[Lauren Daniels interviewed Melanesian-born writer Erica Bell about her book The Voyage of the Shuckenoor that recounts the tale of Australian ‘blackbirding’ voyages]

LD: What can you tell readers about the historical context of your novel, 'The Voyage of the Shuckenoor', and the significance of the ‘mary’s cabin’?

EB: The ‘mary’s cabin’ was that place aboard ‘backbirding’ tall ships where women were segregated during the late 19th Century. It’s a powerful image of female seclusion and imprisonment that has hardly figured in either the scholarly or the popular literature about the blood-stained Australian ‘recruiting’ voyages to the South Seas. I was intrigued by the idea of entering that male world of tall ships and recreating with as much factual detail as possible, a female voice from the mary’s cabin.

LD: A gentle love story emerges from this historical genre and ushers the protagonist to her fate. Can you give readers some insight on what’s in store for them?

EB: Hilda falls in love with the ship's brilliant, brooding doctor, Misima, a Melanesian man who, like other crew members, recognises her father from some long-ago horror. In The Voyage of the Shuckenoor, Hilda’s love for Misima compels her to help him do more than have melancholy daydreams as he reads Patrick Manson's great 19th Century treatise on tropical medicine. She believes he can become all he can be in a world where a black doctor is unthinkable. He must somehow rescue her from the hell of an early 20th Century lazaret—the infamous Peel Island in Moreton Bay—where she is incarcerated at the end of the voyage by a hysterical Queensland community, as the first white woman to suffer from the mysterious ‘toe disease’ of the islanders. They are lovers trapped by a complex web of circumstance and history which they must somehow escape.

LD: There are some rather poignant, current themes cradled in the narrative, despite the historical context. When did you start to work on The Voyage of the Shuckenoor and what inspired you?

EB: The book took ten years to write. I did the research in Queensland but wrote the book in a tiny stone cottage in Minnesota, U.S.A., just after September 11. The novel contains echoes of Guantanamo and Bush-Blair-Howard-speak, as it takes the reader on a journey into the dark heart of Australia’s crimes against its nearest neighbours. My experience as a foreigner on one of America’s most restrictive labour immigration visas—the H4 visa—inevitably leaked into the book.

LD: You were born and grew up in Melanesia. How has this shaped the book?

EB: I was born in Rabaul, on New Britain, and also lived for some years on Misima island, in the Louisiade Archipelago, which lies at the imaginative centre of this novel. As a child I understood two of the hundreds of languages of New Guinea and imagined myself to be New Guinean. In this book I was interested also in recreating a female character who doesn’t quite fit into her white skin.

LD: Also, which aspects of your study and professional experience as a health researcher contributed to the novel? And how did the novel begin for you?

EB: I work as a health sciences academic and so the novel is also in part a journey into the poetical, fantastical world of late 19th Century tropical medicine. The bizarre treatment of ‘lepers’ in Australia at a time when the consensus medical opinion was that ‘leprosy’ was not so contagious is stranger than fiction. For example, in the early 20th Century there was a young white woman with Hansen’s disease who was sent down the east coat of Australia to Peel Island in a wooden box carried by a ship. This book refers to that event, though it is not based on any person living or dead. In 'The Voyage of the Shuckenoor' I have woven together sources from medicine and biology, anthropology, history, literature, religion, and so on to try to make the past a living breathing thing.

The novel began for me one day when I was caught in a storm in a little sailing boat in Moreton Bay in Queensland. I anchored in a coral gutter just off uninhabited Peel Island and went ashore to find the ruins of the lazaret, including the graveyards of the ‘lepers’. Afterwards I discovered that Melanesians were buried there and so the whole island, with its eerie, wind-twisted trees seemed to unravel some alternative history of Australia and of me.

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[Lauren also interviewed David Reiter about his new novel, Primary Instinct, and his children's book Global Cooling]

LD: Although the setting pertains to teachers and a local Australian school system, your new novel Primary Instinct has been described as an ambitious social commentary on the workplace world, regardless of career paths or backgrounds. What was your inspiration for a book that has such a collective grasp on the politics and group dynamics of the workplace?

DR: Henry Kissinger was once quoted as saying that the reason why politics in teaching is so vicious is because so little is at stake. He was talking about politics in universities, where I taught for many years, and I can well understand what he was getting at besides being witty. The more overworked we are, the more likely we are to be consumed by things that don't really matter, losing sight of the reasons why we became academics, teachers, or public servants. Like nurses and other caring professions, teachers aren't in it for the money, and they certainly don't get a lot of respect in our society. We pay lip service to teachers and the need for a quality education system, but really, if it can't be justified with metaphors drawn from sport we quickly lose interest.

