Writers – Tale Peddler - Josephine Pennicott

The very British Kate Mosse and her amazing platform shoes

josephinetalepeddlerSeptember 15, 2014 0 Comments

In 2013, I saw Kate Mosse speak at the Sydney Writers Festival. I found her sparky and passionate and I loved her funky platform shoes. She reminded me of a pretty English mistress from an Enid Blyton boarding school book. The following is taken from my scribbled notes; as so much time has passed since I wrote them (due to me being busy with my own Currawong Manor), I may be paraphrasing her a little, but what she said really resonated with me. I know from comments from other audience members of the audience that she inspired them too.

Kate Mosse at Sydney Writers Festival signing my books 2013

She spoke about her love of the old-fashioned adventure story and how she enjoys having women as the hero of her tales.

She is not very modern and is British to the core.

Kate at Buckingham Palace with her OBE

She sees the shadow of the past as being everywhere.

She spends about three quarters of her writing time on research and a quarter on writing the book.

When researching and writing, she reminds herself that real people died and that she’s telling their story. That we are part of a common bond and link of humanity.

To her the best fiction comes from lack of control rather than having a cast-iron control over the work. And she has to learn to let go.

For Citadel, she spent four years in research.

She described how her characters get her to follow them.

It’s love that matters in the end. Her father taught her this lesson from when he was away at war and his relationship with his family.

The lead character in her book is always the landscape.

She experienced an almost psychic experience once in a vision and eight years later, the character that appeared to her then came to her through a manuscript. But it took that length of time until the character was ready for Kate to write the story.

Fishbourne which inspired Kate’s current literary gothic thriller The Taxidermist’s Daughter via the Independent

She does about three drafts of each of her books. Because she writes parallel time-lines she does one strand of the history line and then works on the other. With the second draft, she plaits them together.

Kate in her platform shoes

I was so engrossed in her talk that I didn’t take as many notes as I would have liked. Which is always a good thing.

HERE is a link to an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald that she did when she was here for the Writers Festival.

And a link HERE where she discusses how landscape influences her writing

And another link HERE where she discusses her writing process in a fascinating conversation with writer Denise Mina.

And a link HERE to an interview with my writer friend Kate Forsyth.

Thanks for visiting me. Please share this post with your social media friends if you think they might be interested.

“The thing about The Taxidermist’s Daughter is people think it’s a big departure, but I quote the American writer Willa Cather at the beginning of the book ‘Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet’ Kate Mosse.

Love and Light,

Josephine

Mr Potter’s Museum of Curiosities and Kate Mosse

josephinetalepeddlerSeptember 10, 2014 4 Comments

Hello, I’m a big Kate Mosse fan and love gothic literary thrillers, so I was thrilled to see her current book The Taxidermist’s Daughter was inspired by her childhood visits to The Walter Potter Museum.

In Death there can be Beauty

On an overseas trip to the UK many years ago, David and I visited Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. Not only did we get lost on the moors (another blog post altogether) but we were fortunate to discover Mr Potter’s Museum of Curiosities before it was dismantled. I found the museum incredibly fascinating and longed for another chance to examine it, so I was saddened to hear in 2003 that such a fine collection of Victorian-Edwardian whimsy was lost forever when it was dismantled and sold at auction. Some might find the taxidermy displays macabre, but I loved the surreal cuteness of the animals in dioramas such as The Death and Burial of Cock Robin (which took Mr Potter seven years to complete and included 98 species of British birds along with a weeping robin widow and a grave-digging owl); his rabbit school with rabbits writing on slates; and kitten tea parties. Intricate details featured on all of his work – including frilly knickers on kittens. There were also many other interesting and strange curios, enough to spend hours browsing. Mr Potter’s Museum of Curiosities began life in Bramber, Sussex, England. As a teenager, Walter Potter’s fascination with taxidermy started when he attempted to preserve the life of his pet canary. The Death and Burial of Cock Robin was a massive success. So many people were keen to witness his tableaus that a special platform had to be built at Bramber train station to accommodate the hordes of tourists arriving to view it. After Mr Potter’s death at 82, his daughter and grandson took over the business. Public taste in taxidermy had now waned and the displays were considered in poor taste.

Kitten with two faces

Rabbit School

The collection, numbering 10, 000 specimens, was moved around to Brighton, Ardundel and then to the owners of the famous Jamaica Inn in Cornwall where visitors come from around the world to experience Daphne du Maurier territory first hand. Sadly, when the museum finally went to auction, a one-million pound bid by Damien Hirst to keep the collection intact was rejected, which meant various pieces were sold separately. Hirst wrote a piece for the Guardian HERE called, Mr Potter, Stuffed Rats and Me.

