Susan Green

Here’s the talk I gave at M.A.D.E as part of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival on Sunday.

My Verity books are junior novels aimed at readers –who seem to be mainly girls – of around 10 to 12 or 13. They’re tales of mystery and suspense, with a little of the supernatural thrown in, set in London, Melbourne and regional Victoria in the late 1870s. The first book was written quite quickly. If I say easily, I might be punished with eternal writers’ block– but I saw it as a bit of a romp. So you might wonder why – as a self-confessed author of escapist fiction – I’m here today.

Well…one of the things that happens when you publish a book is that people tell you what it’s about. And it seemed that without really knowing it, in my first Verity story I’d highlighted many rather weighty issues. Social class, power, the position of women and girls and particularly –  this is a phrase used by one of the CBCA judges, and I love her for it – the transformative power of education.

I say ‘without really knowing it’ but the truth is, whether you are writing for children or adults, literary or genre fiction, your opinions and prejudices and beliefs and ideals can’t help but creep into your work.  If think back to my initial inspiration for The Truth About Verity Sparks, it becomes very clear to me that, as well as an obsession with an insanely complex plot, my ideas about social justice are part of the story.

That initial inspiration came when I was walking around Melbourne, strolling up Collins Street into East Melbourne. I was looking up at the grand Victorian buildings, made of marble and stone, with architectural references to the glorious Greek and Roman past. There are many like them here in Ballarat, also a rich and important Victorian-era city. These buildings speak emphatically of power. They were meant to impress. Who but the wealthy and powerful would not feel intimidated when entering between those columns and pillars, through massive doorways, into great marble halls?  Well, now we live in more democratic times, and they don’t scare me! However I began to wonder what it would have been like, back when these buildings were new, to have been little, young, poor and powerless, scurrying along in the shadow of all this bullying grandeur. And almost instantly, Verity Sparks came into being.

I had a character, but she needed a background, a situation…so I started to do a little research. I love research. Not that I’m fanatical about being factually correct – I reserve the author’s right to simply “make stuff up” – but I’ve always found history, particularly social history, fascinating. My reading led me to make my 13-year-old Verity a milliner’s apprentice. Making hats was one of the limited range of jobs available to young girls of that era. At 12 or 13, she could be working full-time, 6 days a week, from 7.00 in the morning until 6 or 7 at night. She got Sunday off. She was poorly paid, and if she lived in, board and lodging was taken out of her wage. There was no minimum wage, no awards or conditions. In fact, milliners – like dressmakers, maids and shopgirls – were a vulnerable group, being young, inadequately paid and usually living away from the care and protection of home. They were traditionally regarded by some wealthier men as legitimate  prey. However this book is for younger readers so I don’t delve into the army of professional and amateur prostitutes in London at that time. But still, when Verity loses her job and thus her home, and is denied refuge by her horrible uncle, she knows full well the abyss that yawns before her. But I wasn’t writing a tragedy. Verity has many adventures and challenges, but all ends happily.

In one of my past incarnations during the late 1980s and early 1990s I was a writer of teenage romances. I’ve had some funny reactions to – some people seem to think it’s a shameful admission. I don’t. And  at the time, I took the job quite seriously, and made sure that my romances always included characters who were good role models for their readers. I’m a bit of a believer in role models. Not unrealistically flawless people, but characters worth admiring and even learning from. I’m especially proud of Verity. She is brave, clever and sensible. There is no angst, she doesn’t obsess about her appearance or her love-life, and she is very sure that she is a worthwhile person. Indeed, one editor who declined the manuscript commented that it was unlikely a girl in Verity’s position, would have been so forthright and sure of herself. That’s quite true. But while Verity’s self-confidence is perhaps an anachronism, I have a range of female characters in historically accurate roles.

In general, women had little control over their own lives. The villainess, Lady Throttle, has no money of her own to pay for her gambling habit, so she tries to frame Verity. Verity’s aunt is a battered and abused wife with no hope of escaping her situation. Even Madame Louisette, though a successful businesswoman, is at the mercy of the snobbish Lady Throttle.

