What does it mean to be a writer living in Australia?
It’s Australia Day today! A day when we celebrate everything great about Australia. As a writer, I love living in Australia. So do most Aussie authors.
Or do they…?
Last year, I asked some acclaimed Aussie authors about their best and least favourite aspects of living as a writer in Australia. You can read the full results here, but in honour of today’s celebrations I’ve summarised the results for you below.
On the Down Side
1. Australia can be isolating for authors
Australia is a vast country that’s a great distance from anywhere, so it’s both difficult and expensive for our authors to engage with both fans and fellow writers, especially when compared to Europe and the US.
“The part I don’t like,” commented Tracey O’Hara, award-winning author of the paranormal romance “Death’s Sweet Embrace”, “is that since most of my market is overseas such as the US, I am really distanced from a lot of my readers and my industry professionals. Having said that – the internet has definitely made the world smaller.”
Australia's geographical remoteness is still central to shaping our culture and identity.
Jason Fischer, award-winning author of the zombie horror “After the World: Gravesend”, agrees: “The tyranny of distance,” he told me, “…has largely been eliminated by the rise of the internet, and the markets that now accept electronic submissions instead of the cash-consuming postage of dead tree submissions.”
But Graham Storrs, author of sci-fi thriller “TimeSplash”, lives in rural Queensland and says that the internet is only a reliable communication tool in the cities. “I was cut off for fifteen days recently (no, nothing to do with floods or hurricanes) and missed a writing deadline because of it.”
“I think the hardest thing for me though,” comments Fleur McDonald, author of outback mysteries “Red Dust” and “Blue Skies”, who lives over a hundred kilometres from her nearest town in Western Australia, “is the lack of contact with other writers …sometimes, I’m sure I’m the only one in the world with writers block and anxiety!”
2. Australia offers authors a limited fan base
Indeed, because Australia has a relatively small population, it also has a small book-buying populace, and this makes it difficult for some genres to flourish. Nansi Kunze, author of young-adult novels “Mishaps” and “Dangerously Placed”, says her least favourite aspect of writing young-adult fiction in Australia is its “small readership”.
Michael Pryor, author of over twenty-five novels including the fantasy series “The Laws of Magic”, “The Quentaris Chronicles” and “The Chronicles of Krangor”, agrees that “the small size of the market” is the main disadvantage to writing in Australia, especially since it does little to improve the general “condescension toward speculative fiction and young-adult fiction (try writing young-adult speculative fiction!)”.
However, because Australian authors all share these disadvantages, they have developed their own ‘up side’…
On the Up Side:
1. Australians support each other
When my surveyed authors came to consider their favourite aspects of living in Australia, almost every one of them praised and were proud to be a part of Australia’s exceptionally supportive writing community.
We have a happy writing community!
Ian Irvine, author of twenty-seven novels including the “Three Worlds” fantasy sequence, told me “there’s a great camaraderie among Aussie speculative fiction writers. Everyone is supportive, ready to help and pleased at others’ successes.”
Alan Baxter, author of the dark fantasy thrillers “RealmShift” and “MageSign”, believes Australia’s “fantastic speculative fiction community” is full of “very supportive people”. “There is a real writing community here,” commented Graham Storrs, “whatever genre or geography you are in.”
Jason Fischer agrees, “people are quite approachable, willing to work together on projects.” Whilst Michael Pryor’s best aspect of writing in Australia is “the collegiality and support from my fellow writers.”
2. Australia is an inspiring place to live
But why are we Australian authors like this, what fuels our unique kinship? I suspect the ‘win’ of the situation is, in Michael Pryor’s simply stated words, “being able to live in Australia”.
Fleur McDonald told me “it’s hard to live in a country as beautiful as ours and not be inspired to write about it. Australia is full of colour, uniqueness and best of all characters that just crave to be written about!”
Kim Falconer, author of the fantasy series “Quantum Enchantment” and “Quantum Encryption” explains that the “upside of being an Australian author includes freedom of speech, great bike paths, a publisher that feels like my best friend, sunrise over the Pacific Ocean, geckos, whip birds and the sound of the sea.”
Too true.
Aussie, aussie, aussie – Oi, Oi, Oi!
Happy Australia Day everyone!
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If you want to read the full text (including further comments by these and other authors, as well as commentary on how writers should all be competing in the ‘new world of work’ since 2008’s Global Financial Crisis), you can read the full post here. |
Some more upsides from the fabulous Kirsten Tranter, critically acclaimed author of “The Legacy” (“A Common Loss” coming in 2012):
“It’s true that the Australian population is relatively small – but we buy books in great numbers, relative to other places. Strong readership is one big reason UK publishers ALWAYS want Aus/NZ included in contracts. Also we have strong independent booksellers, especially compared with UK Waterstones hegemony! #upsides to Australia.”