Latest / The Book Deal / Emily Paull on "retiring" from writing and her 17-year journey to publishing The Distance Between Dreams

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Emily Paull on "retiring" from writing and her 17-year journey to publishing The Distance Between Dreams · The Book Deal

0:09
Madeleine Cleary: This is the Book Deal podcast where you will discover the inspiring stories behind your favorite books.
0:15
Natasha Rai: We interview seasoned and debut authors, as well as publishing industry professionals to bring you the best tips and advice on how to get that elusive book deal.
0:25
Natasha Rai: So no matter what stage of writing you're at, we've got you covered.
0:29
Natasha Rai: I'm Tina Strachan.
0:30
Natasha Rai: I'm Madeleine Cleary.
0:32
Natasha Rai: And I'm Natasha Rai.
0:34
Natasha Rai: And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors one deal at a
0:38
Madeleine Cleary: time.
0:43
Madeleine Cleary: The book Deal Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters, which it's recorded on.
0:48
Madeleine Cleary: And pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
0:55
Madeleine Cleary: Emily Paull is a Western Australian librarian, author and book reviewer in 2019.
1:01
Madeleine Cleary: Her debut collection of short fiction well-behaved women was published by Margaret River Press.
1:06
Madeleine Cleary: Her novel, the Distance Between Dreams was shortlisted for the 2023.
1:10
Madeleine Cleary: Fogarty Literary Award was published by Fremantle Press in April, 2025.
1:15
Madeleine Cleary: Emily is incredibly generous as she shares all the highs and lows of her 17 year journey to publication.
1:22
Madeleine Cleary: She has so many top tips to share in this episode.
1:25
Madeleine Cleary: And if you do want more, subscribe to Emily Substack.
1:28
Madeleine Cleary: Check out her reviews at the au review.
1:31
Madeleine Cleary: I hope you enjoy this episode.
1:37
Madeleine Cleary: Emily Paul, welcome to the Book Deal Podcast.
1:39
Madeleine Cleary: Thank you so much for having me.
1:41
Madeleine Cleary: I'm really excited to be here.
1:42
Madeleine Cleary: You are very much have your hand in lots of different parts of the book industry.
1:47
Madeleine Cleary: You are a critic, a librarian, former bookseller, and now a published author.
1:53
Madeleine Cleary: Um, has books always been part of your life, Emily?
1:57
Emily Paull: Uh, I think pretty safe to say yes there.
2:01
Emily Paull: I, I co very much one of those t-shirts that's in the style of the Barbie movie where, you know, Ken said My job is just beach.
2:08
Emily Paull: And I've seen around people have t-shirts that say my job is just books because it really is the best way to describe all the different bookish hats that I wear in my day-to-day life.
2:20
Emily Paull: Um, yeah, I've been.
2:22
Emily Paull: Reading my entire life, you know, can't go to sleep without reading a book for half an hour before bed.
2:28
Emily Paull: Um, people on the podcast can't see this, but I've got like a literal wall of books she does behind me right now.
2:35
Emily Paull: And some of them are double stacked and there are some on the floor and there's a trolley over here with all the, the TBR ones and my TBR number is ridiculously high.
2:43
Emily Paull: That's to be read for anybody that's not chronically online the way I am.
2:47
Madeleine Cleary: Actually,
2:48
Emily Paull: I think I saw you
2:49
Madeleine Cleary: put a photo on your substack, was it?
2:51
Madeleine Cleary: Of your TBR pile.
2:52
Madeleine Cleary: You've got a mission to, to
2:54
Emily Paull: click.
2:54
Emily Paull: Uh, that was part of my TBR pile.
2:55
Emily Paull: Yes, that's the oldest books on my TBRI decided I would try and read anything that was added to my TBR pre 2021.
3:03
Emily Paull: Um, so that's the very far bookcase over by the window there.
3:08
Emily Paull: Mm.
3:09
Emily Paull: From the third shelf down.
3:10
Emily Paull: So it's, it's nearly 80 books.
3:12
Emily Paull: Like, and that's a fraction of my TPR, so I'm not gonna tell you what the TPR number is because it's shameful.
3:18
Emily Paull: Um, not that we shame anybody for their reading habits of like, there's no book shaming here, but it is a ridiculously high number and you know that you get that little cringe of over consumption when you, you tell people what the number is.
3:30
Emily Paull: So I won't be telling you what it is right now.
3:33
Madeleine Cleary: Do you, do you find now, I mean, being a critic, you've, and a librarian and someone who interviews a lot of writers yourself, you probably receive lots of free copies of books constantly and it just adds to your pile.
3:45
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
3:46
Madeleine Cleary: Do you do find there's like a pressure or a schedule now, now that you're a published writer to read?
3:51
Emily Paull: Uh, I mean, it's very hard to stick to a reading schedule because as I'm sure you know, you know, you have this intention of, you know, these are the books I'm gonna get to this month, and then something really shiny comes out and you have to get to it right away.
4:04
Emily Paull: Um, strictly speaking, with the books that I get sent for review, if it's something I've requested, I'm supposed to get to it within.
4:11
Emily Paull: A reasonable timeframe.
4:12
Emily Paull: And I think when I first signed up, um, I was told sort of three weeks was reasonable.
4:17
Emily Paull: Uh, I'm looking at my review pile right now.
4:19
Emily Paull: The oldest one on there is from May, 2025.
4:22
Emily Paull: So to all the authors whose books I haven't reviewed yet, I am really sorry that I'm so behind.
4:27
Emily Paull: But we're a small volunteer team and I'm trying to write my own book and uh, my eyes are bigger than my stomach in a book sense, I guess.
4:35
Emily Paull: But very rarely do we get publicists following up and saying, where is the review?