On the more positive side, Professor Plush and his family, with whom Verity finds a home and a job and a future, are enlightened individuals who see no reason why females shouldn’t be educated, work, or control their own destinies. The Professor’s sister, Mrs Morcom is an eccentric botanical illustrator, rich and famous in her own right. She may also appear unrealistic, but she’s actually modelled on the real-life Victorian artist and adventurer Marianne North.

The Verity Sparks books are not “about” the position of women or social class or any other issue. They’re first and foremost stories. For the thoughtful reader, though, there are many things to think about even in the small details. For example – I’ve taken care to show minor characters, such as the maids, as actual people. In different households, they are variously bossy and influential, or well-cared for in a paternal manner, or exploited and bullied. I did this almost unconsciously, and that’s because of course  I’m a person of my times. 130-odd years since that era, we no longer consider “the servants” to be less than fully human. As part of my research, I read a book on domestic history. Apparently many upper-class people were terribly offended by the smell of the servants. Were they really oblivious to the fact that a servant’s day consisted of hard and no doubt sweaty physical labour, which could include lugging cans of hot water upstairs so that their employers could bathe? As the Plush family were considerate employers, I made sure that they had a gas-fired hot-water geyser in the bathroom so the maids didn’t have to carry the bathwater. And Verity was able to have the very first bath of her life.

Cast out of the millinery establishment, and cut loose by her nasty uncle, Verity is rescued by the bohemian Plush family. They recruit her to work in their Confidential Enquiry Agency. Not just because she had her special gift  – the ability to find lost things by thinking about them – but because she was so obviously resourceful, observant and intelligent.

This is where education comes in. The Plush family train her mind. She reads. She converses. They take her seriously. They teach her the manners and speech that will enable her to transcend – but not forget –  her origins. Even though she’s female and from a lower class, they urge her towards fulfilling her potential.

And that’s a good place to end this talk. With the transformative power of education. And an insanely complicated plot.

The CBCA Book of the Year awards were announced this week, and I’m so pleased for all the winning and honour book authors. I loved The Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett, which I thought was an old-fashioned children’s novel in the very best possible way. And The Coat was simply beautiful, story and illustrations. I sent it to my niece’s new-born son last year as a coming-into the world gift. Congratulations to Julie Hunt and Ron Brooks.

Yesterday I got up early and headed to Melbourne on the 7.50 train – and thank-you to the barista/tea-bag jiggler at the Castlemaine station cafe for making my first cup of tea for the day – or else I’d have turned into a fanged and clawed monster in the V-Line “Quiet Carriage”. I was off to attend an all-day seminar on book marketing and publicity. It was organised by the ASA (Australian Society of Authors and well worth joining) and presented by Dr Emily Booth of Text.
It was a very useful day. For a start, I never knew what was the difference between marketing and publicity…and now I do. Marketing is all the stuff the publisher does to get bookshops to stock your book. It’s presentations by the sales reps and pre-release information and getting orders before the book even hits the shelves. And publicity is what the publisher does to get a buzz about you and your book around the time of release.  That’s book reviews, interviews, author talks and visits. Emily was a living fount of information because she’s got years of experience in both areas.

The reason I decided to attend at great personal sacrifice on a cold and rainy day when not only was it my son’s last soccer game before the finals but also my husband’s birthday (thus risking bad mother/wife guilting) was that this is My Year of Saying Yes. Specifically, to writerly invitations. I have been quite the busy bee lately. You might not think so, but I’m coming from a very low base – my reflex answer has usually been “no”. In the past couple of months I’ve attended the Toddler to Teens Festival in Williamstown as a guest of a beautiful small bookshop called Book and Paper ; talked to a group of lovely young readers at Bookgrove Bookshop in Ocean Grove; been guest speaker for the Ballarat Writer’s Group at their wonderful HQ in the historic Ballarat Mechanics Institute; and given a writer’s workshop on Writing Character to a group at my local school, Castlemaine Secondary College. Next Sunday I’m revisiting Ballarat as part of a panel speaking at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka as part of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. (there’s a fantastic program).

