in Canberra, it developed in cafes, the National Library of Australia and in my dreams (that’s why, like so many writers, I keep a notebook by my bed). My last published short story I wrote in one take in an airline lounge. I began writing the current novel I’m working on while staying in a small bungalow in North East Arnhem Land (the view from my writing desk is pictured here) and I wrote some of it on a boat. I’m heading back to Arnhem Land soon to write some more. Sometimes I write at the kitchen bench between cooking the spag bol, feeding the dogs and overseeing homework. I don’t need aromatherapy and dolphin recordings or solitude. But I do have a lot of false starts and a rewrite a lot in my head, especially while I’m out in the bush with my dogs.

Part 2 of ‘Where Writers Write’ will feature Karen Viggers, Jack Heath, Nicole Hayes, Kirsten Krauth, Melinda Smith and a bunch of others. Stay tuned!

* Not all of us! For some writers routine is everything. Alec Patric, for instance, wrote to me to say, ‘When it comes to writing I’m pretty boring. Can’t really write anywhere else other than at my desk, same place every day. The habit, or ritual, is the only way it happens for me.’

MOTHERHOOD AND MAYHEM: CBCA CONFERENCE 2014

by Irma
23 May 20142 July 2017

I was thrilled to be invited to talk on a panel of local authors — billed as ‘local treasures’ no less — at the National Conference of the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Motherhood and Mayhem was our topic — with three kids aged three to almost 11 could there be any literary panel more perfectly aligned with my life?

What any of us said on the day is a bit of a blur. There were lots of laughs, I remember that. And it was a joy to share the stage with Tania McCartney (Chair), Stephanie Owen Reeder and Tracey Hawkins. I somehow managed to cleverly position myself in front of the wine (what we all need at the end of the day) and perhaps not so cleverly in front of Tracey’s body parts (she’s an ex-cop and has been known to take inspiration from her former life).

I’ve never seen a panel on this topic before but last year when the four of us started discussing what we might do it seemed like an obvious choice. There are so many women out there trying to balance the need to write with the needs of family. And both are needs. If only the washing did itself, or writing paid enough to hire an in-house chef. One can dream.

The question we all constantly get asked is, ‘How do you do it?’ I’m still not sure that I have an answer. What I do know is that I never stop. And I’ve got very good at wearing blinkers to shield me from the housework when I have a precious hour or two in which to write.

The response to the panel was wonderful (and to the lady who said that I don’t look old enough to have an 11 year old — bless you a thousand times!). We knew when we were planning our topic that everyone could relate in some way or another to the challenges of multitasking. Lots of the teacher librarians came up to say that the whole juggling act was familiar territory managing classes of children. And then there were the mother/writers who sat in the audience nodding in recognition.

I stumbled across this summary of the conference and love that we get a mention under the heading ‘Cool Canberra author chicks’! Angela Moyle goes on to say, ‘What a revelation!…These awesome ladies…have inspired me to make the time to write, and stop making excuses!’ Well now, that just makes me happy.

TREASURES AT THE CBCA CONFERENCE

by Irma
20 May 20143 July 2017

Last weekend at the CBCA Conference was one of the most wonderful experiences I have had yet as a writer. I met old friends and new, had wonderful conversations with intelligent, creative people, ate dinner in the War Memorial under the fighter planes, met so many inspiring teacher librarians passionate about reading, drank lots of bad coffee, was part of the ‘Local Treasures’ panel where we spoke about the crazy juggling act of being both a writer and a mother (more on that in another post), and laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m still trying to process everything that happened and have no idea how to capture it all in just one short post. So I thought that I would pick out some of the featured authors and share a few of my favourite books.

Glenda Millard_Tracey Hawkins_Michael Gerard Bauer_Irma Gold_Tania McCartney — Glenda Millard, Tracey Hawkins, Michael Gerard Bauer, Irma Gold, Tania McCartney

I have to start with Glenda Millard because I was a little star struck meeting her. In person she was beautiful — gently spoken, dressed in bold colours. Two of her picture books in particular have been treasured favourites in our house — Heart of the Tiger, which always makes me want to weep, and Kaito’s Cloth which was Miss Ten’s favourite book for the longest time and still sits on her bookshelf despite the fact that she says she is far too old for picture books. Kaito’s Cloth was also important to me after I was told by both a publisher and an agent that they couldn’t sell Megumi and the Bear ‘because of its snowy setting’. At the time we were reading Kaito’s Cloth daily; it has snow on every page. If Glenda can do it, I thought, so can I. Thankfully the incomparable Walker Books agreed. I was too shy to tell Glenda how much she has inspired me at the conference, but maybe next time.

During one plenary session Glenda and Stephen Michael King spoke about their collaborative process. I adore Stephen’s work — seriously ADORE! — and they clearly have a very special relationship. Glenda explained how when she is writing a book and thinking about the illustrations she has ‘no idea what I’m desiring, I just know that they’re Stephen’s’. Their latest picture book, The Duck and the Darklings, is extraordinary — for adults as much as children.

I missed most of Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood talking about their process because I was doing post-panel stuff (signing books, etc), but I adore their work, separately and together. I recently went to a workshop with Libby and she handed us all a copy of her first picture book, One Sunday. Master Two has been inseparable from it ever since. Even if we are just driving five minutes to pick up the older kids from school, One Sunday has to come. We almost left it at a café and it just missed being dropped into a puddle. Thankfully it has survived, unscarred, and is read daily.