4:40
Emily Paull: So I'm a bit lucky that
4:41
Madeleine Cleary: way.
4:41
Madeleine Cleary: Well, we appreciate your work, Emily, and I can't even imagine Yes.
4:45
Madeleine Cleary: Your reading pile and that pressure on you.
4:48
Madeleine Cleary: So thank you for the work you do, and we will talk about the au review as well.
4:52
Madeleine Cleary: I'm interested to know how you, um, you know, go fall into something like this as well.
4:56
Madeleine Cleary: Um, but let's start from the beginning.
4:58
Madeleine Cleary: When did you wanna become a writer?
5:01
Emily Paull: Oh gosh, I can't remember a time when I didn't want to become a writer.
5:04
Emily Paull: I think once I learned what the concept was, because I knew I loved books and I knew that I loved stories.
5:12
Emily Paull: And then I guess as soon as I was aware that people were the ones creating them and that that was a job you could do, that was probably the thing I had my heart set on.
5:22
Emily Paull: Um, maybe I was a tiny little realist or something though, because I've always been very aware that you can't just make a living being a writer.
5:31
Emily Paull: So throughout my childhood I've said I want to be a Japanese teacher and a writer.
5:36
Emily Paull: I want to be a doctor and a writer.
5:38
Emily Paull: I want to be, oh, what else was on the list?
5:40
Emily Paull: Um.
5:41
Emily Paull: At one point I wanted to be a TaeKwonDo instructor.
5:44
Emily Paull: Uh,'cause I was doing TaeKwonDo, um, a chiropractor at one point, like doctor and chiropractor.
5:50
Emily Paull: They're the least in line with my current personality.
5:53
Emily Paull: I'm very much not a maths and science person.
5:56
Emily Paull: Um, a teacher and a writer.
5:58
Emily Paull: That was always something to pay the bills and then the writing at night.
6:01
Emily Paull: Um, so that kind of tracks well with the rest of my career.
6:05
Emily Paull: I've always done.
6:07
Emily Paull: Work part-time and writing part-time.
6:10
Emily Paull: You are so from the end of school,
6:11
Madeleine Cleary: you sound so mature the way that you said that, like when you're a kid, you realize, okay, you've gotta be a writer plus something else.
6:18
Madeleine Cleary: And because I think as a, as a, you know, child or even people who are outside the industry have this vision of writers that they spend most of their time hurried, you know, sort of scurred away in their office, writing it, pays the bills, they become the next JK Rowling or Stephen King, and suddenly they're very famous.
6:38
Madeleine Cleary: But it's not quite the reality, is it?
6:40
Emily Paull: No.
6:41
Emily Paull: I do know a few people who are lucky enough to be able to write full-time, but even amongst that group of friends, you know, they're not rolling in cash.
6:50
Emily Paull: They're not paying for everyone's dinner every time we go out.
6:53
Emily Paull: They, they've very consciously structured their life and their expenses in such a way that means they have the freedom and in a way.
7:01
Emily Paull: I'm really envious of that because the thing I'm really struggling with at the moment is that block of time where you can get several days in a row to devote to your work because, you know, I get to Sunday evening sometimes I don't write on Monday, even though it's my day off because I've gotta keep my house running and exercise and do appointments and things like that.
7:19
Emily Paull: And then, you know, it's a whole week before I get back to my desk and I have to reacquaint myself with the work.
7:25
Emily Paull: So yeah, it's really, it's really tough out there for Australian writers and yeah, maybe I have been aware of that from quite a young age.
7:34
Emily Paull: Um, yeah, it's What does your writing routine look like?
7:37
Emily Paull: Oh gosh.
7:38
Emily Paull: Uh, it's not really existent at the moment.
7:41
Emily Paull: I just have a.
7:42
Emily Paull: Block at the moment.
7:43
Emily Paull: That is Sunday afternoons, one till three.
7:46
Emily Paull: I have a, like a virtual write in session, or we call it a shut up and write session.
7:51
Emily Paull: Love that.
7:51
Emily Paull: Um, with a couple of friends where we do timed blocks, and that's supposed to be protected time, but every now and then something will come up, uh, like, you know, family emergency or an appointment or we had our, um, debut crew catch up a couple of Sundays ago for people from wa from the 2025 group to scare the living bejesus out of the 2026 group.
8:13
Emily Paull: Um, so that happened to, to be at the same No, no, of course not.
8:17
Emily Paull: I mean, we might've, you know, given them a little bit of a reality check and given them some practical tips in the, in the process, but it was also a celebration, I hope.
8:25
Emily Paull: I don't know, maybe we'll have to find out from some of them.
8:28
Emily Paull: If they went, gee, she's really cynical and it scared me.
8:32
Madeleine Cleary: Well, every, you've been an absolute champion in support of the writing community generally, Emily, so I'm imagining you were to give them some excellent advice.
8:40
Madeleine Cleary: Um, let's talk about distance between Dreams, your debut novel mm-hmm.
8:45
Madeleine Cleary: Without out with Fremantle Press, um, I'm going to ask you the question that every author absolutely loves.
8:53
Madeleine Cleary: Can you give us your elevator pitch, Emily?
8:55
Madeleine Cleary: Oh,
8:55
Emily Paull: gosh.
8:56
Emily Paull: Uh, I'm so outta practice of this now.
8:58
Emily Paull: Uh, let me just read my own blurb.
8:59
Emily Paull: Um, so it's a World War II love story with a twist.
9:04
Emily Paull: Um, it's a working class boy called Winston Keller, who meets a upper middle class girl called Sarah Willis at a party and they fall in love, but discover that there's a family secret that is going to potentially be an obstacle to the two of them being together.
9:20
Emily Paull: And then World War II begins, and that presents an even bigger obstacle.
