Kate's Blog

I’m appearing at a panel called ‘The Spirit of Romance’ at the Sydney Writers Festival this Thursday, along with Rachael Treasure, Suzy Duffy and Amanda Hooton. 

Rachael's four novels and collection of stories have all been bestsellers and she is credited with inspiring the genre of 'farm lit'. Her first foray into erotica is Fifty Bales of Hay, Sexy Stories from the Farm.

For more information about our event, go here

 What is your latest novel all about?

The Farmer's Wife is the sequel to my trailblazing novel 'Jillaroo' of
2002 that brought to life my grassroots country girl, Rebecca
Saunders. Penguin had never experienced a character like her and she
was snapped up off the slush pile. The Farmer's Wife visits Bec ten
years on, now a mother in a failing marriage with a farm that is
slowly dying as a business and as an ecosystem. The book brings to
light my own journey as a farmer in adopting regenerative agricultural
methods.

How did you get the first idea for it?

I began my journey for this book years ago as a rural based
communications student  wanting to shatter the stereotyping, cliche
and over simplification of agricultural issues and its people. Food
underpins the health of our species yet Australia's urban based media
and political systems often overlook the importance of all things
rural. Jillaroo and The Farmer's Wife was a device to reach a wide
readership on rural issues - ie FOOD production... relevant to us all.

My idea for the sequel came mostly from meeting Gulgong farmer Colin
Seis, who has developed farming methods that have the potential to
restore the health of our nation. Adopting his practices on my own
farm sparked a desire to bring Bec back to life to show a positive way
forward into the agricultural future.


What do you love most about writing?

I love playing with characters within the very Aussie, very humorous
world of the working class rural people and the upper class grazier
set and using that cast of characters, along with beautiful rural
settings, to showcase deeper rural issues that affect us all.

What are the best 5 books you've read recently?

The Woman who Changed her Brain by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young
The Power is Within You, Louise L Hay
Dream More by Dolly Parton (I want to be her when I grow up!)
Lost Voices by Christopher Koch
Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin

What lies ahead of you in the next year?

Publication into the United States, England and Germany with The
Farmer's Wife, re-fencing and re-watering my property in Tasmania, a
new horse for me and my kids, more song writing with country rock
band, The Wolfe Brothers, a new novel to write, a kids book on the
boil and re- publication of my working dog training book. And giving
myself permission to sit and have a cuppa from time to time.

I’m appearing at a panel called ‘The Spirit of Romance’ at the Sydney Writers Festival this Thursday, along with the fabulous Suzy Duffy, Rachael Treasure and Amanda Hooton.

For more information about our event, go here

What is your latest novel all about, Suzy? 

It's the Sydney Writers Festival this week!

To celebrate, I'm running a series of short interviews with some of the guests over the course of the week. 

To kick off the week, I'm interviewing Tegan Daylight Bennett who is not also an amazing writer but also my doctoral supervisor. Yes, lucky Tegan has to do her best to help me rein in my galloping imagination and actually put together an elegant and restrained piece of academic writing. 

I'm hoping I don't make her suffer too much.

Here's the official festival biography: 

Tegan Bennett Daylight is a fiction writer, critic and lecturer in writing. She is the author of three novels: Bombora, What Falls Away and Safety, as well as several books for children and teenagers, and the essays Solving Problems in Fiction and How Influence Works. She is at work on a collection of short stories, which have been published in many journals. She works as a lecturer in creative writing in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology.

Tegan is appearing at the following sessions: 

Click here for session times and venues..

'Dear Life' by Alice Munro.

What lies ahead of you in the next year?

5. I'll be finishing my collection. I've got a few stories out this year, in Griffith Review and The Review of Australian Fiction. I'm expecting and hoping to get a few more out there before the year ends.

I read 10 books in April, bringing me to a grand total of 44 books for the year. All but one was a historical novel - next month, I must try and read a little more widely!

I was drawn to this book by the utterly gorgeous cover and also by a Good Reads recommendation which said it was like other authors I'd enjoyed like Kate Morton and Kimberley Freeman. It's always a risk and an adventure trying out a new author, and I'm really glad I took the jump. Susanna Kearsley's writing is just gorgeous - very sensuous and vivid - and the storyline is intriguing. The heroine Nicola has the psychic gifts of seeing 'flashes' of an object's past when she lays her hands on it. Although she works in antiques and art, she tries to keep her gift hidden from the world. Until she touches a simple, wood-carved firebird ... and finds herself on a quest to discover its story. The Firebird combines contemporary and historical narratives, romance, suspense, and a a twist of the supernatural into a delicate, wise tale. I believe the book is part of a connected series and so I look forward to discovering her other books. 