Kate Mosse and Crow

There is also another interesting link HERE to a Taxidermy article about Walter Potter. And a link HERE with Kate Mosse talking about her fascination with Walter Potter and his museum.

Another link HERE is a website to a book about Walter Potter which contains lots of fascinating articles.

And a recent interview with Kate Mosse from the Independent where she discusses the Landscape of her Imagination HERE

Kate at Booth Museum of Natural History

With all the excitement of a new Kate Mosse book, I thought it was a good chance to publish the notes I took when she spoke at Sydney Writers Festival in 2013. I’d had the best of intentions to put them on my blog at the time, but became so busy with writing Currawong Manor that I never got a chance. I shall post that blog later in the week so I do hope you return. Please share this post with your social online friends if you feel they would be interested. Thank you for popping in. Love and Light, Josephine xx

A short film on Potter’s collection that may be of interest.

The Light Between Oceans – Review

josephinetalepeddlerSeptember 8, 2014 0 Comments

I nearly didn’t read this book. It received so much acclaim and hoopla that I didn’t think I’d find it interesting. If a book or film is very hyped, I have a bad habit of losing interest. I’m an inverted snob in such matters.

I sent it to my mother-in-law and after reading it, she returned it saying she thought I should reconsider as she knew I’d love it.

Thankfully, I obeyed her instructions. I found this a terrific read, which left me longing for as many people as possible I knew to read it, so we could discuss it. Luckily it was one of my Magic Hat Book Club choices this year.

The cover tag line is: ‘This is a story of right and wrong and how sometimes they look the same.’

We enter the world of a young lighthouse keeper, Tom Sherbourne and his wife, Isabel, on a remote island off the Western Australian coast. They decide to keep a baby found alive on ‘The Day of the Miracle’ with its dead father in a boat. Isabel has suffered three miscarriages and the baby appears to be a gift from God: there can be no harm in keeping her…

This is the clever and intriguing set-up of an engrossing story which weaves between the ‘The Day of the Miracle’ (27 April, 1926) to the emotional final scene in 1950. The book describes the consequences of the decisions of keeping the ‘miracle’ baby.

Throughout the narrative we are introduced to some vivid characters:

Tom Sherbourne the lighthouse keeper, with his measured outlook on life and his beautiful handwriting. His sense of decency and his moral code. An ex-army man with experience in Egypt and working in Morse and international code. Tom is suffering the trauma of his war experiences from one of the most grisliest of wars: a lighthouse posting seems the perfect change to escape his memories. By steamer boat on his way to the lighthouse from Sydney to Perth, he rescues a young woman from a lecherous ex-soldier, a chance meeting pivotal later in the book:

“Being over there changes a man. Right and wrong don’t look so different anymore to some.” – Tom Sherbourne.

In Port Partageuse, a small coastal community where a fresh granite obelisk lists the men and boys who will not be returning to the community. The town’s scars are raw. In this community, Tom meets and falls in love with defiant, sparkling Isabel Graysmark, the only daughter of the headmaster Bill, and his wife, Violet, who lost both sons to the war.

The nature cycles of the island and Port Partageuse, are hauntingly portrayed. And the real life ghosts of the living, still mourning so many lost, are also wonderfully captured. The Australian phrases, increasingly also lost to American slang, are resurrected in bold splashes which contrast well against the more lyrical descriptions. You ache for all the characters. Even very minor characters who barely appear such as Frank, the baby’s father, become important. Septimus, the grandfather, is also beautifully sketched and an entire book could be devoted on his story.

The character’s roles are superimposed against the lighthouse itself, the great light illuminating to protect the sailors, but also revealing the deeper shadows that are lurking within every member of Port Partageuse. People are getting on with life – but the war has taken so much.

The Light Between Oceans is a book that should give inspiration to all writers who think they may have left their run to late to start. It is Stedman’s debut full-length novel, written in her mid-sixties. I was most fascinated by her writing process which is very similar to my own using visual imagery and a method of ‘free falling’ into the story, allowing the visual images to guide you. She worked a lot from original material in the British Library, reading war-time diaries and journals which she said ‘brought her to sobbing many times’. This first-person research shines through. The two images of the ocean used above were both taken by Stedman when she was working on the book.

I feel that with a different cover design, it might have reached more of a male audience. My partner began reading the book after hearing my enthusiastic appraisal of it and is really enjoying it. He would never have picked it up on its cover normally.