I’ll be on the same platform as Alison Arnold, Nadine Cranenburgh, Penni Russon and Karen Collum. I met Karen at the Ballarat Writers meeting and look forward to seeing her again. I’ve never done anything quite like this before, so I expect I will be buzzing with nerves. However I shall follow Emily’s sage advice, and so I will be well prepared, having read my speech out loud many times, asked for feedback from a significant other or two and timed it (very important). I shall have a copy on hand in case of memory failure, but if I gabble it out in a minute flat, I shall smoothly move into a reading from a carefully pre-marked page of my book. Which I will have in my hand. Whew!

Graeme Simpsion, author of the best-selling romantic comedy The Rosie Project, came to Castlemaine Library last Thursday evening to give a talk. I was there to sell books for Stoneman’s Bookroom, and though I wasn’t unduly grumpy about getting home at 8.45 pm, there were other places I’d rather be on a cold winter’s night after a day at work. Such as on the couch.
As it turned out, it was a funny and entertaining evening, and Graeme himself was a delightful speaker. Plus, he was up-front and eager to sell books – meeting and greeting happily, and even producing a selection of pens in different colours to do the signing – so I was kept gratifyingly busy in my official salesperson role.

The Rosie Project was originally a screenplay, and one of Graeme’s inspirations for the story was the wisecracking ‘screwball’ comedies of the 1930s. Movies like Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday – battles of the sexes, where male and female were equally matched and fiercely intelligent –  and the sparkling dialogue was so fast-paced that it resembled table-tennis on speed. I love those films and spent (or wasted, depending on your viewpoint) many an hour with Bill Collins and his classic movies. My favourite is The Lady Eve, with Henry Fonda as naive herpetologist millionaire and Barbara Stanwyck as an alluring lady card-sharp. There’s something so appealing about a gorgeous yet clueless male! Simpsion absolutely got that, because his Asperger’s-y hero Don is, whilst socially inept and hopeless with women, a karate expert and fitness fanatic –  thus totally buff. He’s a fabulous cook as well.

Graeme told us that having finished the screenplay (which won major awards) he tried to get funding for the film. But with no success. He asked a producer friend if a novel of The Rosie Project would help sell the movie. The answer was yes. And so in an amazingly short time (did he really say 7 weeks?) he had a polished draft. And (this story is nothing but fast-paced) in next to no time, he had a published novel that is selling like hot cakes in Australia, is published or about to be published in a number of other countries as well – and a movie deal with Sony in the US. As Graeme chortled a number of times, he’s living the dream.

Which was really endearing. The chortling, I mean. He’s had a fantastic run with the deals and money and the prizes and the success, but he’s so happy and thrilled about them all that I’d have to say I felt happy and thrilled for him too. And Rosie is a lovely book. It’s genuinely heart-warming and sweet-natured and, as Robyn Annear said when she introduced him, it’s a genre-bender. A romantic comedy with brains, heart and soul. I can’t wait for the movie. I just wish they could bring back Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck.

When you’re a very small child – say three or four – you can at last walk and talk and take part in the world, but you don’t have perspective. Everything is new. Almost anything is possible or at least plausible. Shiny and bright or dark and terrifying, it is all significant. Like most people, I have only a few memories from that time, but there are a some vivid images, like the thick oozing golden-ness of a boiled egg, or motes of dust floating in the air above my cot. And Mother Holle with her enormous teeth and the trail of white pebbles Hansel dropped behind him as his parents led him and Gretel deep into the woods. They’re fairy story people, I know, but stories can feel the same as experiences, and in my early childhood I was soaked in stories.

There are a few reasons for that. Following nearly fatal pneumonia when I was six weeks old, I’d had what was called in those days ‘a weak chest’; I was often sick in bed for weeks at a time. I was lucky – my father was an artist who worked from home  – and there was the time for stories and lots and lots of books. Art books, history books, books on design and architecture and antiques, picture story books ranging from Orlando the Marmalade Cat and Rupert the Bear to bible stories and an illustrated version of The Iliad and the Odyssey. And of course, fairy tales. You might think that surrounded by all these books and so often marooned in bed, I’d have learned to read early, but no. Perhaps, since I was always being read to, I simply didn’t bother. Besides, I looked at the pictures; I improvised.
At one stage I was addicted to my father’s collection of a magazine called Discovering Art. I especially keen on the Renaissance, and fired my imagination with mythology and martyrdom. Botticelli’s Venus in her shell was a mermaid princess transformed into a human.