9:25
Emily Paull: So it's about whether or not they can find their way back to one another and whether or not they can move on if they can't.
9:31
Madeleine Cleary: It's such a beautiful story.
9:33
Madeleine Cleary: We were just talking earlier that despite the fact that it's set during the war, it's such a uplifting, heartwarming story.
9:41
Madeleine Cleary: It has romance at its center, but it is fairly expansive.
9:45
Madeleine Cleary: I could feel it, and I don't read that many stories set in Western Australia as well.
9:49
Madeleine Cleary: So I think that's also really important, and at its heart is about, you know, two people and, um, the things that tear them apart and hopefully come back together again.
9:59
Madeleine Cleary: So congratulations on your debut.
10:02
Madeleine Cleary: Um, I heard, or I read that it was inspired by a cd.
10:06
Madeleine Cleary: Is that right?
10:06
Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
10:07
Emily Paull: Yeah.
10:07
Emily Paull: It's Tell tell me about that.
10:09
Emily Paull: Oh gosh.
10:10
Emily Paull: Um, so I mean, you say it's my debut and it's my debut novel.
10:14
Emily Paull: I'm kind of a rebel.
10:15
Emily Paull: Yes, that's right.
10:16
Emily Paull: Yeah.
10:16
Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
10:16
Madeleine Cleary: You, I I went and saw that you'd written, um, a collection of short stories well-behaved women.
10:22
Madeleine Cleary: I was, yes.
10:22
Madeleine Cleary: Just, I was like, well, you are not technically a debut.
10:25
Madeleine Cleary: No,
10:26
Emily Paull: I, uh, begged my way into the, the debut crew, uh,'cause it's my debut novel.
10:31
Emily Paull: My, my short story collection came out at the end of 2019, so December, 2019 was my publication date.
10:38
Emily Paull: And so that was launched pretty much straight into COVID.
10:40
Emily Paull: And it was a book that kind of snuck up on me as well, because I'd had a few short stories published through Margaret River Press in their anthologies that they used to do every year and.
10:50
Emily Paull: They applied for some grant funding to do a few mentorships, and, um, one of them they gave to me.
10:55
Emily Paull: So I got to work with Laurie Steed, who is an absolutely amazing West Australian writer and writing teacher and advocate for writing.
11:03
Emily Paull: Uh, so that was a fantastic experience.
11:05
Emily Paull: But, um, I hadn't ever really intended to write a book of short stories.
11:09
Emily Paull: And I remember the publisher from Margaret River Press, she'd emailed me to tell me they'd been successful in getting the funding and that my application had been successful.
11:17
Emily Paull: And I must have skimmed the email because a day later I got another email saying, hi Emily, did you read this email?
11:23
Emily Paull: Because I hadn't responded and been really excited.
11:26
Emily Paull: Oh, um, because my focus was so long has been on getting the distance between Dreams published.
11:31
Emily Paull: It's a book that I started writing in.
11:34
Emily Paull: April, 2008.
11:36
Emily Paull: That's a long time.
11:37
Emily Paull: I was in year 12.
11:38
Emily Paull: Yeah.
11:38
Emily Paull: So, you know, I'm just giving away my age on the internet.
11:41
Emily Paull: There I was, I was 17.
11:43
Emily Paull: Uh, and it was sort of a culmination of a whole bunch of different things that I was interested in and that I was studying in all sort of swirling around in my head.
11:52
Emily Paull: And then I had this album that I had traipsed all over Japan looking for a copy of, because we couldn't import it into Australia for some reason.
12:01
Emily Paull: I had found this band called Search Rescue through MySpace, um, you know, with MySpace pages used to go to your friend's pages and they'd have a playlist going and you could like follow.
12:11
Emily Paull: The playlists through to discover new bands?
12:15
Emily Paull: Yes, yes.
12:15
Emily Paull: Vaguely yes.
12:16
Emily Paull: It's like a very niche memory that sort of becomes unlocked every time I think about it.
12:21
Emily Paull: But I'd found this band called Search Rescue.
12:23
Emily Paull: They had this album called The Compound, and I really wanted a copy and we were going to Japan.
12:28
Emily Paull: So, you know, we traipsed around all these CD shops trying to find a copy of it.
12:33
Emily Paull: Finally managed to started listening to it when I got home.
12:36
Emily Paull: And the tracks in order seemed to be suggesting a story.
12:41
Emily Paull: Um, and one of the tracks is called Great Big War.
12:44
Emily Paull: So I think that was part of why I started thinking of it as being a historical story, but I was also really enjoying reading Kate Morton at that time.
12:53
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
12:53
Emily Paull: So I discovered the Shifting Fog and the Forgotten Garden.
12:56
Emily Paull: Um, and I think most of her other books maybe hadn't even come out by that point, but I'd sort of decided this was the kind of book that I wanted to write.
13:04
Emily Paull: Um, so I, yeah, I planned out this.
13:08
Emily Paull: Outline of a book based on the track listing.
13:11
Emily Paull: And
13:11
Madeleine Cleary: it was, that's amazing that I've never heard that before.
13:13
Madeleine Cleary: You've, it's, it's the structure using a seat.
13:16
Madeleine Cleary: How amazing is that?
13:17
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
13:18
Emily Paull: Well, it didn't stay as the structure though, that's the thing.
13:20
Emily Paull: 'cause when I planned it out, it was like a murder mystery.
13:23
Emily Paull: And really all the meeting and getting together stuff had happened prior to chapter one.
13:29
Emily Paull: And then Sarah had gone missing.
13:30
Emily Paull: And um, and Winston was basically trying to work out what had happened to her with the war in the background.
13:36
Emily Paull: So I, I wrote out the, the plan and then promptly threw it out the window the second I started writing.