Thankfully, many people did. Nine international publishing houses bid on the rights for the book. In Australia The Light Between Oceans was:

Winner of three ABIA awards for Best Newcomer, Best Literary Novel and Book of the Year Winner of two Indie Awards for Best Debut and Book of the Year Winner of the Nielsen BookData Bookseller’s Choice Award for 2013 Recently voted Historical Novel of 2012 by GoodReads’ reading community

The names of the miracle child in the story, Lucy, means Light and she represents the Hope of the story. I also took the Light Between Oceans to represent the break between the two World Wars. Ultimately, I saw this as a book about the ripple effects of war. A story of right and wrong and the different shades of grey in between – a tale of forgiveness and redemption. Janus Rock, where Lucy washes up, represents the Ancient God of Doorways – transitions and beginnings. Janus presided over beginnings and endings of peace and conflict. As a transitional god, he had a role in birth and exchange as well. Janus also represents a middle ground between barbarism and civilisation.

If you are interested to read more about M.L Stedman’s writing process, there is an interview HERE

This review is for my Australian Women Writers Challenge for 2014.

High Tea in Newtown

josephinetalepeddlerMay 12, 2014 0 Comments

Hello,

Thanks to everyone who has booked for my High Tea at Better Read Than Dead in June.There’s only a few places left, so if you live locally please book promptly. If you can’t make the High Tea, I’ll be talking at the Newtown Library a couple of nights afterwards. Booking information can be found here.
http://www.betterread.com.au/discount-books/news-and-events.do

Characters manifesting on secret beaches

josephinetalepeddlerMarch 31, 2014 4 Comments

A busy month filled with activity. In Australia we bid farewell to Summer and welcomed Autumn.

In Germany my Currawong Manor was released. It’s German title is Sturmtochter which translates most poetically to Daughters of the Storm. I hope that my world of Currawong Manor is enjoyed as much as Poet’s Cottage was received there.
In the mail I not only had the delightful pleasure of my receiving my beautiful copies of Sturmtochter, but also Poet’s Cottage (Dornen Tochter) in another edition with its SPIEGEL Bestseller tag.

We spent quite a lot of time at the beach this summer as we discovered a secret beach which is not as frequented.

Just yesterday at the seaside after my daughter’s netball, I spotted a gentleman who sparked a character and an entire addition to a book I have been mulling over for years came to me. Luckily I had my notebook and I began sketching and writing ideas that came to me as I studied him. My husband walking past this unsuspecting man engaged in a brief conversation which was reported back. Strangely enough, notes I had taken regarding his culture, his appearance etc were proven accurate. Plus, he said a most intriguing sentence to David which I can definitely use in the book. I was surprised by the speed of the information triggered by this gentleman that came to me. You must always carry a notebook! More on notebooks in another post.

And here is a shot of my Currawong Manor edit for the Australian version.

And my stunningly beautiful Australian cover for Currawong Manor has now been revealed. I love it so much as it really conveys the darkness and mystery in the books. So happy with my Australian covers for both my mysteries from Pan Macmillan.

Currawong Manor will be released in Australia in June. You can read a synopsis HERE.

In July on the 26th at 3pm, I am going to be at Better Read than Dead in Newtown for a High Tea to discuss murder, mystery, and creativity over cupcakes and tea. If you live locally I would love to see you there.

Don’t forget if you wish to follow my adventures, I am on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Please share this post with friends if you feel they would enjoy my work.

In Love and Light
Josephine xx

Facing Fears – Into the desert with Robyn Davidson

josephinetalepeddlerFebruary 28, 2014 2 Comments

You are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be.’ Robyn Davidson

Sometimes I play that game where I’m asked the five books that changed my life. Although my choices might change (and really every book has left a small thumbprint on my soul) one work did have an influence on my life when I first read it as a young girl in Tasmania – Robyn Davidson’s Tracks. The descriptions of the Australian outback were so powerful and beautiful. I’d never thought of my own country in quite the same way.

I felt fearful of so many things and it was perfectly obvious that here was some sort of Athena warrior goddess who feared very little, a young woman who in 1977 trekked 1700 miles across the desert from Alice Springs to Western Australia. Of course there are all sorts of symbolic meanings attached to entering a vast, seemingly empty wilderness. The old prophets entered them for clarification and transcendence. Jesus went to fast in a desert. A desert cuts out all the sensory overload. The vastness of the landscape encourages meditation.

But it wasn’t just Robyn’s ballsy guts/madness in choosing to enter the desert with only her camels, her dog, the intermittent visits of National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan and the indigenous Australians she met along her way. It was the authentic raw power of her writing that inspired me.