And there was a particular St Sebastian, looking rather complacent as, stuck full of arrows, he lolled at the stake. He was a handsome prince enduring a test of valour to win the hand of a princess.

Prince, princess – can you tell that fairy stories were my favourites? It was the early 1960’s, and colour printing had at last come of age, so there were some magnificent volumes – full-colour, large-format – which were birthday presents from indulgent childless friends. One in particular, The Enchanted Princess, enchanted me.

I wanted to be one, when I grew up.

Why not? I had no delusions of grandeur. At four and five, I didn’t know much, but it didn’t take the Almanach de Gotha for me to figure out that my parents were not royalty. My mother worked at the local high school, my father wore a flat woollen cap and rode a pushbike, our house was ramshackle and most of my clothes were hand-me-downs. But, princess-wise, all of this was no barrier. Goose-girls and shepherdesses, village maidens at the well or at their spinning-wheels, even the unloved drudge who slept in the cinders – all of these could have greatness thrust upon them.

In my mind the fact that I was small and often dirty, rather fat, and with a constantly runny nose scarcely weighed against me, though my hair colour was a slight problem. Why were there so few black-haired princesses?

I stayed in that world of magical possibilities for a long time. It was a combination of shyness, introversion and general immaturity. Perhaps there was some developmental delay – I took forever to learn to read and spent endless afternoons of torture with the Infant Mistress in Remedial Class.

And when I sensed I was being tipped out of that world – a world I never really wanted to leave – I hung on as long as I could. And how better to stay there than to become a writer?

Actually, first I wanted to become an illustrator and a writer. My plan, when I grew up, was to write and illustrate my own children’s books. As part of my Higher School Certificate art folio, I drew a set of illustrations for Beauty and the Beast. I had always loved the story, but when I was in my early teens my father took me to a Jean Cocteau film at an art-house cinema. It was La Belle et le Bete, a crackly black and white print with sub-title and wonky special effects, but I found it magical and unforgettably lovely.

The transformation scene, where Beauty cradles the furry-faced monster in her arms and he turns into Jean Marais, had me in tears. I tried the best I could to reproduce that scene. My style was a bit Aubrey Beardsley, a bit Art Nouveau. Perhaps I was misty-eyed by the time I lettered “Dear Beast, Do Not Die” under my detailed pen drawing. I made a mistake. Misty eyes turned to a flood of tears but happily my father showed me how to scratch off the offending letter with a razor blade and then smooth the wounded paper with an industrial diamond. I fancied up the other letters with leaves and tendrils and I’m the only one who knows Beauty is really saying, as if she’s got a blocked nose,  “Dear Beast, Do Dot Die.”

Sometimes it’s hard to find the right book for your mood. This week I’ve tried a couple of crime thrillers and put them down after 30 or so pages. Next I started a literary novel translated from the Swedish and lasted five pages and a peek at the end. Sometimes – actually more often than not – if I’m not doing too well with a book, I read the ending and if I like that, I sort of skip backwards a bit. If I still like what I’m reading, I start again. This wasn’t the case with the dreary Swedish number. So I went to the bookshop and the library and I’m pleased to say I’ve read two books this week, one new and one old.

The new release is Song for a Scarlet Runner by Julie Hunt. It was a gripping tale and I read it almost in the one go. One reason is that Julie Hunt’s world building is earthed and meticulous. I love maps in books – and I did sort of wish this book had one – but perhaps it wasn’t needed, for Peat’s journeying from the Overhang through all the different landscapes – the Escarpment, the farmlands, the marshes, the city of Rim, and the strange dream land by the sea where the Stiltman lived –  were all so real that you could trudge along with her.  Adding to the groundedness – and I suppose the roundedness as well! –  was Julie’s insistence on attending to the physical aspects of the journey. Peat gets hungry, cold, and tired; she needs clothes and bedding and a shelter over her head; when her leg is broken and becomes infected, she needs healing from Marsh Auntie Edie’s herbs. There are lots of meals in this book; some sound yummy, but when she’s desperate, Peat eats raw fish and I could almost feel the slippery texture.