13:41
Emily Paull: So, um, I can't plan to save my life, which is a real headache when you're a historical fiction writer, as I'm sure you know, Madeline, because yeah, you have to kind of fit things around what actually happened, or someone's gonna send you an email and tell you you got it wrong.
13:55
Madeleine Cleary: Well, we're both in the same club there, Emily.
13:57
Madeleine Cleary: Um, being pants says, but hey, it's fun, right?
14:00
Madeleine Cleary: It's so fun.
14:01
Madeleine Cleary: So fun.
14:02
Madeleine Cleary: Okay, so, so you, you've planned out mm-hmm.
14:05
Madeleine Cleary: This novel based on the CDs tracks Did, when did you start writing?
14:12
Madeleine Cleary: I actually think
14:12
Emily Paull: I started writing on Anzac Day 2008.
14:16
Emily Paull: I think you remember the date?
14:17
Emily Paull: Yeah, because I just remember, well, maybe it's one of those things where it's not actually accurate, but I just kind of remember being like, I'm gonna write a war story and you know, I've had this day at school where they just keep talking about the significance of Anzac Day and I'm doing TE history, the tertiary entrance, exam level history, what do they call it now?
14:38
Emily Paull: Atar?
14:38
Emily Paull: I don't know.
14:39
Emily Paull: Yeah.
14:39
Emily Paull: Um,
14:40
and
14:41
Emily Paull: you know, they, they keep impressing on me, the Anzac legend and all of this.
14:44
Emily Paull: And I'm sitting there going, you know, here's, this is really significant.
14:47
Emily Paull: I'm starting my war story on Anzac Day.
14:50
Emily Paull: Um, so yeah, I mean, it, it probably took a while to finish because I would've had to do exams a couple of times that year, but.
15:00
Emily Paull: From there, I rewrote the book.
15:02
Emily Paull: Gosh, how many times would it be?
15:03
Emily Paull: Like 13, 14 times.
15:05
Emily Paull: And I would send it out and it would come back and I would get disheartened and go, I give up and then I would get another burst of inspiration and redo it and send it out again.
15:15
Emily Paull: And um, okay.
15:16
Emily Paull: So yeah.
15:17
Emily Paull: So
15:17
Madeleine Cleary: how long was this over?
15:18
Madeleine Cleary: Like over what period of time were you rewriting and send and I'm assuming by sending it out, you mean to publishers?
15:23
Madeleine Cleary: To
15:23
Emily Paull: publishers or competitions or agents?
15:26
Emily Paull: Yeah.
15:26
Emily Paull: Um, so, so 2008 to 2023 was the period under which it was uncontracted.
15:36
Emily Paull: 15 years.
15:37
Emily Paull: Yeah.
15:37
Emily Paull: So it was, yeah, 15 years.
15:39
Emily Paull: Gosh, to get contracted, 17 years to be on the shelf,
15:42
Madeleine Cleary: that is half my life.
15:44
Madeleine Cleary: That's a tale of persistence, Emily.
15:46
Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
15:48
Madeleine Cleary: Okay.
15:48
Madeleine Cleary: So during that time, how did you ever think I'm gonna put down this project and work on something new?
15:54
Madeleine Cleary: Oh, definitely.
15:55
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
15:56
Emily Paull: I mean, I.
15:58
Emily Paull: During COVID, we didn't have lockdowns in wa in the same way that the, um, some of the other states did.
16:05
Emily Paull: Uh, you had some awful times there.
16:07
Emily Paull: We had our borders were closed and we had restrictions around movement and things like that.
16:12
Emily Paull: So the place where I was working did close to the public and because we were public library, we were getting a lot of pressure to use some of our leave because there's only so much you can do when you're not open to the public.
16:23
Emily Paull: But we were doing things like making online story time videos and doing home delivery to people and you know, trying to do as much as we could.
16:30
Emily Paull: But I got to the point where I thought.
16:32
Emily Paull: I do have a lot of leave.
16:34
Emily Paull: I'm gonna use a whole bunch of it.
16:35
Emily Paull: I took six weeks off and I wrote a different book.
16:38
Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
16:38
Emily Paull: Um, so that's the one I'm revising now.
16:40
Emily Paull: And hopefully that's not going to take 15 years to get off the ground.
16:43
Emily Paull: So 2021 to question mark.
16:45
Emily Paull: The clock is ticking on that one, I guess.
16:47
Madeleine Cleary: All right.
16:48
Madeleine Cleary: Countdown's on.
16:49
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
16:49
Madeleine Cleary: So during that 15 year period though, so obviously you went through like lots of rejections.
16:54
Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
16:55
Madeleine Cleary: Lots of feedback.
16:56
Madeleine Cleary: How do you maintain your perseverance during this time?
17:00
Emily Paull: Uh, I mean, you cry a lot and complain a lot and tell the people around you that you suck and, you know, say some pretty nasty things about yourself because it's all part of the process.
17:12
Emily Paull: Um, yeah, I mean, I'm still trying to get a handle on the like mental health side of writing because it can be really, really tough.
17:20
Emily Paull: You know, like when you're writing it, you fluctuate between, I'm an absolute genius and, you know, I'm.
17:28
Emily Paull: Incapable of doing this.
17:29
Emily Paull: And it's so frustrating to not be able to translate the vision that you have in your mind onto the page in any meaningful way.
17:36
Emily Paull: But then also there's the added layer of you're sending it out to industry professionals and asking them to judge you.
17:43
Emily Paull: Yeah.
17:43
Emily Paull: In which the time they're gonna find you wanting.
17:45
Emily Paull: And that's, it's such a paradox of confidence and vulnerability.
17:50
Emily Paull: Uh, so I'm still trying to figure my way through the mental health side of things and the perseverance all comes with that.
