Australian author Hannah Kent (left) with Book Ends host, Philippa Moore
And just like that, it’s December and the last Book Ends episode for 2013 is (finally) ready for your listening pleasure.
Although this interview took place during a heatwave in September, Hannah Kent‘s haunting and beautifully written first novel Burial Rites,one of the most talked-about Australian débuts of 2013,is actually perfect winter reading!
In 1829, the last public execution in Iceland took place – a man and a woman were beheaded for a brutal murder committed on a remote farm. As there were no prisons in Iceland at the time, the condemned woman, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, is sent to spend her final months on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, under the watch of his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes and regard her as something of a monster. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed to supervise Agnes’s spiritual wellbeing, tries to understand her. As the months pass, the winter deepens and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, the true story of Agnes’s crime unravels and it is revealed to be far more complex than anyone imagined or, more to the point, was willing to believe.
Set against the backdrop of the exquisite Icelandic landscape, which I’ve actually seen with my own eyes so I can attest to how hauntingly beautiful it is, Burial Rites is a compelling read and a moving meditation on human nature, on truth, survival, freedom and on the painful gulf that often exists between how we are seen by the outside world and how we see ourselves.
Hannah was born in Adelaide in 1985 and found herself in Iceland at age 18 as an exchange student – not in Reykjavik as she thought, but in a remote fishing village in Iceland’s north called Sauðárkrókur…so remote, Hannah couldn’t even find it in her atlas! Despite struggling at first to find her place in the close-knit community there, Hannah fell in love with Iceland and has since returned many times. But it was on her very first visit, as a teenager, that she first heard the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir and was instantly captivated.
Returning to Australia, Hannah completed a BA and in her honours year, she submitted a creative writing project inspired by Agnes’s story. Encouraged by this (and now certain this was well and truly a story she wanted to write), she then embarked on a PhD in Creative Writing, for which Burial Rites was her project. She submitted the first draft of Burial Rites to the inaugural Australian Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2011, which it went on to win! Burial Rites has now been published in Australia, the UK and the US and has been shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.
“Persist. It’s really important not to let any feelings of insecurity or disbelief in your own ability paralyse you. Just keep on pushing through and maybe accept that you will always feel this way….but you’ll never be objective about your own work and therefore shouldn’t listen to yourself! And be disciplined. Write regularly, even when you don’t want to. Don’t wait until you’re inspired because you’ll so rarely feel that way. Persistence and the ability to work very hard on something consistently pays out a lot more than talent.”
– pearls of wisdom from Hannah Kent in this interview
I wasn’t ready for the camera!
Highly articulate, funny, modest and generous, Hannah was a delight to interview and this was such an enjoyable hour or so that we spent together in her publisher’s office in London. I can’t wait to see what she does next. Thank you so much Hannah for being on the show!
Kill Your Darlings (literary journal of which Hannah is Publishing Director)
You can also read a great interview with Hannah at Bookanista and I’d also recommend reading Hannah’s own account of the Burial Rites journey in the April 2013 issue of Kill Your Darlings.
Jessica Brockmole – photo by Sarah Lyn Acevedo (from jabrockmole.com)
A lover of books from an early age and a linguist by trade, Jessica began writing her own stories after the birth of her children. She and her young family moved to Edinburgh for a few years, where she kept in touch with family back home mostly through letters and emails. “At that time I was exploring epistolary relationships in my own life, trying to stay in touch and depending on words to hold things together,” she says.
It was on a week away from the bustle of Edinburgh on the more isolated, quiet and dream-like Isle of Skye that Jessica had the idea for her novel, captivated by the atmosphere on Skye and the hidden histories it seemed to have. She started writing Letters From Skye on the way home.
Letters from Skye takes an unusual format for a modern novel – the narrative is entirely in letters, allowing for an intimate and ultimately very compelling read as we get deep into the hearts and minds of these characters as their lives span both two continents and two world wars.