The other reason was – of course – the characters. The heroine, Peat, is plucky, smart and sensible ; the Marsh Aunties are a fantastic crew who reminded me, just a little, of Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Which and Mrs Who from A Wrinkle in Time; and then there’s the wonderful Stiltboy.  I loved the way he spoke.
“Who are you?” I asked, although I thought I already knew.                                           “Siltboy,” he answered. “I am his.”                                                                                                 “Whose?”                                                                                                                                               “Siltman’s. I am the Siltman’s boy.”                                                                                                   “You are now, but you weren’t always.”                                                                                            “Truth,” he said. “Siltboy was the son of Pike. He knows the battle ways.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a slingshot. “How many years have you got?” he asked.             I supposed he meant how old was I. “Nine.”                                                                                    “I’ve got nine hundred.”                                                                                                                         “Nine hundred! But you’re not even grown up!”                                                                             Siltboy drew himself up to his full height, which brought him just under my chin. “Siltboy is grown,” he said. “He is strong in the legions and  brave in the heart. In the old days he would have been a giant.”

Siltboy, like Peat, was stolen by the Siltman and enslaved as part of a supernatural bargain made by someone else. In Siltboy’s case, it was his father, Pike. I was so glad that he had a happy ending!

And I was especially charmed by the sleek, who would bite you as soon as look at you, but turned out to be a devoted and trustworthy guide.
And the cover is terrific, too. What a gorgeous sleek! Just look at its naughty little eyes. It’s rather like a squirrel, I think. On our Canadian travels we saw lots and lots of squirrels. I guess they’re common as rats over there, but it took a while for us to stop squealing with delight when we saw them. They had a way of running along like mad and then stopping still quite suddenly and freezing. “You can’t see me if I don’t move!”; was that what they were thinking?

I hope this is just the first story about Peat.

The library book was The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett. I read it pretty much in one go, as well. It’s a novel for children with so much to offer adults as well; beautiful, lyrical writing and a moving story about courage and kindness. The descriptions of Monsieur Lieutenant trying to look after his soldiers in the muddy trenches of World War I France had me wiping away tears and remembering my grandfather who was gassed at Passchendale.

Children’s novels were absolutely right for my mood this week!

I’m just back from a family holiday in Canada. We were there for most of May – catching up with old friends and covering a lot of ground. We spent time in Vancouver, in Guelph (which is about an hour from Toronto), in Montreal and in Quebec City. We saw many wonders on and off the tourist trails.

In the Vancouver aquarium, a Beluga whale, white and gleaming as – well, I should say marble because it sounds both more natural and more poetic, but actually it looked almost artificial, like brand-new plastic.

The Niagara Falls, which even amongst all the tourist tat is utterly magnificent. I could have spent hours just looking at the water as it flowed over the edge, down down, down to the river below where flocks of gulls wheeled and turned endlessly in the mist and spray and ‘The Maid of the Mist’, the tourist craft, chugged up as close as it would with its passengers, in blue hooded plastic ponchos, looking like a boatload of Smurfs.

On a long drive from Guelph to a little town called Blythe, we ran over a skunk and now I know about stink.

We also saw Amish people going about their daily lives, dressed in sober black, with the men in hats and the women in white bonnets, driving buggies, plowing and spreading manure with draught horses, hoeing in the vegetable patch, looking after children in the yard. Perhaps the most enchanting sight was a group of four or five little girls wearing coloured bonnets – primrose yellow and pink – playing Ring 0’Rosie in their schoolyard.

When we got to Vancouver on the 1st of May, the whole place was going wild with bloom. Tulips, magnolias, rhododendrons, not to mention a whole lot of humbler flowers I didn’t recognise.

Oh, except for dandelions. I had to take a photograph of them because they’re so much BIGGER than ours are.

