Last week I attended an event at the library to see crime writer Wendy James in conversation with fellow writer Jaye Ford. It was a great evening, Jaye and Wendy have been friends for years so their conversation was informative and fun, with all the fun banter friendship throws in.
Jaye spoke to Wendy about her new book The Golden Child. James has been dubbed Queen of domestic thrillers, a term both Jaye and Wendy joke about often. What exactly is a domestic thriller? But this is a deserved title though because The Golden Child is incredible, and has already been optioned as a miniseries.
Wendy’s book is about bullying, social media, and parenting, but she is very good at not actually blaming social media or the parents for the events in this book. It’s a brilliantly complicated novel that looks at how issues of bullying can often come from nowhere. She told Jaye that she wanted the mother in the book to be unprepared, to not see where it had come from; that there are often no obvious signs. Social media, Wendy said, is so ubiquitous these days that you don’t notice it.
Wendy was asked whether it was tougher for girls these days and while she said it was harder for young girls, it is also harder to control older kids in regards to technology. One thing I really liked was that Wendy said it wasn’t about the social media or the bullying per se, it was about the women involved. She wanted it to be about how the mothers felt about the situation. Her character does everything she could to raise her kids right and yet still things aren’t perfect. What was also wonderful is there is no one person or thing to blame for everything, Wendy didn’t want to turn it into a book about how to parent or put the blame on a single entity.
The story is set in Newcastle but as Wendy said, it doesn’t mean it is a book about Newcastle. Being a newish resident there herself she wrote her idea of Newcastle, instead of the one that has the weight of someone whose whole life has been there which is something I think she did very well. It has the feel of someone who has just moved there, and not someone who knows everything there is to know about it.
The tail end of the discussion merged into a joint conversation which started with discussing each authors writing history and processes; something which I always find fascinating to hear about. Wendy spoke of her career as a teacher of creative writing and how it made her see things a bit differently, commenting that when you write you stop thinking about the craft after a while. The search and discovery for ideas was also mentioned and the pair joked about the best places to mullover ideas – driving and in the shower being optimal. The comment was made about needing a waterproof notebook in the shower and I forgot to mention it to them on the night, but there is one called Aquanotes if you’re interested, Wendy or Jaye. It’s ridiculously helpful for my own preservation of ideas.
The pair discussed research processes prompted by audience questions as well as their writing routines and styles. It was an interesting way to cap off a wonderful and informative evening. There is something wonderful about going to events like these that bring out your own inspiration and drive.
You can purchase The Golden Child via the following
Publisher | Booktopia | Kobo | Dymocks
QBD | Angus & Robertson’s Bookworld
or check out Jaye books and Wendy’s other work because it’s amazing!
Jaye Ford
Goodreads | Website | Twitter |
Wendy James
It was lovely to hear the panel talk about why they love the Aussie YA community, praising our passion and how engaging we are. Kirsty loving our open mindedness and how open-hearted we are, while Sarah loved how vocal we are about the books we love. Tamar mentioning along the same lines how she loved seeing readers react with books and characters. The common opinion from all five was how accepting the YA community is, which is a wonderful thing to have recognised by other people.
A little over a week ago I went to a talk in North Sydney to hear David Dyer talk about his new book, The Midnight Watch. The story is of the Californian, the ship who saw the Titanic sink and did nothing to help. The story itself is incredible, I am working on a review for that at the moment, but I journeyed the many hours and had an adventurous train trip to hear David speak because I was in love with this book before I even read it.
Helen Baxter from Blues Point Bookshop introduced him and asked whether there was anything more to write about the Titanic, was it not overdone? But she complimented David for not only taking on the task but for doing it astonishingly well. David himself was surprised by the interest, the story is of course well known by the 1997 film, which catapulted the story like no film ever has. Because of this everyone knows the story of Titanic, but what surprised David was that not many people know that everyone on board could see another ship. The entire story would have been different, the Titanic may not have even been remembered, if the Californian had gone to her rescue and saved the 1500 who were lost.
Last week I attended a book event in Sydney for Fiona McFarlane, author of 
Last night I attended a book event at Kinokuniya bookstore with Will Kostakis and Benjamin Law discussing The ‘Gay’ Book. Benjamin Law, according to his Twitter bio, is a writer, raconteur, and local homosexual. In 2012 he published Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East as well as The Family Law, the latter of which was made into a TV series for SBS. He is currently writing its second season. Will wrote his first novel aged 19, called Loathing Lola which, I discovered, is very hard to track down and basically out of print. He was the 2005 Young Writer of the Year, he published his second novel The First Third three years ago, and has recently published The Sidekicks.
Will spoke about how the controversy around The Sidekicks and his experience coming out was unexpected but something he couldn’t ignore. He was thrust into being ‘the gay writer’ overnight which was a shock. He made the decision to respond himself to the school and publically (names omitted) because if he responded in the dark, it would keep happening. He never expected it to spread as it had, saying the international response was disbelief that it had happened, while the Australian reaction recognised it as an ongoing problem. I love though that none of this has stopped people not only loving the book, but finding out ways to discuss it in places where it cannot be discussed, and Will told us some great stories of his experiences in schools.
Having never heard Benjamin speak it was interesting to hear his story. Doing his PhD in Creative Writing he had to write everything, from stories, to memoirs, the journalistic pieces. In doing so he discovered he enjoyed writing memoir, it felt natural doing so. Like Will, Benjamin didn’t position himself as the gay writer, but he said you tend to identify with what separates you, in his case being gay and Asian; he joked he was basically a turducken of minorities. It was an interesting discussion because it was something I hadn’t thought much about. Benjamin told us that you really can’t disentangle yourself from those parts of you, and while he hoped his generation would be the last to be persecuted for being different, he was sad to see it hasn’t changed.
