The South Coast Readers and Writers Festival is coming to Thirroul on 13-14 July 2024. With a festival line-up featuring more than 40 stellar award-winning authors, talented new voices, acclaimed poets, broadcasters and thinkers across 22 sessions, the weekend promises to be filled with captivating stories, thought-provoking discussions, and inspiring conversations.
Sarah Clutton sat down with Elizabeth Heffernan to discuss her writing ahead of the festival. Sarah will be featuring in the session ‘Secrets and Justice’ alongside Suzanne Leal with Meredith Jaffé on Sunday, 14 July. Book your tickets to the festival now: southcoastwriters.org/festival
What is your latest writing project? Why write this work?
I’m excited to be up to the final edits on a book coming out in May 2025 with Allen & Unwin. The working title is The Remarkable Truth about Alfie Bains but that might well change! The premise is this: When Penny Bains opens the door of her Tasmanian farmhouse to Alfie, a boy with an Irish accent claiming to be her grandson, her life is turned upside down. Penny is about to discover that buried secrets are no match for the will of a precocious 10-year-old, newly skilled in the art of deception. Alfie is on the hunt for his real dad, and when he realises everyone is lying to him, he secretly launches ‘Operation Tadpole’: a quest to discover the truth.
With this book, I have moved from domestic suspense into what the industry calls ‘up-lit’ – which basically covers stories that move or inspire, and leave the reader with a satisfying, uplifting and happy ending. This still gives me the opportunity to write suspense, but it also allows a lot more humour to come into the narrative, and that’s what I need at the moment and maybe others do too. Life is hard and sometimes you just want to be entertained in a fun but meaningful way.
The book you are currently reading?
I’ve just read Michael Thompson’s debut, How to be Remembered. I saw him speak at a writers’ festival recently and he talked about resilience and persistence – he was trying and failing to get this book published, and it was the 43rd agent he sent his manuscript to who loved it. But after that a flurry of publishers bid for it and then another flurry of US filmmakers bid for the screen rights!
He could have given up after rejections from 10 or 20 or 40 agents, but he didn’t, and look what happened!
His book is about a boy who is forgotten every year on his birthday, and it grapples with themes of optimism, love and family – it’s really beautiful. And Michael’s story is a great example of ‘right book, right person, right time’. You may have written a great book, but it’s a whole different thing, getting it into the hands of the person who will be its champion in the publishing sector.
The book you reread?
Despite the fact that I tend not to lean towards dark books or historical fiction, the only book I have re-read more than once is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. It’s set in 18th-century France and is the story of a serial killer. Despite the fact it’s a translation of the original German text and the book is about the protagonist’s astonishing sense of smell (which is a very challenging thing to write about) I’ve read it four times. It’s about death and decay, murder and deviance, and it’s utterly absorbing and brilliant. I think it’s now printed as a Penguin Classic.
Writers who have helped you write?
When I won the Dymocks McIntosh Commercial Fiction Scholarship in 2018 I got to spend a fabulous week in Adelaide for a Masterclass with the indomitable Fiona McIntosh. I was trying to write a new manuscript, and kept getting stuck on structure and narrative tension. I remember Fiona saying something like, ‘picture a staircase… keep the narrative tension going up and up and eventually you’ll have your book.’ That was a really easy picture to keep in my head, and it seems to work, although I allow for an occasional plateau and a little downward step at the end.
Your writing space and routine?
I am embarrassed to admit that I have no routine, no word count goals, no rules and no special place to write, although mostly it’s on a messy desk in the living room. I often don’t write for weeks at a time. This is not an especially productive way to get a novel finished.
I find when starting a new book, I can spend months (as I am now) on multiple versions of a short and long synopsis, even though I am only a very half-baked ‘planner’. It’s basically a form of procrastination.
I often get started by writing a random scene because I have a character in my head, then I do the same again with another character (I always write in multiple character points of view), then when I have a few people dancing around in my head, I go back to the synopsis and faff around some more, and eventually I find the place where the book opens.
It’s only when I’m 50,000 words or more into the book and excited about how its unfolding that I can’t stop myself from writing. At that stage I can manage 5000 words or more a day, and I work well to a deadline so if it’s looming, I might be writing all night. I don’t recommend this method to anyone, but I do think that you can be put off writing if you’re told there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do it.
You need to do what suits you; nobody but you can work that out.
The South Coast Readers and Writers Festival is coming to Thirroul Community Centre and Library on 13-14 July 2024. With a festival line-up featuring more than 40 stellar award-winning authors, talented new voices, acclaimed poets, broadcasters and thinkers across 22 sessions, the weekend promises to be filled with captivating stories, thought-provoking discussions, and inspiring conversations.
Book your tickets now: https://southcoastwriters.org/festival