17:56
Emily Paull: I think, um, I think it's Rachel Johns that says, if you can do anything else, do, like, you have to be absolutely compelled to want to write because it is so hard on the mental health.
18:10
Emily Paull: So yeah, if I could have quit, I would've, I did announce my retirement sort of early 2020, I guess when I wasn't really writing while I was promoting my short story collection.
18:23
Emily Paull: But I couldn't stay retired for long.
18:25
Emily Paull: I had like a burst of inspiration that became the 2021 draft.
18:29
Emily Paull: So yeah, I just couldn't stay retired.
18:31
Emily Paull: And I guess there's something in me that compels me.
18:34
Emily Paull: To keep trying, even if it makes me feel awful sometimes.
18:38
Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
18:38
Madeleine Cleary: That's very powerful.
18:39
Madeleine Cleary: And that compulsion, and I think even after being published, and I mean, you had this collection of short stories published in 2019, which is a, a feat in itself.
18:48
Madeleine Cleary: It's almost harder to publish collection of short stories in Australia than it is a long form novel.
18:53
Madeleine Cleary: Um, well,
18:54
Emily Paull: cause people don't really buy and read them, which is a real tragedy.
18:57
Emily Paull: But I once overheard a bookseller telling a customer that they don't really stock many short story collections because she doesn't see the point in them.
19:04
Emily Paull: So,
19:05
Madeleine Cleary: and I love short stories.
19:06
Madeleine Cleary: I think they're wonderful.
19:07
Madeleine Cleary: Tell, tell us about then your journey to publication for your short story collection.
19:13
Emily Paull: Mm.
19:13
Emily Paull: Um, it was.
19:16
Emily Paull: Yeah, so I, I'd had a few individual stories published.
19:19
Emily Paull: I'd been told by another writer who was the, the parent of a friend of my sister's who she'd taken me by First Writer's festival.
19:27
Emily Paull: She would sometimes give me advice.
19:29
Emily Paull: Um, and her advice had been try and get your name out there, try and get a few publication credits to your name, try and get a bit of experience.
19:36
Emily Paull: So I'd been sending stories to competitions and to literary magazines.
19:41
Emily Paull: And we had Margaret River Press very briefly, but very powerfully in Western Australia.
19:46
Emily Paull: They did some amazing work and they used to do this annual anthology of short stories.
19:52
Emily Paull: So I was in, I wanna say two of those, but it could have been three.
19:57
Emily Paull: I think it's two.
19:59
Emily Paull: And I had a few stories published in Westerly Magazine and a few other places as well, some places online.
20:07
Emily Paull: And so, because I was starting to build up a bit of a body of work and I had a relationship with Carolyn Wood, who was the publisher at Margaret Press, and she's now working with the Center for Stories.
20:18
Emily Paull: She and her husband John run the Center for Stories in Perth, which does amazing work about uplifting, marginalized voices through storytelling.
20:27
Emily Paull: And they have this beautiful house that you can go and do workshops in and residencies, and it's really worth checking out if you are into writing and in wa.
20:36
Emily Paull: Um, so yeah, Caroline Wood approached me and said, you are somebody who's been published in a few of our anthologies.
20:42
Emily Paull: We are looking at getting some funding to do some mentorships where some writers would be mentored by an established short story writer and sort of.
20:53
Emily Paull: Mentored through the process of doing your first collection.
20:55
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
20:56
Emily Paull: Um, which meant that I had to put together some samples and fill in some questions as part of their grant application.
21:02
Emily Paull: They were successful and I think that was at the end of 2018 that they found out that they'd been successful.
21:09
Emily Paull: Yeah.
21:10
Emily Paull: Validation though for you after Yeah.
21:11
Emily Paull: This piece
21:12
Madeleine Cleary: of rejections with the distance between dreams to get that, that that would've been very bolstering, I would
21:16
Emily Paull: imagine.
21:17
Emily Paull: I think so, yeah.
21:18
Emily Paull: To have somebody whose work I admire so much, um, approach me and say, you know, we would like you to be part of this.
21:26
Emily Paull: And then also to be paired up with Laurie Steed, who became my mentor, who is gentle, but also can be tough on you when need be.
21:35
Emily Paull: So there were a few stories that I really liked that ended up.
21:39
Emily Paull: In a folder on the computer somewhere for potentially collection number two, if I ever get around to writing a second collection.
21:45
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
21:45
Emily Paull: Um, I remember him sending me an email.
21:48
Emily Paull: Uh, I'd sent him a new story to say like, oh, you know, is there room?
21:51
Emily Paull: Can we include this?
21:52
Emily Paull: And a reply came back within the hour, I think with the subject line.
21:56
Emily Paull: Great Effing story.
21:57
Emily Paull: I mean, he, he said the actual s swear word, but, uh, I don't wanna get your podcast, uh, explicitly rated.
22:04
Emily Paull: So that was his reaction.
22:05
Emily Paull: Yeah, it has.
22:06
Emily Paull: Okay, good.
22:07
Emily Paull: Well, if I accidentally swell later, then I won't feel so bad.
22:10
Emily Paull: Yeah, no, it was, it was a really fantastic experience.
22:14
Emily Paull: And, um, the process of revising for publication with someone that I could bounce ideas off.
22:21
Emily Paull: Pretty much constantly was fantastic.
22:23
Emily Paull: And I know that I was really lucky to have that because when you work with a bigger publisher, you don't necessarily get quite so much focused attention for quite such a long period of time.
22:32
Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
22:33
Madeleine Cleary: I do think the process and of writing short stories, it really is helpful for novel writing.
22:39
Madeleine Cleary: It really makes you focus on your craft and your use of language.
22:43
Madeleine Cleary: Um, and I mean, I dabbled in a few short stories while I was,'cause I'm kind of like you.
