I have so many from Bertrand Russell's 'The History of Western Philosophy' which was one of the defining books of my life, challenging me with Plato, Jewish and Islamic philosophy, Nietzsche, the great philosophers and that question, what is truth? Then there’s Beatrix Potter and Peter the rabbit'; my romance collection by the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen; my search for meaning authors - Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird' ; Joseph Conrad; D.H.Lawrence; Simone Beauvoir; Khaled Hosseini. My head spins with the huge number of my favourite children’s authors – they include Ursula Dubosarsky, Jackie French, Moya Simons, Deborah Abela, Hazel Edwards, Markus Zusak, Jacqueline Wilson, Bill Condon and the list goes on forever.
2.Who has had a major influence on your writing?
My beloved father who was a great thinker. When I was a little girl, he’d come home from working on the process line in the car factory. There’d be his shower, dinner, then he’d sit in the lounge room and we’d talk. He’d share philosophies, ideas, literature. He would have been proud that I am a writer.
3.Name a book you never finished?
I found it too hard to reach the story in ‘The Slap’ by Christos Tsiolkas. I know it’s loved and awarded, but his ugliness of the language, characters and their relationships felt unreal and hurt my soul.
4.What word or words do you always have trouble spelling?
Choose and chose – always confuse them.
5.What three adjectives best describe you?
Passionate, funny, vulnerable.
6.Which of your characters would you want to be and why?
I really don’t want to be any of my characters because they are already fragments of me. My books are exploration of relationships and emotions and difficult at times. I guess if forced to identify a character, it would be the little girl in my first picture book ‘Ships in the Field’ published by Ford St Publishing. The girl encompasses love, warmth, playfulness, seeking family connection and home.
7.Which author would you invite to dinner?
Khaled Hosseini. I’d love to ask him about ‘The Kite Runner’ and his life in Afghanistan and so much more.
8.Where do you write?
In my chaotic study which I get in order, then it collapses again under the pressure of work.
9.When do you write?
I scramble for time. My ideal would be to write every morning, then after lunch do other work. However it rarely happens. Sometimes I go away for a week with my laptop.
10.What makes you happy?
Sharing time with my children; the intellectual joy of playful debate; writing events; addressing young audiences when they love my books; quiet time to reflect; working to make a difference for young people through representing organisations like Room to Read, The Cancer Council, Monkey Baa Theatre for young People; finding inspiration
11.What do you most fear?
Personal rejection
12.What is your favorite vice?
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
13.What is the quality you most like in yourself?
Embracing and enhancing audiences.
14.What are the qualities you most like in your friends?
Not judging, but being there when you need a shoulder to rest your head on.
15.Would you be lying if you said your works were not autobiographical?
My works are inspired by my experiences and I re-interpret them in my writing. It gives the heart to my work.
16.What part of your personality do you detest?
Quite a few parts. However I hate conflict and feel like Neville Chamberlain – ‘peace at any cost’ – that helped Nazism gain strength. I try to counter it and sometimes I am successful, but other times not, with disastrous results.
17.What is your favorite adjective?
Erudite. Look that up if you don’t know it. I’ve been trying to cut back its use as it annoys my kids.
18.What is your favorite book?
Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’
19.What book would you read three times?
Kate Di Camillo’s ‘The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane’
20.To whom would you award the Nobel Prize for Literature and why?
I just don’t know. There are so many authors who are writing in other languages than English. I can only give my criteria – that it’s not only about the writing, it’s about the unraveling humanity and challenging us to act for a better world like in George Orwell’s ‘1984’; Hemingway’s ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’, Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men.
Please don’t think I’m a coward, but I can’t judge this one.
Ships in the Field is my first picture book and one written in that deep place of belonging - whatever the challenges of life hold, there is always hope and new beginnings
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