I was fortunate to see Robyn Davidson speak at the Sydney Writers’ Festival last year on a panel interviewed by Michaela Kalowski with Emile Sherman, the producer of the movie Tracks. Actress Mia Wasikowska, who plays Robyn in the movie, was also in the audience. I intended to write this post shortly after the festival I was so inspired and fired up by the three speakers I saw that year, but I was editing my own book at the time and the deadline was forever looming.

from the movie Tracks

I’ve been thinking again about Robyn Davidson as the movie Tracks is shortly to hit the big screen. Robyn in person, decades after I read her book is every bit as striking as her younger self in the flesh. Elegant, warm and charming,she described herself as an ‘odd-ball’. And I sensed a kindred spirit when she spoke about how she hated being too connected and never carries her mobile phone and hates answering it. It’s always a relief to find someone as odd-ball as yourself. She talked about how she had offers before for Tracks to be made into a move, but she wanted it to be an Australian film. Could I love this woman any more? She spoke about how the journey she took would be impossible these days as social media would be covering every step. She also expressed her concerns for young people these days as the pressure from social media is so intense. And related a very touching story to do with a reunion with her camels in Western Australia many years later. I had no idea that camels were so intelligent, emotional and had memories like elephants.

Robyn Davidson’s early life is gothic involving her mother’s suicide at 46. Robyn is currently writing a memoir about this period of her life. In a recent interview in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend magazine with journalist Amanda Hooton, she spoke about her mother’s death and her struggles over writing the period of her life to avoid the ‘poor pitiful me’ tone.

‘I now think of her as something incorporated into me. I’m very interested in neuroscience: the idea that we have these maps in the brain. I think she’s sort of mapped into me.’

Tracks is a book I would urge every mother to buy their young daughters (or sons) to read as it will hopefully give them a warrior shield in navigating their own desert. It is certainly one I will be encouraging my daughter to read. One aspect of Robyn’s desert trek I loved was that she didn’t do it for fame, or to become some sort of feminist symbol, she did it for the journey itself.

In this fifteen minute interview below with Caroline Baum, Robyn expresses her concern about how the desert has been taken over by the buffel grass introduced from Africa has been drastically altering the herbage for native animals and changing the rich palette of the desert itself.

I never did have the courage to go into the desert alone. But Robyn Davidson’s book Tracks gave me the courage to travel to India on my own.

Travelling with an Australian girl I met in India. Here we are on the Holy Ganges.

Prior to reading her book, I wouldn’t have been able to travel to Melbourne solo. My life became richer as a result of her own journey and her ability to express her desert walk with such eloquence. I became a writer – a different type of writer to Robyn Davidson, but one just as inspired by the tone and palette of my own country. It takes courage to embrace a creative life with all of its dips and heights.

with a Sadhu in India.

I was most grateful I had the chance to say this personally to Robyn Davidson at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. In the next couple of months, I shall post my panels that I experienced with UK writer Kate Mosse and Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Both of these panels were excellent and filled with inspiration so I hope to share them with you.

With another friend I met in India. We are still in touch.

Here is a link to Robyn’s panel from Sydney Writers’ Festival. My interaction with her comes towards the end.

http://www.swf.org.au/2013-video-podcasts/making-tracks.html

Having my karma washed away in the Holy Ganges

Yes, Robyn Davidson, you made me feel that I could do anything.

‘Camel trips do not begin or end, they merely change form.’ Robyn Davidson

If you enjoyed this article and found some inspiration, please share with your online friends. Or leave me a comment to know if you’ve read Tracks. Is there a particular book that sparked some courage within you? I would love to hear from you.

Some links to articles on Robyn Davidson of interest:

http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2012/october/1349327288/robyn-davidson/leaving-tracks-behind

http://www.sbs.com.au/films/movie-news/911113/tracks-mia-wasikowska-and-robyn-davidson-interview

http://www.smh.com.au/national/one-hell-of-a-life-born-of-claypan-and-coolabah-20120928-26qng.html

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/talkingheads/txt/s2345772.htm

BIG DREAMS, BRUSHES WITH FAME AND MIRACLES FOR CHRISTMAS

josephinetalepeddlerDecember 12, 2013 2 Comments

‘Though a great deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.’

– Thomas Hardy

As I write this on a sunny day in Sydney with dappled light showering our inner-city street, cicadas competing with the traffic noise and overhead planes, gum trees a wash of green against a brilliant blue sky, Angelina Jolie has just finished directing a scene near our house for her new movie Unbroken.