The story follows Elspeth, a poet living on the Isle of Skye before the outbreak of the First World War, and David (or Davey as he comes to be known), who writes to her from America, initially as a fan of her work but eventually, as time goes on, as her friend and lover. However, their blossoming relationship is cut short by the outbreak of war. It is only several decades later, after an early shell from the Second World War destroys part of their house, that Elspeth’s daughter Margaret begins to piece together what really happened.
Now living in Indiana, Jessica’s road to publication was not an easy one – she wrote long into the night after her family went to bed and amassed an eye-watering 200 rejections before finally selling her book. Her resilient and tenacious story is sure to inspire every aspiring novelist out there!
Jessica was in the UK in August for the Edinburgh Book Festival and I was fortunate enough to grab some time with her on her whistle-stop tour of London. Thank you again Jessica for a thoroughly enjoyable chat!
This is a rather momentous episode, listeners and readers!
My guest for Episode 11 is Ramona Koval, one of Australia’s most respected literary journalists and broadcasters, who hosted the now departed Book Show on ABC Radio National for over five years. Known for her fascinating in-depth interviews with writers, it’s fair to say that Ramona and her work have been a real influence on me. In fact, the end of The Book Show devastated me so much that I was moved to start this very podcast!
Ramona Koval
In addition to her work as a broadcaster, Ramona is also editor of The Best Australian Essays (2011 and 2012 editions) and hosts The Monthly’s online book club.
She has written reviews, features and columns for newspapers including The Age and The Weekend Australian. She has been a guest interviewer at international literary festivals in Edinburgh, Montreal, Berlin, Cheltenham, Auckland, Wellington and all over Australia.
Ramona is also a writer in her own right, having written a novel, Samovar, collections of interviews including Speaking Volumes, and a cook book, Jewish Cooking, Jewish Cooks. Ramona’s love of books started very early in her life, as it did for me.
“Books could take you out of your own life, to another family, another country….you could live many lives, not just the life you had.”
– Ramona Koval, in this interview
So, fittingly, her most recent book is By The Book: A Reader’s Guide to Life, a journey through her life as a reader and book lover. Part memoir, part literary and social history, and written with Ramona’s trademark warmth, it’s a celebration of the books that have meant a great deal to her over the years but also a meditation on how the books we read often shape our lives, our characters, our understanding of the world and even occasionally our destinies.
When I was in Melbourne in June, knowing in all likelihood I wouldn’t be there again for some time, I thought I’d be brave and ask Ramona if she would be interested in being a guest on this podcast. To my utter delight (and shock and amazement) she graciously agreed.
For the first time in my life, I was about 20 minutes early for our appointment and so I enjoyed a soy latte – there is nothing like Melbourne coffee – in a cafe around the corner and re-read a bit of her book while I waited:
And then I walked the block or so up to a National Trust house, trams merrily ding-dinging past. This “funny little house” (as Ramona put it!) has been converted into offices of sorts which are rented out to writers to use as their working space. Ramona kindly brewed me some Greek mountain tea and we sat in her sparse office, the early winter afternoon sky slowly darkening and only a long desk with a computer, a small pile of books and our steaming mugs of tea and my mp3 recorder between us. It really was one of those “pinch yourself” moments.
In this generous and intimate interview, Ramona expands on some of the tales she tells in By The Book; sharing some of the books that have shaped her and that she associates with particular times in her life (there are some rather hilarious stories!); her eclectic range of interests; memorable moments in her broadcasting career; and the transition from life as a journalist to life as a writer.
It’s not often in life that you get to actually meet the people who inspired you to get going on your own path and to be able to thank them in person. I am grateful that starting this podcast has enabled me to meet so many of those people and particularly in this case. I did not take a minute of being there for granted. It was one of the happiest and proudest afternoons of my career.
Thank you Ramona for all the inspiration over the years and for a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon chatting in your studio. Thank you Tom for the usual brilliant stirring and mixing of the audio. And thank YOU for listening!
And just like that, we’re on Episode 10 of Book Ends! I had every intention of it being more regular than this but I’m happy we’re still churning them out as the literary world proves to be a goldmine of interesting and inspiring people to chat to.