Our friend Pat in Guelph kept telling us that her garden would be looking so much better in a few weeks time, but for me it was stunning. The northern spring! A tree that was almost bare except for a faint green fuzz had leaves unfold almost as we watched. Hosta leaves which poked out of the bare earth like pencils unfurled dramatically. Everywhere were birds yodelling their heads off, bumblebees blundering in and out of pollen, animals –  squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons and even a groundhog – on the go. It was marvellous.

My friend David has a cabin in the woods in the Appalachian Mountains in Quebec near the border with Vermont. Rambling around on his property I saw lots of deciduous trees (including maples, of course) showing that new, fresh, bright green. But one day I walked along the road away from the cabin, and on one side was a forest of pine and spruce. It was very quiet and still. With quite a jolt, I realised that this is the landscape of fairy tale. Deep, dark, mysterious and just a little bit scary. At the forest’s edge I saw three jewel-like berries on a spray, then a red-shouldered bird flew above me into the woods, singing. I held my breath, half hoping, half fearing, that something would happen… And surprised that a landscape so very much not mine would have such an effect on me.

The last time I was in Canada was 1991, and I kept copious travel diaries. My god, I worked hard! Every night, page after page, labouring not to lose a single significant sight or sound, almost obsessed with capturing experience. So much so, that I think sometimes I wasn’t able to just be where I was; there was always some part of my mind quibbling about which adjective I’d use later, storing up imagery and metaphors, trying to wrestle some kind of meaning out of it all.

This time, I took my camera and even then at times chose not to get it out of its case. I didn’t write a thing except postcards. I tried to be in the now of travel and it was just wonderful. And if what I write doesn’t have the immediacy of my last campaign, well…too bad. This time, I experienced the experience.

Last week, I read three sad books in a row. Why? Oh, I don’t know. They were there on the shelf and I didn’t realise that I was diving into a sea of tragedy and loss. They were all  non-fiction, too, which made my sadness even sadder. In future I will try for a bit more balance!

First I read Oranges and Sunshine by Margaret Humphreys. Child migrants to Australia; abused, exploited, unloved, lied to and then ignored by successive governments in Britain and here in Australia. Teary stuff.

Then Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. Some of the East Ender stories are funny and sweet, but poor Mary is the character who stuck in my mind. A 14-year-old Irish runaway, raped by her mother’s boyfriend, then “befriended” by a ponce (who she loves, poor little thing, as he’s the only man who’s shown her any tenderness). Practically imprisoned, she’s forced to work as a prostitute, then falls pregnant and runs away because she’s seen for herself what a backyard abortion is like… She encounters the author, and it seems like there might be a happy ending, but her child is taken from her for adoption to a good Catholic family. That’s the beginning of the end for Mary, who ends up in jail after kidnapping a baby. More tears.And I was definitely feeling down after finishing Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett. It’s the story of the author’s friendship with Lucy Grealy. Grealy was a talented poet who suffered cancer of the jaw as a child and into adulthood continued to need operation after operation to try to re-make her poor damaged face. She could be insecure, depressed, needy and addictive but for Patchett (and it seems a crowd of other friends) Grealy’s charm and spark and brilliance seemed to make up for all that. It ended badly – of course – because all the love and reassurance in the world couldn’t put poor Lucy together again.

After three sad books, I was in need of solace. I went to a cafe and ate cake – date, chocolate and almond meringue cake with cream – and finished my library book.

It was Cicada Summer by Kate Constable from the library. What a charmer of a book it is. Though it’s not all sweetness and light, for the heroine Eloise has become mute after the death of her mother. Withdrawn and anxious, she’s virtually marooned with her reclusive grandmother in a country town. But at an old house with a tangled garden, she meets a girl from another time and together they paint a mural in the summerhouse. I loved the way Kate Constable has captured the excitement of creativity.

 Colour exploded from her brush: with every touch, the picture flowered and swarmed into being. From Eloise’s imagination, it zinged through her hand and her brush and onto the wall, becoming something real. This morning it had been just an idea trapped inside Eloise’s head: now it was free, something new and fresh and anyone could see it. Making something: it was the best feeling in the world.

The ending is clever and satisfying, and it reminded me of my much-loved childhood favourite Tom’s Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce.

Cake and a children’s book…just lovely!