Regular readers will know my fascination with comparative religions. The reason I’m so excited that Hollywood has come to our area is that Angelina is directing a scene in my local church. This church is a big part of our family and has formed the fabric of our lives here for the last decade. My daughter was baptised there and before my father died, he flew over to give me away in my Alice in Wonderland meets Carnaby Street wedding.

Unbroken being filmed at our local church

In an area bursting with the politically correct/hipster crowd, the church has been a sanctuary to me for years. I’ve seen it go through many changes and several priests, but the current priest has been my favourite for many reasons. The reason I mention Angelina is that it’s proof of how life can bring unexpected twists and miracles in ways you can’t imagine. And how ‘real life’ can be stranger than fiction and any movie. For years we’ve battled with church costs (the roof fell in a few years ago) and in one swoop – thanks to Angelina – those costs have been considerably bumped down. But I could never have expected that’s who would have fixed our church roof. Not even my imagination would have dreamt that scenario.

Extras in period costume cross the street for Unbroken

My daughter went to school yesterday morning with a little piece of paper in her pocket, for an autograph in the unlikely event she bumped into Angelina. She walked past crowds of extras dressed in period costume and the big movie lights trying to spot one person. (She loves her because she has tattoos.) We are relieved that this small brush of celebrity is with a person as inspiring as Angelina. It is heartening to point out photographs of Angelina and Brad dressed up for movie premieres, but then also be able to talk about her humanitarian work and how she has used celebrity and her beauty and talent as a force of good in the world. Everyone that had contact with her raved about how unpretentious, down-to-earth and friendly she was. I was also very delighted to see on the weekend in Sydney she went shopping with her children and bought books from local bookshops – a reminder to all to buy BOOKS this Christmas. As Christopher Marley said: ‘When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink and glue. You give him the possibility of a whole new life.’

And so Angelina Jolie is our little Christmas miracle and if you see Unbroken, know that the church in it has been my oasis of quiet contemplation for the last decade of my inner-city life.

The beautiful and inspiring Angelina Jolie

I have finished my edit of Currawong Manor.

On Monday, 2nd December at 12.30 am I pressed the send button and Currawong Manor went across the city back to Pan Macmillan. I felt enormously depleted, emotional and empty. I’ve loved working with my artists for so long and it’ s always hard to let go of my characters. I’ve spent years in their company. I feel so empty without them all and wonder if anyone will care for them. Where do these characters come from? They come. Sometimes quickly, but sometimes they are furtive and hide themselves behind other characters. Or they are too coy to appear at once, and you know they will come another time and book.

You spend years with the ones that do appear. You grow to know them more intimately than you do most of your neighbours, and friends.

And then they are gone. Released with the SEND button to a waiting editor and publisher in an office across the city and you are left alone, crying with exhaustion and wondering why you push yourself through so much for so many years to meet a being who is as real as a dream.

Divine madness has descended for years – if you are lucky – and then it moves on and you are left feeling abandoned by your own creation.

You sit and wait and hope the muse will bring you another story. You wait and ache and start to spin the web.

I’ve now begun work on my new web. and loving feeling the new characters appear.

Poet’s Cottage continues its tour around Europe and here is the beautiful cover from Dutch publishers HERE Fingers crossed that the Dutch will enjoy my Tasmanian sea-fishing murder mystery. It never fails to excite me to think that our family holiday inspired a book that is now selling internationally.

In November I appeared at the Newtown Festival for Better Read than Dead in the Writer’s Tent with the always inspiring and dynamic Kate Forsyth.

Josephine Pennicott and Kate Forsyth

I also attended the New South Wales SWITCH Library Awards dinner at the Star Room in Darling Harbour, sponsored by Bolinda Audio alongside some of my agent’s authors. Here is a photo of writing friends Belinda Alexandra and Karen Davis.

Belinda Alexandra and Karen Davis

I travelled to Melbourne for the Sisters in Crime annual Scarlet Stiletto Awards. I can’t enter anymore as I’ve won two shoes (the legal limit!) so this was my first year as a judge. Congratulations to all shortlisted entries and to the winners. You can find a full list of winners HERE.

This evening was the 20th Anniversary of Sisters in Crime at the boho glam Thornbury Theatre and so I was delighted to be a part of the celebrations. Angela Savage wrote a lovely article on the history of the red shoe, A Dagger With A Difference, which you can read HERE.

image via Sisters in Crime

The beautiful and talented Essie Davis was the host and guest speaker. You may know her as Phryne Fisher in Kerry Greenwood’s Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, or from many other wonderful parts she has played. I remember Essie from our Hobart days at Rosny College together and so it was a joy to be able to connect with her again. In the photo below you can see her hugging me.