Rae Earl
The special guest for this episode is Rae Earl, author of My Mad Fat Teenage Diary, which became an acclaimed TV series, My Mad Fat Diary, earlier this year on E4 (the book is now referred to as My Mad Fat Diary too).
The book is a collection of the journals Rae kept the year she turned 17 – it was 1989, the Berlin Wall was still up, Charles and Di were still together and Rae herself had just been released from a psychiatric ward, suffering from extreme anxiety, self-harm and OCD. There was very little known about, or services available for, adolescent mental health at that time and often teenagers suffering from mental illnesses were lumped in with the adults, as Rae was.
Sharon Rooney as Rae Earl in My Mad Fat Diary. Photograph: Channel 4/PA via The Guardian
As well as this to deal with was her mum’s new Moroccan bodybuilder boyfriend, constant dodging of the neighbourhood bullies (aka The Green Lane Twats) and a perpetual quest to shift some of her 14 ½ stone from her “five foot stumpy four” frame. Writing became Rae’s therapy and her journals recorded all the details of that tumultuous year.
Sharon Rooney as Rae Earl in My Mad Fat Diary, E4
Over a decade later, working as a broadcaster and married to a very lovely Aussie bloke, Rae was about to throw the diaries out when her husband noticed the pile of dog-eared notebooks and asked what they were. He encouraged her not only to keep them but to share some of the (less naughty!) content on their radio show. The response she got from their listeners motivated Rae to collate and publish the journals as My Mad Fat Teenage Diary. In the book’s introduction, Rae poignantly states:
“Everything I’ve written is true. I’ve changed people’s names but they all existed. (One person is actually a mixture of three people: Bethany – she’s three girls rolled into one. There is never just one bitch in a fat, mad girl’s life.) I’ve taken some liberties with time, but everything happened. Every word. I’m sharing it because these days it makes me laugh – and because I still see fat girls everywhere labelled as ‘bubbly with a nice personality’. And I suppose I want to tell them (and everyone else) that in the end it’s all OK. You can be fat and nuts and a virgin when you are 17 – and things can still turn out OK.”
In a bizarre coincidence, Rae now happens to live in my hometown and has become a close family friend. So on a recent trip back to Australia I popped round for a coffee and Rae graciously agreed to be this episode’s guest.
Rae and I in her living room, looking at her books!
In this magnum opus of an interview, Rae shares the process of turning a personal diary into a book for all the world to read; the response to it; the events that inspired it; the surreal-ness of seeing someone playing YOU in a TV show; hidden phallus projections in English literature; and of course her tips and advice for budding young writers. She even reads excerpts from her two books – we begin with Mad Fat Diary and there’s an excerpt of Hattie Moore at 22:24. I must apologise for being unable to stifle a giggle at some point, listen out for it.
“The teenage experience goes across all generations….it could be set in 2247 and it would still work. The point is not the era, it’s the subject matter.” – Rae Earl in this interview
And like Hattie, I totally got the teasing about having the surname Moore. I even gave Rae a few more (no pun intended) to use in future Hattie stories 🙂
I got to see Rae’s writing shed too. It was as awesome as it sounds.
Where the magic happens….
Rae and I in the shed…not much room to move. And cold, hence the blanket 😉
Thank you Rae for a wonderful few hours in your home, for the milk chocolate McVities and for being the most hilarious Book Ends guest I’ve had so far!
Thank you Tom (who makes his first Book Ends appearance in this episode too) for being the patient genius audio producer that you are.
And thank YOU for listening and reading and following Book Ends! I hope you enjoy this episode – it was thoroughly enjoyable to put together.
Well, just for something different, I thought I’d do a written interview with an author – it’s a little bit faster than getting audio edited…hint hint Tom 😉
I also wanted to help one of my favourite writers, Gemma Burgess, celebrate the UK publication day of her new novel Brooklyn Girls….which is today!