22:49
Madeleine Cleary: I'm, I'm very, I feel very compelled to write even when I'm in between jobs, jobs being the writing projects.
22:56
Madeleine Cleary: And I, I think short stories can sometimes help fill that gap.
23:00
Madeleine Cleary: Um, they're really, really difficult though, aren't they?
23:03
Emily Paull: They are.
23:04
Emily Paull: I mean, you've got a very short space, um, you know, when you're doing a collection, you don't have quite so many restrictions as far as the length of the story goes, but.
23:14
Emily Paull: Strictly speaking, most Australian journals and, um, competitions and things have like a 2000 to 3000 word limit, which means that the Australian short story is much shorter than the American counterpart.
23:27
Emily Paull: A lot of American short stories can have an upper word limit of like 10,000 words, which almost sounds like a novelette to me.
23:33
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
23:33
Emily Paull: Yeah.
23:34
Emily Paull: So you have to be really economic with your word choices.
23:36
Emily Paull: You have to start the story as late as possible and somehow give all the context that's needed.
23:42
Emily Paull: And I think those skills, like you say, they really do set you up well for writing a novel, particularly when you're writing a novel in a genre like history or fantasy or sci-fi or something that requires a lot of world building and context.
23:56
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
23:56
Madeleine Cleary: Agreed.
23:57
Madeleine Cleary: So let's just go back.
23:58
Madeleine Cleary: So we've got so well-behaved women has come out mm-hmm.
24:00
Madeleine Cleary: December, 2019.
24:01
Madeleine Cleary: It's COVID.
24:02
Madeleine Cleary: You've taken some time off work.
24:04
Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
24:04
Madeleine Cleary: You've written project number two, so it's 2021 now.
24:07
Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
24:08
Madeleine Cleary: Um, what, what were you still tinkering away at the distance between Dreams?
24:12
Madeleine Cleary: Uh, in this time?
24:14
Emily Paull: Not really immediately prior to writing project number two, um, which was called the turning tide at that time, um, I had decided I was retired and had been sort of still keeping in contact with my writing friends, but basically just, you know, cutting myself some slack and sort of saying, well, it doesn't matter if I don't write, if I don't write in my journal, I just wanna read books.
24:37
Emily Paull: I'm retired.
24:37
Emily Paull: I don't write anymore.
24:39
Emily Paull: I love that.
24:39
Emily Paull: I love that you've said that you're retired.
24:41
Emily Paull: Oh yeah.
24:42
Emily Paull: And honestly, I recommend it.
24:43
Emily Paull: If you really are feeling the pressure and you're feeling like you don't love writing anymore, just retire because you're putting the pressure on yourself.
24:52
Emily Paull: There's nobody waiting for your books if you're not contracted, you know, like.
24:58
Madeleine Cleary: What's to stop you retiring.
24:59
Madeleine Cleary: And I think it's almost like, it sounds like you are almost reaching rightly burnout with that constant sort of stream, like doing that for 15 years.
25:06
Madeleine Cleary: It's a long time to have that.
25:08
Emily Paull: Yeah, it's
25:08
Madeleine Cleary: nice.
25:08
Madeleine Cleary: And
25:09
Emily Paull: I distance, I do, yeah, distance.
25:12
Emily Paull: I do put a, a lot of pressure on myself as well.
25:15
Emily Paull: I am a bit of a perfectionist, a little bit of an all or nothing thinker.
25:18
Emily Paull: So you're probably right that maybe I was reaching a little bit of writerly burnout and um, I think you've probably spoken with people about this on the, the podcast before, but there is kind of this idea that your book's gonna come out, short story collection, debut book, whatever, that's gonna sell lots and lots and lots of copies and that's gonna be it, that's gonna be the beginning of your career.
25:41
Emily Paull: And so I kind of had to come to terms with this idea that no, your book's gonna come out.
25:47
Emily Paull: It's gonna be kind of a small drop in the ocean and it's not necessarily gonna be the start of a career.
25:54
Emily Paull: The everything resets.
25:55
Emily Paull: You go back to having to find a home for the next project.
25:59
Emily Paull: You know, you still have to go through the submissions process.
26:03
Emily Paull: You still have to.
26:05
Emily Paull: Make those relationships and you know, now that you've got a book out, some opportunities are no longer open to you because there are many prizes that are only open to people who have never published a book before.
26:16
Emily Paull: Mm.
26:17
Emily Paull: Um, and so in many ways, having one book out makes publishing any more books, maybe more difficult.
26:25
Emily Paull: So I was coming to terms with that and almost sort of grieving this idea of what I thought would happen the first time I got a book published.
26:32
Emily Paull: And that has almost happened again this second time because you have to learn, it's a business and you have to learn discipline, and you have to learn how to, um, do some of your own advocating for your book and, and learn how to work with marketing and pr and how to work with journalists and festivals.
26:51
Emily Paull: And there's, it's a very steep learning curve and it is a business.
26:54
Emily Paull: And I had to stop thinking about it as a hobby and start thinking about it as work.
26:59
Emily Paull: So.
27:00
Emily Paull: It's almost mirrored the experience the first time around doing that.
27:03
Emily Paull: With my first book, with a slightly bigger publisher with the distance between dreams,
27:09
Madeleine Cleary: you almost don't want, like you, I completely agree with you, you have to turn on that work brain, that business brain, the, that author business brain.
27:18
Madeleine Cleary: But at the same time, you also want to sort of save time and space and energy for that creative spot.
27:25
Madeleine Cleary: The, the thing that compels you to write, I mean, all of this, the business, all of what we're doing is trying to buy ourselves that creative space as well.
27:32
Madeleine Cleary: At the same time.