Sisters in Crime with Essie Davis on far right

When Tasmanian girls reunite

Essie was always a person you knew would be Someone. She claims she was a dag at Rosny but I can vouch she was always super-cool and super-talented. I was also pleased to have the chance to hand her a copy of Poet’s Cottage as when Pearl Tatlow came to me, I often daydreamed over the years if Poet’s Cottage was ever made into a movie, Essie would be perfect to play Pearl. Yes, I know that seems like big dreams, but if Angelina Jolie can pay for our church roof, I can believe in big dreams and miracles. And on that note – I wish for you all the big dreams, miracles and surprising twists in your life that you could NEVER have imagined in the season of light ahead.
And it wouldn’t be a Christmas blog post on Tale Peddler without a gratuitous Johnny Depp photograph.

Thank you for visiting me. Here is the divine Mediaeval Baebes with the glorious We Three Kings.

Love, Light and Peace. May you find the best of the Holy Season within your own heart.

Josephine xx

Flashy Spring Shows

josephinetalepeddlerSeptember 30, 2013 5 Comments

Hello,
I love September, as in the Southern Hemisphere, we are in Spring. The Sydney air seems to pulsate joy and magical possibilities. I’m on another editing deadline for Currawong Manor, and so updating my blog before I lose myself too much into the threads of my Blue Mountains artists. The rose ladies in my courtyard garden are putting on a colourful, flashy display and creative ideas for more projects are also flowering within me.

I attended the Davitt Awards in Melbourne this month, for which Poet’s Cottage shortlisted. Although I didn’t collect an award, I had an excellent night with my Sisters in Crime and was thrilled to be a part of the audience when Kerry Greenwood received her well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award. Congratulations to all Sisters in Crime below who took out major awards.

Lifetime Achievement Award Kerry Greenwood
Adult Fiction Mad Men, Bad Girls and the Guerilla Knitters Institute (Maggie Groff, Pan Macmillan)
True Crime The Waterlow Killings (Pamela Burton, Victory)
Children’s and Young Adult Fiction The Tunnels of Tarcoola (Jennifer Walsh, Allen & Unwin)
Best Debut Mad Men, Bad Girls and the Guerilla Knitters Institute (Maggie Groff, Pan Macmillan)
Reader’s Choice Award Tamam Shud: The Somerton Man (Kerry Greenwood, NewSouth).

Josephine Pennicott and David Levell

Ian Irvine and Traci Harding

Traci Harding and Josephine Pennicott

I also attended my agent Selwa Anthony’s annual Sassy Awards, always an interesting event. Here are a few snaps from the evening. Unfortunately, I had an infected eye which kept me from rocking the dance floor, but it was fun to catch up with long-time writing friends such as Belinda Alexandra, Ian Irvine, Traci Harding, Stephen Irvine, Anna Romer, Richard Harland. Writing in isolation, the Sassies are a reminder that you’re not working alone, and you are in fact, connected to a larger industry web. Along with an infected eye, Scorpio in Saturn wasn’t benevolent to me. After a few wines with friends, I managed to drop a cup of tea on my laptop. Disaster! Here is a shot of my beloved, covered in rice in a vain attempt to absorb the moisture.

Polka dot posers at Luna Park

View from Luna Park

If you are ever suffering from the blues and live in Sydney, I recommend an outing to Luna Park. Take your real child, or your inner-child, and inhale all the exuberant energy and joy that to me represents Sydney. The location by the sparkling harbour ensures your senses are constantly assailed by gaiety and brilliant scenic blue views.

The adrenaline rush you get from the rides ensures you don’t have time to waste worrying over trivia – you are only concerned with surviving the next ten minutes.

I have to concede that if you have a fear of heights like yours truly, braving the Ferris Wheel in gale winds is probably not perfect timing to teach your daughter about facing fears.

I made the trek to Luna Park (and risked my spine on the Tango Dancer and Spider) as I have a brief scene in Currawong Manor featuring the iconic Sydney location.

