Five Questions for Leanne Hall
JA
August 20
Melbourne-based author Leanne Hall has had short stories published in the Sleepers Almanac, Best Australian Short Stories and yours truly. She won the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing in 2009 for her debut novel This Is Shyness, which was released earlier this month. Spike sat down with her over the digital divide to chat about wolfboys, wildgirls and scaling fences round Merri Creek.
What’s a typical day spent writing like for you? Can you describe your routine?
I’m a morning person, so I usually wake up quite early and do a bit of yoga. After that I jump back in bed with a ridiculously large mug of tea and some toast, power up my laptop, and try not to leave bed for a few hours. Writing from bed allows me to pretend I’m a lady of leisure while still churning out the words. I find I have a natural limit of about five hours writing in me per day. After this is done I walk the dog, and I’m afraid to say, I often need a nanna nap in the afternoon. Writing sucks the energy from me. I’m not very rock ‘n’ roll, am I?
How do you get into the creative mindset? Heavy metal music, spoken word or herbal tea? A pile of books by the window?
Music plays a big role in my writing; I will often pick and choose tracks for certain scenes to help me get into the mood. I also use a lot of visual references when I write, either photos I’ve taken or photos I’ve found in magazines or online. I collect snippets here and there and stick them on my bedroom walls. And there’s nothing like a little acting out; if you have to write about breaking into Orphanville at night, then cycle down to Merri Creek in the pitch dark and climb a few fences! Spending hours at your desk is all very well, but sometimes the ideas don’t flow until I’m doing something else. Ideas are like small, frightened animals – you have to approach them sideways without looking directly at them. And then gently reach out and grab them when they least expect it.
How did the idea for This is Shyness begin?
This Is Shyness began in a very odd way. I was researching the life of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (as you do!) for a short story about carnivorous plants and sexy redheads and knitting,* when I came across a very old hierarchy of races. It obviously wasn’t the most-PC thing I’ve ever read, but right at the bottom was an intriguing category for mythological races. I recognised a lot of the members of the category, but not
wolfboys’ andwildgirls.’ I latched onto those two words and started to think about what sort of characters would have these names. Once I decided my main characters would be called Wolfboy and Wildgirl, I asked myself: where would these people live? The answer was a place of complete darkness. From there the ideas came thick and fast; I devoted my time to thinking how crazy life could get for people who never saw the sunlight.
[*] Incidentally, this story has recently been published in Kill Your Darlings Issue Two.
Do you write full time or do you have a ‘day job’? How does this help/hinder your writing?
I have a day job as a children’s specialist at a bookstore. I really couldn’t ask for a better job to complement my writing. I get to think about, discuss, read, and haul around children’s literature all day. And it helps being on my feet for eight hours at a stretch, because when I have time off I am quite relieved to be sedentary at my computer. I’ve worked office jobs before and they’ve killed my writing! The only thing I’d change is I’d like to work less and write more. But who wouldn’t want that?
Finally, what’s the last book that you loved, and why?
Rather atypically the last book I loved was ‘Factory Girls’ by Leslie T.Chang. I’m not a big non-fiction reader, but I had my eye on this book for a while before picking it up. Chang takes the reader into the world of teenage girls who leave small rural towns and try their luck in big industrial cities. These girls are brash, driven, ambitious, and operating well outside the traditional roles and lifestyles of their mothers. But they are also incredibly lost, and at the mercy of factory owners and the constant boom-bust of the factory world.
Given that I almost exclusively read kids and YA books though, I should also say that I have loved two other recent reads: ‘The Museum of Thieves’ by Lian Tanner, and ‘Six Impossible Things’ by Fiona Wood. They are both fantastic debut novels by Australian authors; I feel so optimistic about the state of Australian writing when I read books this good!
This Is Shyness from All Things Considered on Vimeo.
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