For Freya my pick is going to be The Terrible Suitcase. All her illustrations are to-die-for but this is Emma Allen’s (incredible) debut book and I met Emma for the first time this weekend, having no idea that she was a local girl. Like me she has young children and is juggling lots of balls. I can’t wait to see what she creates next.

Julie Vivas spoke candidly about developing her illustrations and about how she is ‘always disappointed in herself’ when she finishes a book because she can see where she could have done better. Freya Blackwood related, revealing that she thinks some of her books are terrible and she’s glad people haven’t noticed. I can’t imagine which books Freya could possibly consider terrible, but I understand the mindset, as I’m sure all creative people do. Freya believes she has only created one perfect book, Amy and Louis (with Libby Gleeson). Vivas named Possum Magic as her most successful achievement.

bob graham ex2 — Bob Graham’s desk, recreated at CMaG

I’m not going to pick one Bob Graham book (a seriously impossible task) but instead encourage you to go to a mind-blowing retrospective of his work at CMaG. The conference crew went along to opening night and I’m going to go again with my kids. The exhibition is on until August and I would encourage you all to visit. I particularly loved the recreation of Bob’s working space, complete with paints, pencils and post-it notes.

Illustrator of over 100 books, Robert Ingpen was scheduled to appear at the conference but sadly had to cancel. Nevertheless his latest with author Jane Jolly, Tea and Sugar Christmas, was launched there. It is such an evocative book that I had the good fortune to edit. The story is woven around the train that serviced settlements along the Nullarbor Plain during the 1900s, and has a young Indigenous girl, Kathleen, as the main protagonist — such a rarity. Jane got a shock when she first saw Robert’s illustrations. Without knowing it, he had drawn a girl who looked exactly like a student Jane once taught. The launch itself held another surprise when author Phil Cummings — a long-time friend of Jane’s — announced that his brother used to drive the Tea and Sugar train and one of his mates handed out the tea and sugar. Phil had never previously thought to mention this to Jane!

In a funny way Kathleen leads me to Nadia Wheatley’s My Place, which at the time of its release was seen as a radical book. It is now a school staple, but during the 1988 bicentennial—when we were celebrating an invasion — Nadia’s book was seen to be unAustralian. The depiction of migrants and Indigenous people in picture books was controversial.

Nadia Wheatley Christina Booth Stephanie Owen Reeder Sheryl Gwyther Irma Gold Tania McCartney — Nadia Wheatley, Christina Booth, Stephanie Owen Reeder, Sheryl Gwyther, Irma Gold, Tania McCartney

In fact, My Place won one award under a category for ‘migrants, Aborigines and girls’ which was designed to encourage the publication of these neglected subjects. On hearing this news the audience collectively gasped, and yet the reality is that these three categories are still underrepresented, even that of girls because the accepted view is that boys won’t read books about girls. We still have a long way to go.

Michael Gerard Bauer is beloved by Master Seven. When he found out that I had met Michael he immediately sat down and wrote him a card (complete with illustrations). I was given strict instructions to deliver it the following day. Michael subsequently wrote Master Seven some lovely messages on one of his Eric Vale books and a laminated cover proof of the next yet-to-be-released Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger’ Dale book. Needless to say Master Seven was beside himself. He spent the evening copying the cover and then, in the absence of Michael’s story, wrote his own!

Another of Master Seven’s idols, Andy Griffiths presented on humour in children’s books and how adults often don’t ‘get’ the things kids find funny. By way of example he mentioned Barky the Barking Dog from the treehouse books. All three of my kids think Barky is utterly hilarious and having just been to the 13 Storey Treehouse at the Playhouse, that very night they were telling my parents all about Barky. As if to prove Andy’s point, my dad was utterly baffled: ‘Why is this funny?’ and yet my three kids (aged three to ten) kept dissolving into fits of giggles trying to explain what Barky does (barks at things, of course). The treehouse series has captivated kids everywhere, and we are counting down until 52 Storey comes out.

I’m going to finish with one of my favourite people who I finally got to meet, Choechoe Brereton. Choe was one of 22 authors in an anthology of miscarriage stories that I edited, The Sound of Silence (2011). We’ve been emailing ever since and her debut picture book, A House for Donfinkle (coincidentally published by Walker Books, so we are now publishing house buddies) was launched at the conference. Choe is a gorgeous person and this is a gorgeous book illustrated by Wayne Harris. Do yourself a favour and check it out.

I haven’t even mentioned Jackie French, Morris Gleitzman, Barry Jonsberg, Brownyn Bancroft, Belinda Murrell, Sally Murphy or my panel posse (Tania McCartney, Tracey Hawkins and Stephanie Owen Reader) to name just a few of our most glittering treasures, but here I must end (for now — ramblings on our Motherhood and Mayhem session to come). In short, it was a glorious weekend and massive congratulations must go to the team who pulled together such an inspiring event.

Storytime fun

by Irma
5 November 201320 July 2016

On Saturday I got to spend the afternoon with authors Jackie French, Tania McCartney and a bunch of book-loving children. Frankly, it doesn’t get much better than that. Here we are just hanging out in front of a gorgeous window display of our books, as you do.

Electric Shadows Bookshop was made cosy with fluffy rugs and lots of cushions (my daughter appointed herself chief stylist). And it turned out to be an afternoon filled with wonderful stories and lots of laughter.

Tania was up first and read her latest releases, An Aussie Year and Riley and the Jumpy Roo. My two year old is so obsessed with this Riley book (the fifth in the series) that for Halloween he dressed as a roo (except that he got so over excited bouncing everywhere that he broke his ears and then had to settle with being a random zebra instead).