27:34
Madeleine Cleary: It's a really tricky thing to do, I think, and I can understand that when well-Behaved women came out, you wanted to take that time to, to be part of that business and put your business mind on and, and, you know, perhaps take that break.
27:46
Madeleine Cleary: I think that's a really important point.
27:48
Madeleine Cleary: So.
27:49
Madeleine Cleary: What happened then?
27:51
Madeleine Cleary: Obviously, I mean, spoilers, the distance between Dreams was published.
27:55
Madeleine Cleary: Tell us about the publication journey.
27:57
Madeleine Cleary: The successful one?
27:59
Emily Paull: Yes.
27:59
Emily Paull: Um, okay, so I had had a little bit of, uh, encouragement because the, the turning tide, the, well, I renamed it by that point to the Good daughter.
28:12
Emily Paull: But project number two had been highly commended in this amazing award that we have here in wa, the Fogerty Literary Award, which is, um, the Fogerty Foundation working with Fremantle Press to discover books by West Australian writers between the ages of 18 and 35.
28:28
Emily Paull: It's been going since 2019, I think was the first round.
28:33
Emily Paull: And there's a bit of cash prize involved, isn't there?
28:36
Emily Paull: There is a$20,000 cash prize.
28:38
Emily Paull: Yeah.
28:39
Emily Paull: Um, spoiler alert, I didn't win.
28:41
Emily Paull: Um, but I made it onto the highly commended list and that was really encouraging because.
28:49
Emily Paull: Even though it was kind of like, you know, missed it by that much sort of situation, I knew that it was a competitive field and to make it onto the list at all was kind of a way of saying, keep going.
29:00
Emily Paull: There's something here.
29:01
Emily Paull: So which year was this in?
29:02
Emily Paull: That was in 2021 with the, the turning tide, with the project number two that I'd written in the six weeks.
29:07
Emily Paull: Yeah, I think you wrote a book in six weeks as well that would Oh, yeah.
29:11
Emily Paull: Astounding.
29:12
Emily Paull: If you have nothing, nothing else demanding on your time.
29:16
Emily Paull: Like, I don't have kids, um, I wasn't going to work.
29:20
Emily Paull: Uh, I don't really exercise.
29:22
Emily Paull: I don't cook and I don't really clean my house, so, uh, you know, this is just a picture of me living in squ and eating chips all the time.
29:29
Emily Paull: Um, no, but because I didn't really have too many other demands on my time and I just smashed out that book in six weeks and then obviously revised it before sending it to the award.
29:39
Emily Paull: Um, but yeah, like it can be done if you can get that focused time and you already sort of have the idea.
29:45
Emily Paull: Cooking away in your mind, and then you just get that like, you know, you're at the gate, like, just let me out, ready to go.
29:50
Emily Paull: Ready to run the race sort of type feeling.
29:52
Emily Paull: Um, you are inspiring me, Emily.
29:55
Emily Paull: Oh, good.
29:55
Emily Paull: Yeah, just take six weeks off work, everybody.
29:57
Emily Paull: If you've gotta leave, do it.
29:59
Emily Paull: Yes.
29:59
Emily Paull: Um, yeah, so that award had kind of been like a beacon of like, keep going.
30:04
Emily Paull: So not long after that I had shelved the book that would become the Distance between Dreams and had sort of decided this is gonna be my bottom draw book.
30:12
Emily Paull: It was my, um, I recently heard Holly Auer call it Her Apprentice novel.
30:17
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
30:17
Emily Paull: As in like, you, while, while you're learning the, the ropes.
30:21
Emily Paull: Um, and so that was, I was deciding that that was gonna be my apprentice novel.
30:24
Emily Paull: I, it was obviously something was never gonna work about it.
30:27
Emily Paull: I would always love it, but it was probably never gonna come out of the bottom drawer.
30:31
Emily Paull: And I had this flash of inspiration.
30:33
Emily Paull: The book was starting in the wrong place.
30:35
Emily Paull: It needed to start at the party.
30:37
Madeleine Cleary: Oh
30:38
Emily Paull: yeah.
30:38
Emily Paull: Where did it start originally?
30:39
Emily Paull: Um, originally it started with the scene where he's up at the roundhouse Winston's up at the Roundhouse, which is this old prison complex in Fremantle at Arthur's head in, uh, in the west end of Fremantle.
30:52
Emily Paull: So it sort of overlooks, um, the water and you can sort of see the port and it's this like vantage point.
30:58
Emily Paull: So originally he was there drawing, realized that he's late and goes home for dinner.
31:04
Emily Paull: When he gets there, the Willis family are coming over for dinner and so many people who'd read the book had gone, but the Willis family and the Keller family hate each other.
31:12
Emily Paull: Yes.
31:12
Emily Paull: So why would they ever have dinner together?
31:14
Emily Paull: And I'm going, yeah.
31:15
Emily Paull: But it's a one-upmanship thing, you know?
31:17
Emily Paull: Um, Robert Willis just wants to show George Keller that he's so much better than him, so he's coming to his house so that he can criticize his furniture.
31:25
Emily Paull: And it just never made sense.
31:27
Emily Paull: And also, one beta reader pointed out that they were eating dinner and the meal went from being like roast chicken to being roast lamb, to being roast beef, to back to being roast chicken because I just hadn't really paid attention to continuity.
31:37
Emily Paull: So that was an embarrassingly late pickup.
31:40
Emily Paull: Um, but how, yeah.
31:41
Emily Paull: So I think it's really hard.
31:43
Madeleine Cleary: I think it's hard to know where to start a novel.
31:45
Madeleine Cleary: I think that's one, it's really hard.
31:46
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
31:47
Madeleine Cleary: And once you find the right place, yeah.
31:50
Madeleine Cleary: It all flows from there doesn't, yeah.