The Darling Strumpet – Gillian Bagwell

A wonderful historical novel told from the point of view of Nell Gwyn, the feisty mistress of Charles II. 

You can read my full review here and an interview with Gillian Bagwell here.

Silent in the Grave – Deanna Raybourn

Silent in the Sanctuary – Deanna Raybourn

Silent on the Moors – Deanna Raybourn

I read and enjoyed this these Victorian murder mysteries some time ago, but recently realised that there were now five in the whole series and I had only read the first three. So I set myself the task of reading them all again. They were a great pleasure to revisit. Each book is a separate mystery, but a lot of the intrigue comes from the slowly developing romance between the heroine, Lady Jane Grey, and the mysterious investigator she first meets in the first line of the first book: 

"To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor." 

The tone of the books are wry and clever - there's a lot of subtle ironic humour - plus I loved the way lady Julia slowly turns from being a repressed Victorian lady to a bold, sensual and self-determined woman. I'm looking forward to reading the last books in the series (I've already bought them!) 

 

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris – Jenny Colgan

A book bought solely on the title and the cover! I don't read much chick lit but enjoy a frothy comic romance every now and again. This was even frothier than I expected - and not quite as funny as I had hoped - but a few memorable characters, gorgeous descriptions of making chocolate, and the Parisian setting made it a most relaxing and sweet read. 

And Then She Fell – Stephanie Laurents

I enjoyed this Stephanie Laurents book more than I have some of her other titles --- I think because there was a murder in there as well which meant that was a story line other than the usual rake-meets-lady angle. Good holiday reading.

The Perfume Garden - Kate Lord Brown

A young woman inherits an old house in Spain, discovers clues to buried family secrets, meets a gorgeous Spaniard, and finds her true path in life ... interposed with flashbacks to her grandmother's experiences during the bloody and turbulent Spanish Civil War  ... this book is exactly the sort of book I love to read the most. And I did love it! Look out for a longer review and an interview with the author in the months to come. 

The Chalice – Nancy Bilyeau 

I read and really enjoyed Nancy Bilyeau's historical thriller The Crown last year and so was eager to return to her world of bloody Tudor intrigue, romance, with a twist of the supernatural. Her heroine Joanna is a sympathetic character and the story is filled with  slowly building suspense. 

Books Read in January 2013 

Books Read in February 2013

Books Read in March 2013 

Today I'm going to talk about writer's block. 

Do I ever get blocked, not sure what to write next? Often.

I never mean to be slow. The stuff comes out at its own rate. I am always ready to put it down...the trouble is that too often, alas, I've to wait for the sentence, for the word... The worst is that while I'm thus powerless to produce, my imagination is extremely active; whole paragraphs, whole pagges, whole chapters pass through my mind. Everything is there: descriptions, dialogue, reflection, everything, everything but the belief, the conviction, the only thing needed to make me put pen to paper. I've thought out a volume a day till I felt sick in mind and heart and gone to bed, completely done up, without having written a line. The effort I put out should give birth to a Masterpieces as big as mountains, and it brings forth a ridiculous mouse now and then."

The very fact that Joseph Conrad was able to write so much, and so movingly, shows that he doesn't truly have writer's block. All he is missing is "the conviction, the belief". In other words, faith in himself.

Faith in yourself and your story and your style is something no-one else can truly give you. You need to find it yourself.  

I’ve always wanted to be a writer – it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be.

A novel I wrote when I was 15

All through my childhood I wrote many poems and novels, and sent out my first manuscript when I was sixteen – it was handwritten, in my very childish handwriting, on loose foolscap pages. I didn’t know any better! Well, I didn’t have a typewriter and computers were barely invented. It was rejected, of course, but came back with a lovely letter saying that I clearly had talent and must keep writing.

So I did. I laboured over a magic realism novel all though my early 20s, while working as a journalist, and began to have poems and stories published. I sent out my novel a few times, and it was almost published three times, but fell through every time, much to my despair.

Me in my 20s

At the age of 25 I had a quarter-life crisis. I decided to give myself five years, to pour all my energy into getting a book published, but that I’d have to reassess my life if I couldn’t get published by the age of 30.

I quit my job as a journalist and began freelancing to support myself, and I applied to do my Masters of Arts in Writing, using the magic realism novel I had been working on as my thesis.