Kids have been ‘empowered’ by the rhetoric of the 'politically correct' to the degree that even they often show little thanks for what their teachers are doing. This is where many teachers abandon ship in hopes of doing anything but teaching. For those who stay on due to a sense of dedication or desperation, the only way of coping is to embrace the absurdity of their situation and try to make the best of it, with humour, if possible.

LD: As someone who has worked in different countries and settings in private, public and educational sectors, what elements from your experience were synthesized into your novel to make these characters step from the page with so much familiarity?

DR: People who work for reasons other than money do share a common ground with workers in other professions, and national boundaries really make little difference. There are countries where education is more highly regarded than it is in Australia, but only a minority of teachers benefit from this. I was influenced by a recent BBC TV series, Teachers, which follows the lives of teachers in a typical English public school, doing their best to ignore the antics of their power-hungry Principal. These are people who no longer think of teaching as being a ‘higher’ calling: it's a means of paying the bills.

The humour in that series arises from the relationships between the teachers who regard students and administrators as an inconvenience, a distraction from their social lives. But their situation, and their strategies for staying sane, are no different from those of people in any other line of work, where their contribution goes unrewarded and seldom acknowledged.

LD: Primary Instinct is acutely funny, emphasizing the point that laughter is the best medicine when confronted with the slippery nature of workplace politics. Can you name some of your favourite satirists and humourists who caught your eye during your evolution as an author?

DR: I'm originally from North America, where there's a long tradition of satiric fiction, dating back to Ambrose Bierce, Washington Irving and HL Mencken up to more recent authors like Philip Roth and John Updike. I've also been influenced by cinema, with directors like Woody Allen and the Coen brothers, and serials like Yes, Prime Minister, South Park and The Simpsons.

Australia, too, is fertile ground for satire as seen in Frontline, Kath & Kim, The Chaser and most recently The Hollowmen. My hope is that some jaded producer out there will recognize the potential of Primary Instinct to add a new dimension to Australian satire and offer me six figures for the TV rights.

LD: Judging by your earlier works, and by the gutsy roll call of books published by IP, you’re not afraid of confronting the big issues. What was it that called you to tackle the underlying issues in Primary Instinct? What responses have you gotten from readers so far?

DR: Even as I write this, my wife is ducking for cover, for fear that her colleagues at school will see themselves in this book and, out of revenge, not share their Tim-Tams with her at morning tea. Of course I will deny that any of them served as inspiration for the characters here, or that my wife furnished me with CCTV footage. Instead, I'll insist that their seeing themselves in the book is evidence of the book's universality, and the failure of the education system to train teachers to dispassionately analyse prose. Those who protest too much at the pub may find themselves edited out of the sequel as surely as John Howard was voted out of office for taking satire far too seriously.

[On Global Cooling]

LD: There is so much press about global warming these days, it's tough for kids to feel positive about the future. How does your novel, Global Cooling, inspire kids not only towards optimism, but also towards participation in today's environmental issues?

DR: Bruno Bettleheim, the great psychologist, once wrote a seminal essay called ‘The Uses of Enchantment’, in which he argued that kids should be encouraged to read fairy tales, despite their violence and threatening elements. Kids need a way to engage the issues of our day in a way that gives them the chance to find hope in adversity.

Too many adults think that children need to be sheltered from things that might harm them. But kids are much more robust and insightful than we think and being sheltered from issues like Global Warming only makes them feel anxious and all the more powerless. Dealing with these issues on their level is the first step to understanding and a change in attitude. They can identify with the positive steps the characters in the novel take to spread the word about Project Earthmend, and hopefully adopt those attitudes and actions in their own lives.

LD: Global Cooling follows the classic buddy story/journey motif found in so many beloved children's works. What attracted you to this particular motif? Were there any other similar stories that inspired you as a child?

DR: The journey motif is key in most fiction, and children's lit is no exception. I suppose my starting point was AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh books, which are entertaining but also laden with social meaning and morality. Children often disregard the advice of their parents, but certain children's books have a credibility that invites children in as a respected participant in the discovery of meaning. I hope Global Cooling, and its prequel The Greenhouse Effect work in that tradition of story-telling, which converses with kids rather than talking down to them.