If you enjoy chicklit with a bit of an edge, chances are you’ve heard of Gemma and her first two fabulous books – The Dating Detox and A Girl Like You. Her latest, Brooklyn Girls, is a bit of a departure from her previous work, mostly because it’s in an entirely new genre. Brooklyn Girls is the launch title of a New Adult (somewhere between young adult and chicklit) series about the transition from college/university life to real life, one messy mistake at a time.
In this first book, we follow the story of Pia, who is 22, fresh out of college and living the dream, sharing a house in Brooklyn, NYC, with her four best friends. But then everything goes wrong – she gets fired from her office job, some major romantic rust sets in and her parents are threatening to have her move back in with them if she doesn’t sort her life out soon. It’s rather inspiring (and hilarious) to see how she does it!
Gemma has said of the series:
“I think that the world is made up of smart funny girls who like to have a good time and want to read about girls like them…some of the publishing industry seems to think we want to read about friendless drips who obsess over labels and cupcakes, and wouldn’t know what to do with an erect penis if it hit them in the face.”
Gemma will be appearing on an upcoming episode of Book Ends, so you’ll get to hear her voice (and mine for the billionth time!) but here’s a nice taster for you!
Gemma Burgess
Philippa Moore: Gemma Burgess, welcome to Book Ends. My first question…what inspired you to write a New Adult series? Is this a relatively new genre?
Gemma Burgess: I didn’t even know it was a genre when I thought of the series. I just wanted to write a series about and for girls in their early 20s, as I felt like there wasn’t anything out there like that. Then when I talked to Dan Weiss at St Martins Press about it, it turned out he had just coined the phrase New Adult, and he loved the idea. In a way it was serendipitous, in another way, it’s inevitable – it was missing in the universe.
PM: Brooklyn Girls is the first in a series about this group of young women, all living together in a house on Union Street. How much of your own experience of being young, fresh out of university, making the transition from college life to real life, have you used?
GB: Hmm. All the emotions are mine – the general feeling of panic, the stress of not being able to get a job, the horror of the realisation that you are at the very, very bottom of a massive mountain called Your Career, that the world is very big and easy to get lost in…but the experiences are all made up.
PM: Which of the girls from Union Street is most like you?
GB: Oh gosh… none of them? All of them? I put a bit of myself into every character – I need to understand the way they think in order to write with empathy. I don’t like writing about characters I don’t like. It’s so draining.
PM: The tagline of the series seems to be “life begins at 22”! What were you doing when you were 22?
GB: I was working as a junior writer in a third-rate marketing company in London, living in a disgusting shared house in the armpit of West London, and extremely, exceptionally, extraordinarily broke. Mind you I could still afford to get drunk every weekend. I just had to take the nightbus home. Generally, I felt a bit lost for the first half of being 22… then things got a lot better.
PM: Do you think it’s harder to be in your early twenties now than it was say 10 or 15 years ago?
GB: Honestly? I think everyone thinks it’s harder for their generation. It’s part of the marvellous solipsism of being 22. And the truth is that it is hard, and previous generations don’t remember or worse, don’t care, about how hard it is. which makes it harder. The best and worst thing about being in your early 20s is that you think it’s never going to end, and the second best and worst thing is that it does.
PM: I know you love music, most of your characters seem to enjoy it too! What song best sums you up at age 22?
GB: Hah! Oh dude. I don’t know. Can I say something cheesy-bad like Nothing But A Good Time by Poison?
PM: Yes, you can!
PM: Now, moving on to your writing as a whole and your books in general….the thing I love most about the central characters in all your books (The Dating Detox, A Girl Like You and Brooklyn Girls) is that they are smart yet vulnerable women, all searching for something and doing their darndest to get it, making mistakes (ok, let’s face it, total and unmitigated fuck ups in some cases!) but never descending into a victim mentality. We see them learning, growing, getting wiser and stronger. Resilient is the word, really, and I think this is an important message for young women.
Anyway….I was going somewhere with this….was writing this kind of heroine something you set out to do, or did it happen naturally? Was it a reaction to anything? I’m curious as I think it’s something that really sets you apart.
