Tell us about yourself.
I'm the author of 19 books of fantasy, SF, steampunk and horror, published by Simon & Schuster, Pan Macmillan, Penguin, Scholastic, Allen & Unwin, and publishers in the UK, France and Germany. My YA steampunk fantasy, Worldshaker, took out the Prix Tam Tam du Livre Jeunesse in France, I've won 6 Aurealis Awards in Australia, and my current Ferren Trilogy has already collected 2 US awards.
I live south of Sydney in Australia, with partner Aileen and Yogi the Insatiable Labrador. We're between a string of golden beaches and an escarpment like a green cliff – though also not far from the biggest steelworks in the Southern Hemisphere. I've been writing full-time for twenty-five years – for me, it's a dream come true!
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I was born in Yorkshire in the north of England and grew up mostly in Hadleigh, Suffolk – a pretty town in very pretty countryside. At age twenty-one I came out to Australia, never intending to stay, but immediately fell in love with the blue skies, sunshine and relaxed lifestyle.
The fantasies I write are mostly set in otherworlds, or states of world far removed from our present world. For example, the Ferren Trilogy is set a thousand years into the future after our planet has been reduced to a ruined wasteland by a thousand-year war between the armies of Heaven and the armies of Earth. Maybe I've moved around so much in my life, it's easy for me to detach from any particular time and place.
But for the small details of setting – there I'm always drawing on details of what I remember most vividly from one part of the real world or another. I can expand and transmute what I remember, but there's always some real experience at the back of every detail.
What was your journey to getting published like?
Terrible – and all through my own fault! For twenty-five years I had writer's block. So many novels and stories I began – I still have a wardrobe full of unfinished MSS – but I could never write through to the end.
But I was lucky getting published. When I finally completed my first novel – whoo-hoo! – it came out from a small writers' cooperative publisher, received some rave reviews in major newspapers, and turned into a comic-horror-macabre cult. That was The Vicar of Morbing Vyle, and it was all set for mainstream publication in the UK when the commissioning editor's wife read it and condemned it as tasteless. (Comic-horror-macabre – it was meant to be tasteless!) All right, that wasn't the lucky bit – my big stroke of luck was when Pan Macmillan asked to see my next book, and signed me up for a SF/detective mystery book that turned into a series. I was a university lecturer at the time, but I resigned my lectureship on the chance of becoming a full-time writer – and I've never looked back since.
What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received?
Part of my writer's block was because I was too proud to show my work and listen to feedback. I've learned that lesson! – now I'm eager for feedback from editors, other writers and sample readers. (I make it a principle to test out any new novel with 6 to 12 sample readers.)
I've had to take on board negative feedback, but sometimes the positive feedback can be important too. When The Vicar of Morning Vale came out, reader after reader after reader told me, It's like watching a movie. I'd seriously never expected that – after all, I'd been using the abstract, logical half of my head as a university lecturer. For the first time, I realised I have a strong visual imagination. So, ever since then, I've played to my strengths!
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Never give up! With me it was writer's block, not publishers, but whatever it is, expect a struggle and keep going.
Also, enjoy the writing experience for its own sake. With my history of writer's block, I still feel blessed every time I can finish a novel – and I love the feeling when it's all coming together towards the end, and the story takes over and tells itself!
What’s a fun fact about you that your readers might not know?
As a new kid in High School, I was given the nickname 'Herbert". I hated it and tried not to answer to it – which is hard when you know someone's speaking to you. I won out in the end. But considering some of the other nicknames at school – 'Sladge', 'String', ''Boof', Annie' (for a boy – it was an all-boys school) – I guess 'Herbert' wasn't even that bad.
What’s your guilty pleasure book or genre?
I'd never feel guilty over any kind of book or genre. I read anything, and sometimes get ideas and inspirations – especially for characters – from genres a million miles removed from fantasy.
My real guilty pleasure is jigsaw puzzles! I reward myself on special days by breaking out a new jigsaw puzzle, but I have to make it special or I'd be doing them all the time!
What’s your favorite quote about writing?
I can't even remember which writer said it at a panel I was on, but when asked "Why do you write?' she answered 'Because it's there.' Like Everest! I think, if you've got stories in you, they just have to come out.
When you’re not writing, how do you like to spend your time?
Walking Yogi the Labrador while listening to music.
Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
Not the first I ever read – but I remember I loved Brer Rabbit stories. A kid's version, illustrated and with the language modernized, but still with some of the original style and lingo. I had two books, and I must have read them a hundred times.
I don't know what impact they had on me, but I do like irrepressible characters who always bounce back. There's something of Brer Rabbit in many of the main characters in my books, including Ferren in the Ferren Trilogy.
What has inspired you and your writing style? How did you choose the Fantasy genre?
I made up and wrote out stories as a kid: exciting, imaginative stories. Then I won a big UK prize for a clever, literary story, and that was my downfall. I thought I ought to be a literary writer and ended up bogged in writer's block. It took me a long while to come back to my true love – fantasy – and even longer to break the block!
Many writers have inspired me, but Tolkien was crucial – showing how to create a whole otherworld and be absolutely serious about it! Edgar Allan Poe was an influence from my would-be-literary period, and his influence never left me.
But for style – no, neither Poe nor Tolkien nor anyone else much. I see my stories as films in my head, and just try to communicate them as clearly and vividly as possible. I don't do novels from an 'I' perspective, where the voice of the narrator colours the story and setting.
How do you deal with negative reviews?
I wish I could just ignore them, but they still hurt. I've been very, very lucky with positive reviews, and the few that have been bad I can explain by the particular expectations of a particular reviewer. But I can't help it – I want to win everyone over!
My favorite reviews are the ones that start off 'I don't normally enjoy fantasy, but …' or 'I wasn't expecting to like this, but …'
How do you connect with your readers?
One of the best things about being a writer is when ordinary readers get back to me and say things like 'Couldn't put your book down'. There's always a contact email in my books, and I love chatting with readers at conventions and book events. I guess it's the feeling that what I imagined in the solitude of my own head has crossed over into someone else's head. Best feeling in the world!
What’s next for you as a writer?
I'm still immersed in the Ferren world. Book 3 in the trilogy, Ferren and the Invaders of Heaven, comes out at the end of February. Then I'll move on to another kind of fantasy, more character-oriented than anything I've ever written before.. I have to have a new challenge! And the best way to shake off Ferren's world – which I've lived in so long – is to plunge into something completely different.
Are there any Easter eggs or hidden messages in your work?
No. There is one secret cipher, a signature reference that marks every Richard Harland book as a Richard Harland book, but I'm not expecting anyone ever to find it.
How do you approach writing dialogue for your characters?
I say it out loud before writing it, and I put myself into the shoes of different characters. I like it when one character questions another, or misunderstands, or second-guesses and jumps ahead. I don't think any reader wants to read all the bumbling ums and ahs of real conversation as you hear it when recorded, but we do want the liveliness of real conversation, real interaction, real agendas and clashing personalities. Dialogue is so great because it adds interest to anything. I'd always sooner tell a bit of backstory through dialogue rather than author's voice or even character's thought.
If you could share one thing with your fans, what would that be?
The announcement that a major studio will be making a film or TV series out of the Ferren Trilogy!
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All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