I also was influenced by a book I read more recently by the Canadian novelist Timothy Findley called Not wanted on the Voyage, which is a retelling of the Noah and the Ark story from the perspective of a cat. I think it's a good idea to change the filters of our realities now and then to see things from the perspective of others. Given that animals have even less power to change the direction of things, giving them a voice here makes sense, at least to me.

LD: As a parent yourself, and with your wife Cherie, a teacher, you trialled the book with groups of children and teachers. Tell us about that process.

DR: I've read The Greenhouse Effect to many groups of children, teachers and parents since it came out four years ago, and I've been pleased at how little direction kids need to discuss the themes of the work. With little help they are able to analyse without realising that they're doing it, and few teachers have had to rely on teacher's notes to lead discussions. More often than not the kids direct the discussion, effortlessly relating what's going on in the book to what's happening in their world, and what we need to do to make things better.

LD: Your children's books often tackle difficult, pertinent themes while reintroducing them to your young audience in a palatable, intuitive way. Tell us about your other books and how kids have responded to them.

DR: Another book is Real Guns, a picture book I did with Patrick J Murphy, an accomplished artist living in Belfast. It's been interesting to watch the reception to that book. Some teachers and librarians worry about exposing kids to issues surrounding guns—again, there's that misplaced impulse to protect by treating certain subjects as taboo. Kids, on the other hand, love Real Guns. Boys, especially. There's too much ‘nice’ fiction out there for kids, books that create an imaginative world at odds with the real world. Real Guns and the Project Earthmend Series hopefully meet kids on an imaginative ground that helps prepare them to deal with problems lying ahead with confidence rather than a position of ignorance.

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[Assistant Editor, Children's Titles, Anna Bartlett interviewed Duncan Richardson about his book Jason Chen and the Time Banana]

AB: You've had collections of your poetry published, but you also write children's stories. What interests you most in writing for children?

DR: Firstly, it’s a lot of fun and through experience with my own kids and the children that I teach, I find most of the ideas I get these days are children’s stories. It’s an area of writing where good plots still count and you can have fun with characters even if the topic verges on the serious.

AB: As a teacher, you must have had a lot of experience with kids. Does this help you when it comes to creating child characters?

DR: I think so. It keeps me in touch with authentic child voices and perspectives on life without having to think about it consciously.

AB: Where did the idea for Jason Chen and the Time Banana come from, and how long did it take to write?

DR: Jason came from different directions. The character is based on kids I’ve taught, but the story evolved from reading local history and discovering the anti-Chinese riot in Brisbane, and rumours about a fire being started to discredit the local Chinese. The parallels between that and the backwash of One Nation and other spreaders of racist ideas were interesting, and I wanted a way to bring them together.

AB: In the book, Jason goes back in time to Brisbane of the 1860s. You live in Brisbane; do you have a particular interest in the history of the area?

DR: The history of any place that I go is always interesting to me and having spent most of my life in Brisbane, it’s something I can’t get enough of. We also have a lot of hidden history, including some great stories that should get far more attention; for example, I’ve found very few locals know about the Fire of Brisbane in 1864, and yet they know about the Fire of London.

AB: What sort of research did you have to do to make sure all the historical details in Jason were correct?

DR: I found old maps at the State Archives, read magazines and papers from the day plus diaries and histories. Visiting the places as they are now was also useful and whenever I pass Hungry Jacks on Queens St, I imagine the fire that destroyed the whole block.

AB: Jason himself has Chinese-Vietnamese parents, and in the story he faces racism both in his own time and in the past. How important do you think it is to give children an awareness of issues such as racism?

DR: In our society, because racism still exists, it’s important for everyone to be aware of it and of course we have more chance of reducing it if kids grow up rejecting it. However, I hope the story doesn’t preach. It is an adventure story first of all and hopefully the message isn’t dominant.

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[David Reiter interviewed Barry Levy about his research material in composing the hard-hitting novel As If! in preparation for their discussion of issues like this in their upcoming tour to Regional Queensland]

DR: Your book features Ipswich, a regional town not far from Brisbane. Is that because the events depicted are based on experiences or knowledge you have about Ipswich? Or do you feel that Ipswich is sufficiently representative of the Australian character for people to relate to it as a locale?

BL: Both of the above. I used Ipswich as the backdrop because it is the town I know best; it is where I spent most of my time as a working journalist in Australia. However, a lot of the initial interviews and my first knowledge of youth homelessness came in Rockhampton, where I wrote a series of articles on the problem. The reality: the two towns were no different. Just as, from reading and personal observation, I have seen Brisbane, at any rate some suburbs (I was a teacher for a while in Inala, for example), is no different, and so essentially the book could have been written backgrounded against Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne for that matter.