GB: Wow, can you write all my reviews for me?! Thanks! Yes, that was absolutely the reason I started writing in the first place. I wanted to read a book about a girl like me and my friends – you know, normal – and I felt sure that other women felt the same way, so I started writing one. Characters who were kind and smart and funny and hardworking and vulnerable and all that good stuff. A lot of chicklit characters always seem to be to be exactly the same.
PM: Do you think you need to write for an audience, or write for yourself? Or both?
GB: I think if you’re only writing for yourself, you should keep a diary. You need to write for an audience – you need to thrill and charm and entertain them. If you’re not writing for an audience, why would anyone bother to read it?
PM: So, how did you become a writer? I realise that could be a loaded question…..
GB: Oh… gosh. I don’t know. I did a triple major Bachelors degree in Literature and History and Theatre, which was totally useless, and then did a postgrad in journalism, which only made me sure that I did not want to be a journalist. I found out that marketing and PR companies always needed writers, so I applied to about 300 of them in London (no, really, it was something like 278, I kept track) and eventually got a job. Then I found out about advertising copywriting and a little lightbulb went on above my head and I thought ‘I WANT THAT!’ So then I became a copywriter. Then about seven years later I wrote The Dating Detox in my spare time, got published, and that was that.
PM: What’s the best part of doing what you do?
GB: I always, always enjoy writing. Always. Also, I get lovely emails from readers.
PM: What’s the worst?
GB: I get a little tired of being alone all the damn time. I miss working in an office and being around people. Also, noticing a typo in a book after it’s too late to do anything about it. That shit drives me nuts.
PM: Now for some fun questions….what is your favourite daily ritual/routine?
GB: Morning cuddles in bed with my husband and our baby Errol. Is that lame? It’s probably lame.
PM: What is your most treasured possession?
GB: My baby Errol. Again, that’s probably lame, but it’s true.
PM: If you could meet up for a drink with any character from fiction (including your own), who would it be? Why?
GB: Great question! Bridget Jones. She seems like she’d be a lot of fun.
PM: Another music question – what song would you want played at your funeral?
GB:Dude Looks Like A Lady. Just kidding. That was the first song that came to mind.
PM: What piece of advice would you give to aspiring writers? Is there anything you wish you had known when you first started out?
GB: You can do it. But hurry up. Don’t sit on a manuscript for years, don’t ask a million people for their opinions, because people are idiots and it’ll mess with your head. Just write, edit yourself brutally, and get it out there. Also, read everything you can, not just your genre. The more you read, the better a writer you will be. Lastly, it’s not rocket science, it’s just writing, so don’t psych yourself out. You’ll be great.
PM: And so, after writing Brooklyn Girls, do you think life begins at 22? What age did life “begin” for you?
GB: Definitely 22!
Thank you Gemma! I’m so looking forward to doing the “real” interview 🙂
Brooklyn Girls by Gemma Burgess is out in the UK today. You can find out more about Gemma and her books at her web site. She’s also doing a special series on her blog where lots of people are weighing in about what life was like for them at 22. You can join in too!
Some motivational signs in Rae Earl’s writing shed. Yes, that’s right. I was in her shed!
It’s been a while between drinks over here at Book Ends, hasn’t it?
A LOT has gone on behind the scenes though.
I’ve been rewriting my own novel, following some excellent feedback from two agents. The air is prickling with possibility. But I have had my moments of Absolutely. Freaking. Out. However, I read this brilliant thing yesterday and am attacking the MS again with renewed vigour.
It’s getting there. Slowly.
I also have recorded two episodes for the podcast on my recent trip to Australia, which will be available very soon. I interviewed the awesome and hilarious Rae Earl, author of My Mad Fat Teenage Diary, who now lives in my home town; and Ramona Koval, writer, broadcaster and one of Australia’s most respected literary journalists….and, truth be told, the reason I started this podcast in the first place. Sitting opposite her, with my mp3 recorder between us, sipping Greek mountain tea on a wintry Melbourne day, was one of those pinch-yourself moments.
I am thrilled with both interviews and can’t wait to share them with you.