Back to my edit for Currawong Manor. And if you are around for the Newtown Festival, I am appearing with Kate Forsyth in the Writers Tent. More information on that event HERE. Thank you for visiting me. Keep creative and keep sparkling. xx

The Only Footprints On The Beach – Bay Of Fires Review

josephinetalepeddlerAugust 28, 2013 3 Comments

Hello,

It was my pleasure recently to be on a ‘Something Rotten in the Apple Isle’ panel for Sisters in Crime where I met Poppy Gee and Livia Day aka Tansy Roberts. We were all raised in Tasmania and chose to set our mystery/crime books there. I loved this panel because not only did I get to meet both writers, but it was fascinating to hear how Tasmania shaped all our work. Livia said how impressed she was that when Poppy was talking about the murder of Victoria Cafasso that semi-inspired her book, I brandished an original folder of newspaper clippings on exactly that subject. More on my clippings later.

I recently finished Poppy Gee’s debut crime novel Bay of Fires which Poppy wrote as part of a thesis for her Masters in Creative Writing programme (for which she received the Dean’s Award for Excellence) and I am making it part of my Australian Women Writers Challenge (which I am woefully behind despite all good intentions).

I still remember my father’s distress over the slaying of young Italian tourist Victoria Cafasso on a deserted beach in Tasmania’s East Coast in 1995. I’d long had the habit of heading off to similar desolate beaches to enjoy time alone and so this murder was my parents’ worst imaginings. The case horrified a lot of Tasmanians and the images of Victoria’s distraught parents on those chilly, blue/grey Tasmanian beaches remain with me. Shortly after Victoria’s death, her father also died, allegedly of a broken heart. This particular case has haunted me for years and I kept all the clippings in my ‘crime-file’ – a rather grandiose name for a voluminous collection of clippings which I rifle through when seeking inspiration. Writing the word inspiration next to such a tragic murder feels most cold-blooded, but I am also totally intrigued/horrified by how something so terrible could occur.

Adding to the public interest was that the case was never solved. Victoria was a very attractive young woman which, alas, always ensures more media coverage, but her killer remains at large.

Victoria Cafasso

Before Victoria’s death, a young, vibrant German tourist, Nancy Grunwaldt, disappeared while cycling around Tasmania in 1993 – again on the East Coast. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Nancy’s vanishing and her family returned to Tasmania for a journey no parent would ever want to make. It’s horrendous to know that her grieving family have never had closure and have been left to speculate for so long.

image from Hobart Mercury

And so two young women who met met some sinister fate in Tasmania are forever linked in many people’s minds, but why you may be wondering has this anything to do with Bay of Fires? I mention these two haunting cases because Poppy herself mentions the two women and concedes she was inspired by the two cases for her book.

In Bay of Fires a small community is divided when a young girl’s body washes up on a Tasmanian beach where previously another young attractive female tourist had vanished. Poppy points out that Bay of Fires is not the story of Victoria Cafasso or Nancy Grunwaldt, but she simply wishes to acknowledge the two women. I would describe Bay of Fires as a literary mystery observing the ripple effect of murder – a theme that also fascinates me and with which I have worked repeatedly over the years both in short stories and novels.

WHAT KEPT ME TURNING THE PAGES IN THIS BOOK:

I found Bay of Fires a tense and absorbing read with characters skilfully depicted. I was very impressed by Hal and think Poppy did a wonderful job of bringing a male character to life. Poppy obviously knows this area of Tasmania well – her parents owned a holiday shack at the East Coast and she evokes the ‘shack holiday’ texture and the atmosphere of her fictional sleepy fishing village beautifully. I was very drawn into the story of what happens in a small community when a woman’s body is washed up amongst them. Bay of Fires skilfully shows the disruptive force that suspicion can bring to a community. I’m also a lover of secrets and the ‘microcosm of the macrocosm’ of small communities and Poppy obviously shares my love of the secret heart and the shadows that lie within us all.

The descriptions of the girl’s dead body are quite graphic but extremely well done. Poppy has quite a stern eye and is not one to romanticise her characters or death.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE AS MUCH ABOUT THIS BOOK:

Admittedly, the cover initially didn’t grab me, but it grew on me as I read the book and I appreciated the cover for its retro quality a lot more and could see that it would not only stand out on a shelf but also appeal to both male and female readers. A minor point, but I wasn’t a fan of the character of Sarah. She’s well-depicted but I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of books with ‘kick-arse’ women out there. I’m not saying I crave passive female characters, but I do get weary of women characters who can do everything so much better, whether it’s drinking, wrestling, belching or sex better than any man. I also pondered about the denouement wondering whether I would have preferred Poppy’s original idea (but I’m not giving away the ending!)