It is a reality anyway, as I have found and youth shelter workers well know, that kids in this situation move around, interstate and intrastate for various reasons. It is part of the reason the book is set in Ipswich, takes in Brisbane and ends in Sydney. On a literary level, I like working with backgrounds I know first hand – but was appreciative that Ipswich had the name Ipswich – which correlates with the first-named town in England. I think the book is that universal - in terms of youth homelessness in the First World.

DR: The novel is confronting in its depiction of youth homelessness and violence. Do you feel that fiction is a better medium than non-fiction to encourage your readers to be informed about social issues of the day?

BL: Both fiction and non-fiction are equally relevant in informing people about social issues. However, for me, the fictional approach is best because it allows for greater audience participation and ‘enjoyment’, and leads to insights into the human mind and ‘soul’ that would appear as no more than speculation in the documentary form. It is a matter of how you dress the clothes around the facts that will determine fiction’s ultimate relevance, poignancy and social influence.

DR: Your style is lyrical, almost poetic. What made you choose this kind of style to render your subject matter?

BL: For me it is not a choice. I saw myself as a poet as I was growing up and for many years it was my favourite writing form (most thrown away now). From there, with the exception of a biographical book, I went on to short story writing only to find the best short stories, to my mind, are like expanded poems. Novel writing for me is like an expansion of this. The sounds of words are very important. And the way they are presented have to underpin meaning.

DR: What made you choose IP as the best publisher of this work?

BL: I have to admit here that I did try a couple of other publishers, who responded with some favourable comments (just getting a brief comment – other than sorry - from the large publishing houses is a big deal). On the other hand one small Melbourne publisher told me they thought they weren’t big enough for the book! Fortunately I have a friend in the book distribution industry and sent it to him to appraise and give advice. He said: ‘This is right up David – IP’s – alley.’ I hopped on to the website, was very impressed with what I saw and sent the ms to IP, who helped guide the novel to the even more powerful work that it is today.

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Articulate Conception

[Jane Scott recently interviewed Darren Groth for a feature in The Brisbane News. We thought the article was so insightful that we want to share it with you. Thanks to The Brisbane News for permission to reprint it here.]

They say it’s good to “talk” to your unborn child, for mum or dad to chat away through the tummy wall to the foetus, which can, apparently, hear its parents and will bond with their familiar voices. In Darren Groth’s latest novel, The Umbilical Word, this concept takes a giant leap forward when the protagonist, Adam, emails his child-to-be and is
somewhat freaked to get a reply – as you would be.
Father and child continue to exchange messages, and the reader learns that Adam and his wife Maddy have a history of failed pregnancies – a history that is making this current pregnancy very stressful indeed.

For Brisbane-born Darren (now based in Vancouver),
the story has its roots in personal experience. He and
his Canadian wife Wendy experienced fertility problems and now have six-year-old twins, Jared and Chloe, born following IVF-related processes.
“The nature of Adam and Maddy’s history was
deliberately different to ours,” the 38-year-old said on a recent visit to his home city. “I’m not the sort of writer who likes to throw my own life experience under the bus, as it were, but as a writer to really create strong work, you have to bring something of yourself to it.”

Certainly, The Umbilical Word brings a refreshing
male perspective to a subject men don’t necessarily think about, let alone talk about. Darren recalls his own shock at discovering that conception was not going to come easily. “I could never have imagined that we’d face such an elemental life challenge. It was all supposed to fall into place. For guys, especially, we don’t think of this stuff. It was nothing I ever thought I’d have to deal with.

“My intent with the story is always just to write a great story. In this particular circumstance, the tag for the story has been, ‘It’ll make dad laugh and mum cry’. I’d like to think it could be the other way round as well.”

More challenges came when their son was diagnosed as autistic. This prompted the family’s move to Canada.

“Just at pre-school age we started to run into some pretty significant challenges here in terms of providing support and help for Jared,” Darren says.

They learned that in Canada, autistic children are much better provided for by the education system, and in May last year the family upped sticks and left Brisbane behind.

“The motivation for going has been validated in a lot of different ways,” says Darren. “Our little guy’s doing great, Wendy’s reconnecting with her family, our little girl Chloe is having a ball over there. And for me, I sort of like being different – it’s nice being an Aussie over there.

“I’d like to get a writing career going over there too,
but that’s going to take time. I like to think the universal nature of my stories can have some wide-ranging appeal.”

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