I have also lined up some more exciting guests who will be subject to my interrogation very soon – including Gemma Burgess, who will feature on here tomorrow with a written interview to celebrate the UK publication of her latest book, Brooklyn Girls.
It’s all good in the hood in these parts, so do stay tuned!
Welcome to another episode of Book Ends, the podcast for writers and book lovers. This episode is a rather momentous one…..not only is the guest the first cartoonist on the show…..but he’s also the first bloke on the programme too!
Adrian Teal
In this episode, I am in conversation with cartoonist Adrian Teal, author of The Gin Lane Gazette, which was a successful crowd-funded project for independent publisher Unbound. It was printed in hardback for supporters of the project at the end of 2012 and the trade edition has just been launched in UK book stores this week.
Ade has been drawing caricatures for as long as he can remember and learned the craft in the workshop of Spitting Image, a satirical puppet show shown on television from 1984 to 1996. Always interested in the eighteenth-century thanks to an early obsession with the film The Bounty and mutineer Fletcher Christian, Ade worked as a political cartoonist for newspapers and then for historical publications until he came up with the idea for a fictional Georgian tabloid using real life events and figures. The result is the very funny and clever Gin Lane Gazette, which Ade describes as “an eighteenth-century version of Heat magazine” full of eccentric larger-than-life personalities, scandal and gossip….and all of them are true stories.
“You can stick a pin anywhere you like in the eighteenth-century and you will find wonderful, engrossing, weird, scandalous, sexy stuff…it’s everywhere.” – Adrian Teal in this interview
“Of The Earl of Sandwich, attack’d by Mr John Wilkes’s Baboon”
“An Account of Mr. George Hanger’s Abandonment by his Gypsy Wife”
“The Unassuageable Gluttony of Mr. Handel Reveal’d”
“Of Her Majesty The Queen’s Curious Christmas-Tree”
You can hear all of the above hilarious true tales in the podcast!
On the road to publication, Ade’s brilliant book hit a few roadblocks when he approached mainstream publishers – he was told his idea was too risky and quirky for their lists – but his answer eventually came in the form of crowd-funding his book with independent publishing company Unbound.
“Crowd-funding and subscription publishing is actually a very eighteenth-century concept,” Ade explains. “Authors would get enough people to order advance copies of their book and once they had enough, the book got printed. Unbound is now doing the same thing for the internet-age.”
As with all Unbound projects, Gin Lane Gazette supporters were able to choose from varying levels of pledges – £20 got you a first-edition hardback copy of the book, £85 got you a signed copy of the book and your likeness appearing in its pages. In fact, I spotted a few familiar faces! It’s a great way of bringing readers and authors together and getting readers more involved in the publication process where they can make a visible and meaningful contribution to a book they really want to see in print.
In this interview, in addition to sharing the journey of The Gin Lane Gazette, Ade shares some advice and tricks of the trade for budding caricaturists (he uses and recommends Edding 1800 Profipens) and the typical working day of a cartoonist.
And will there be a Gin Lane Gazette II? Listen to the interview to find out!
Ade also has some upcoming Gin Lane Gazette appearances so if you’re keen to meet him and hear more about eighteenth-century scandals and oddities, you can catch him at one of the following:
Many thanks to Ade for giving up an afternoon to chat with me and also to the staff at the Cowper and Newton Museum in the charming village of Olney, Buckinghamshire, who kindly let us record the interview on location. Being the home of eighteenth-century poet William Cowper it was most fortuitous and appropriate!
Guests
Adrian Teal
British cartoonist, writer and eighteenth-century enthusiast
The Big Story (short film) (1994) by David Stoten and Tim Watts
Credits
Presenter
Philippa Moore
Producer
Tom Schoon
Music Concerto grosso Op.3 No.6 in D Major 1.Vivace 2. Allegro and
Concerto grosso Op.6 No.6 in G Minor 3. Musette(Larghetto) 4. Allegro both by Georg Friedrich Handel
All images from The Gin Lane Gazette are copyright Adrian Teal and used with permission.