I began writing the first draft of Dragonclaw while I was studying for my first year exams, probably in reaction to the “fictive discourses” we were told to construct in our writing classes. About 50,000 words into the first draft, I sent off a few sample chapters to Gaby Naher at Hickson Associates.

She came back the next day, saying she loved it, and when could I get her a complete manuscript? I wrote madly for the next few months (practically ignoring my studies and work commitments).

I finished the first draft, she put it up for auction, and I signed with Random House by the end of the month. This made me particularly happy, since it was two days before my 30th birthday.  

I made my deadline by a whisker!

Dragonclaw has gone on to be sold in the US, Germany, Russia, and Japan, and I have been a full-time writer ever since.

When I was researching the life of Charlotte-Rose de la Force, the real life heroine of my novel 'Bitter Greens', my translator Sylvie Poupard-Gould found a description she had written of herself, one of the few pieces left of her own writing.

Here it is:

“If I wished to create a flattering self portrait, as one ordinarily does, and that I wished to infuse it with as much wit as possible, [I would say]

Never would the much celebrated Helen have had such sweet attributes,
Nor the glory of Niquee caused such a stir.

How many lovers would I have defeated by my charms!
I would renew all our old Paladins - I alone would remake their destinies,
And there would be such a display of arms!

You have to admit, my dear Prince, that things only have the value which we believe them to have, and that I could say, for instance, that I have the loveliest height in the world, that height with which poets often endow their Venus.

It seems to me that I have read somewhere in Homer that She had black eyebrows and eyes - I am in possession of these very same ones. Eyes that we ascribe to the Mother of Love must surely be beautiful: Mine are as such- they say that they are touching, and that never a gaze was so full of charm... I have small and well made feet; my legs, my chest and my hands are rather beautiful. My hair is plentiful, and of the same shade as my eyes. My mouth is red, my teeth fair and I look youthful,

A rose complexion,
Hiding other secret delights,
Which are made of such things that we know but of which we cannot speak...

Isn’t it true then, my Prince, that I have just described the most pleasant beauty conceivable?

All that I have just said is true, and so we must stop here in order to delight those who have not yet laid eyes on me- send this portrait to foreigners, enchant nations and sing my future glory!

However, if I am to remain loyal to this austere sense of truth that rules me, I must confess that, far from being beautiful, I am only just pretty in the eyes of those who love me- who knows what I must look like to those who are indifferent!

All that I have said is true, but there are unpleasant consequences. My nose is not beautiful, my cheeks are high, I have a large mouth and facial features that could do with being more regular. It is almost certain that I am not attractive at first sight, but that with time, one gets used to me. So, to come back to my original point, I look cold, which may give me a distinguished air. I do not seek to attract, because it so happens that very few new people attract me; in this, I am different from other ladies, and like to concentrate my energies on that which pleases me:

To see him, to love him and to remember him
To look after only him
Of the object of my affections
My soul will never tire

I am absolutely the enemy of all constraints, even though my life is one perpetual constraint.
Although I am the mistress of my words and of my actions, of my appearance I am not. I change faces frequently, depending on the mood I am in. Sadness leaves a horrible impression, pride and contempt show too much and do not sit well, languor seems touching, but it is happiness and gaiety which open me up and suit me best. All passions are clearly reflected in my eyes (...) they have a beautiful language for those who wish to listen.

I was born independent and haughty, craving glory to excess. It is also from this trait that I have drawn the strength not to be defeated by adversity. The greatness of my courage allows me to defeat all that I find ill; it allows for a display of resolve that is above my gender and that counters the most outrageous attacks of fortune.

My life is an ongoing philosophy, a living morality. I am extremely fair; I know neither resentment nor the satisfaction of revenge. The misfortune of my enemy triumphs over my anger, and therefore, there is no duty that does not benefit from my generosity.

Whilst I fear malicious gossip, I do not dread fair criticism. True to my virtue, I would much less forgive myself a misdemeanour than others. I am hard on myself and so always look to correct myself- I look for my own approval and do not give it lightly.

This is not a portrait of Charlotte-Rose, but of an anonymous 17th century lady at the court of Louis XIV. I used it, however, to help me visualise what Charlotte-Rose may have looked like.

If you liked this blog, you may like to read Seven Fascinating Things I Learned While Writing 'Bitter Greens' and The Facts Behind the Fiction of Charlotte-Rose de la Force's life

And please leave a comment! I love comments!