2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?
Dolores Umbridge. She is the villain I love to hate. She’s just like the mean girls at school who pretended to be nice while stabbing you in the back.
3. You're hosting a literary dinner party, which five authors would you invite?
(alive or dead)
One year I went to Sydney Writers’ Festival and heard Lauren Child, Kate de Camillo and Liane Moriarty all in one weekend. It was like all my Christmases had come at once! So I’d start with those three. I also have a fond memory of attending a talk by Alexander McCall Smith at the Sydney Opera House. I had rushed out of work after doing my morning radio show in Western Sydney, driven home, jumped on a bus, raced through the city getting drenched in an afternoon downpour, broke a high heel on the Opera House steps and got to my seat just in the nick of time, carrying one shoe and looking like a drowned rat! But it was worth it because I’ve never laughed so much in my life. So I’d invite him just for the funny stories. With those four big guns at my dining table, I’d need an author friend to be number five so they could carry the conversation while I pinch myself and hyperventilate in the kitchen!
4. Which literary invention do you wish was real?
The Prose Portal from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, which allows the user to enter works of fiction. How cool would that be?
5. What are five words that describe your writing process?
Hmmm. How about 'Very very very very slow?’ Or perhaps, ‘Takes much longer than expected?’
Or, if we’re being positive: 'But I get there eventually…’
6. Which are the five words you would like to be remembered by as a writer?
Imaginative, compassionate, inclusive, lyrical, joyful!
7. Picture your favourite writing space. What are five objects you would find there?
My great-grandfather’s typewriter that went to Gallipoli, a collection of my favourite children’s books, including a first edition Winnie-the-Pooh the I inherited from my Aunty, photos of my family, a window with a picturesque garden or rural view, and a piping-hot pot of strong tea.I know that’s already five, but can I throw in a sleeping dog as well?
8. Grab the nearest book, open it to page 22 and look for the second word in the first sentence. Now, write a line that starts with that word. (Please include the name of the book!)
So if I had written this at lunch, it would have been from The Hummingbird Effect, by Kate Mildenhall, but as I’m writing it after dinner it was from Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan, by RA Spratt. (The word on p22 was ‘so’.)
9. If you could ask one author one question, what would the question be and who would you ask?
I’d like to ask Charlotte Bronte why Rochester has a crazy ex-wife in the attic and what exactly happened to her. I’m curious about Bronte’s ideas on mental health.
10. Which would you rather do: Never write another story or never read another book?
That’s a tough one. Can I have still have audiobooks? Both options are terrifying, but I’m going to say I’d choose to never read another book, because I have so many books already in my head and heart that I can savour, but I really don’t feel complete when I’m not writing anything.