CONCLUSION

Bay of Fires is a sinister, gripping debut novel of strength, intelligence and literary appeal for both male and female readers. The book really made me think about using ‘real-life crime’ stories as inspiration for novels. I have folders and folders of press clippings of cases over the years which I have often dipped into. Although I blend and work off different true-life cases, I did wonder about the ethics of using real-life murders in a story when so many people in Tasmania know somebody connected to the cases. With such graphic descriptions of the young tourist’s dead body, it can’t help but bring back memories of the real cases. And I know how publishers need to use anything they can to attract media interest in a book. Around the same time another murder mystery came out which also used elements of the Victoria Cafasso murder.

However, I came to the conclusion that it is vital for these stories to be told. The landscape reveals its tales to those who chose to listen, and when blood has been spilt on the earth, the cries are louder. If Bay of Fires gets people talking again about Victoria Cafasso and Nancy Grunwaldt, then their stories – and the girls themselves – will never be forgotten. And of course – their individual mysteries may be solved. Somebody out there obviously knows the killer’s/abductor’s identity. It would be a great solace to both families to have some closure. I gave Bay of Fires five out of five on my Good Reads profile.

Poppy Gee in Tasmania

You can read another review of Bay of Fires in The Australian HERE
Poppy’s website can be found HERE
A link HERE that may be of interest regarding the mystery behind Nancy Grunwaldt

A link to an interesting article on Victoria Cafasso. HERE

And to inspire anyone who may be looking for an agent to represent their work, there is an interview HERE with Poppy where she talks about how she found her American agent online.

I do hope to find time to have an online chat with Poppy so I can find out more about her creative process and inspirations. If we manage to co-ordinate our times, (Poppy, like myself is a mother with young children) I shall post my interview with her here as well.

Thank you for reading this review. I hope it encourages you to buy Bay of Fires or seek out other Australian writers. We have such talent in this country and I’m always thrilled to discover a new Australian author who set their books in this stunningly amazing country we’re fortunate to live in.

And do be wary when wandering into ‘peaceful’ isolated places alone.

Keep Creative. Lock your doors.

Josephine xx

The crisp sand, littered with marine debris, gleamed in the day’s freshness. Beneath a shapeless mountain of green eucalypts, the lagoon shimmered in purple darkness. It was full. Soon the Chain of Lagoons would overflow, pouring through the grassy dune and getting the beach to meet the ocean. A sharp undertow sucked on a steep wall of wet quicksand, making it dangerous for swimming. This part of the seashore was visited only by fishermen, surfers, and the occasional shell collector.

The fisherman’s were the only footprints on the beach.

from Bay of Fires.

Houses Whispering Stories And Davitt Awards

josephinetalepeddlerAugust 8, 2013 10 Comments

Hello,

image Chester Partnership

I was delighted, astounded and totally gobsmacked to discover yesterday that Poet’s Cottage has made the shortlist for the annual Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards.

I wasn’t expecting to make the cut because the formidable 61-book longlist was filled with some amazing talent. But I’m so happy to see Poet’s Cottage shortlisted along with serial-Davitt winner/writing pal Katherine Howell, Sulari Gentill, Caroline Overington, Kathryn Fox, Norelle M Harris, Maggie Groff and Malla Nunn. I’m very thrilled to see my Tasmanian sea-fishing murder mystery alongside such talented Sisters in Crime. Including my old mate, Jen Storer with her Truly Tan book in the Young Adult/Children’s section. My eight year old, Daisy when I told her Truly Tan was nominated, said with a sympathetic expression, ‘Your book will NEVER beat her.’ You can always count on your tribe to cut you down to size. You can see the full shortlist HERE

When I first heard the news, I had to go for a run to calm down. A day later I’m still sitting with a grin wider than Luna Park.

I was transported back to Stanley, Tasmania, where the wild sea wind and spectacular scenery inspired the story of Poet’s Cottage. I still hear the faint sounds of Pearl’s gramophone playing, feel the cold sea breeze blow Birdie’s hair, and hear the stomp of the Bindi-Eye Man as he treads through Thomasina’s memory trailing damp, rotten seaweed in his wake.

I’m always happy that people have enjoyed reading the tale that whispered itself to me and has clung like the Tasmanian sea-mist for so many years. They were lovely characters to explore and I’m delighted they have made it to the Davitts.

I have included an image I love of Daphne du Maurier outside Menabilly, her sea-fishing ‘cottage’ that inspired Manderley from Rebecca (it’s from the book Daphne du Maurier At Home by Hilary Macaskill) and photos of my own trip to Stanley near the Tasmanian sea. It brings me such joy that local book clubs have gone to Stanley to discover the inspirations that inspired Poet’s Cottage.

Thank you for visiting me and may your story find you. xx