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!