31:51
Madeleine Cleary: So many potholes and, and issues just start to unravel.
31:56
Emily Paull: Yeah.
31:56
Emily Paull: So I thought, you know, where, where did two.
31:59
Emily Paull: 16, 17 year olds meet each other in party.
32:02
Emily Paull: 1930s, Perth a party.
32:05
Emily Paull: So how do I get him to a party with her rich friends?
32:10
Emily Paull: And the answer was, maybe he's working there.
32:13
Emily Paull: So at this point, I had added in his best mate, Lockie, who's probably my favorite character.
32:19
Emily Paull: Aside from the main characters in the whole book, he's a football player.
32:22
Emily Paull: He's a star full forward for South Mantle Football Club who just won the Waffle Grand final two weeks ago.
32:27
Emily Paull: So that was pretty cool.
32:28
Emily Paull: Um, not that I know anything about sport other than the names of the club, but you know, um, I got, I sent them some copies of my book and they got some players to pretend to read it after it came out.
32:39
Emily Paull: Uh, yeah.
32:39
Emily Paull: So Lockie gets Winston into this party.
32:44
Emily Paull: Well, he tries to, they try to get some work and uh, Winston gets turned away'cause they're late, so he's hanging around outside.
32:51
Emily Paull: When Sarah walks across the lawn with her high heeled shoes, sort of stinking into the grass and she needs someone's arm to lean on to get inside.
32:57
Emily Paull: So that's how they meet.
32:59
Emily Paull: Meet.
32:59
Emily Paull: Cute.
32:59
Emily Paull: Yeah.
33:00
Madeleine Cleary: Beautiful.
33:01
Madeleine Cleary: No, I, I love that scene.
33:07
Darcy Green: Hello, I'm Darcy Green and my debut novel after The Siren was just released by a Penguin Random House after the Siren is a queer romantic comedy about two A FLM players with some history who unexpectedly become teammates and gradually work out that they don't dislike one another.
33:23
Darcy Green: After all, I'm a long time reader and writer of Queer Romance and I love stories that Center Queer Joy.
33:31
Darcy Green: I'm also a long time footy fan, and the idea for after The Siren came to me when I was reading a lot of sports romance and couldn't find the a FL romance I was craving.
33:40
Darcy Green: Never fear, though I'm reliably told that you don't have to like a FL to enjoy this book, though there are definitely some treats in there for footy fans for a really long time.
33:50
Darcy Green: Stories about queer romance tended to focus on trauma and difficulty.
33:54
Darcy Green: Those are very important stories, but I believe it's essential that we get all sorts of queer stories, including romantic comedies full of on field and off field tension, sunshine, joy, and footy shorts.
34:07
Darcy Green: I had so much fun writing after the siren.
34:10
Darcy Green: If you pick it up, I really hope it makes you smile.
34:13
Darcy Green: Thank you.
34:18
Madeleine Cleary: Okay, so.
34:21
Madeleine Cleary: You found out the place to start,
34:22
Emily Paull: then
34:23
Madeleine Cleary: what?
34:24
Emily Paull: Then the Fogarty Award was open for entries again, and so that gave me a deadline to get everything finished.
34:30
Emily Paull: I said to my writer's group, um, shout out to the history writer salon, uh, that I was gonna send it.
34:37
Emily Paull: And they were very encouraging.
34:38
Emily Paull: And I think it was the night before entries closed, I was still trying to decide on a title to give the book because Freemantle Press had rejected this particular manuscript a few times before under different titles.
34:51
Emily Paull: So I thought if they see the title that it used to have, they will know it's the same book and maybe not even read it.
34:57
Emily Paull: So I've gotta disguise it.
34:59
Emily Paull: Um, and it was a ridiculously short amount of time after entries closed that I had a missed call from Fremantle Press, which when they eventually rang me back, was to say I had made it onto a short list of six writers.
35:13
Emily Paull: They wouldn't only have a short list of so many writers, but that they couldn't really.
35:18
Emily Paull: Separate anyone out to be long list rather than shortlist level.
35:23
Emily Paull: But they sort of tempered the expectations by saying We're not going to publish all six, just so you know.
35:29
Emily Paull: I'm sort of going, yep, okay.
35:31
Emily Paull: Don't get too excited.
35:32
Emily Paull: And then there was a, what was that moment like though?
35:35
Emily Paull: Oh gosh.
35:35
Emily Paull: Well, I was at work and they were sort of like, don't tell anybody.
35:38
Emily Paull: And I'm going, everyone's watching me talk on the phone.
35:41
Emily Paull: Um, how can you not?
35:42
Emily Paull: It was pretty surreal.
35:42
Emily Paull: You can't, you not the secret.
35:43
Emily Paull: Can you?
35:44
Emily Paull: I know.
35:44
Emily Paull: Well, can you imagine, I think it's the Vogel, where you would know for months that you'd won and you weren't allowed to tell anybody.
35:50
Emily Paull: Can you imagine doing that?
35:51
Emily Paull: No, it's impossible.
35:53
Emily Paull: No.
35:53
Emily Paull: All you wanna do is shout and be like, my book is getting published.
35:57
Emily Paull: Um, yeah.
35:58
Emily Paull: So the Fogarty literary award ceremony was in May of 2023.
36:04
Emily Paull: It was freezing cold.
36:05
Emily Paull: We were at Edith Cowen University in Mount Lawley, in the Spiegel tent, which was beautiful visually, but not very good at keeping out the elements.
36:12
Emily Paull: So we had to sit.
36:15
Emily Paull: To the side of stage for most of the, the evening.
36:17
Emily Paull: They were also doing readings from other books and things.
36:19
Emily Paull: And then we sat through the announcement of the winner where they brought each of us up to get our shortlist certificates.
36:25
Emily Paull: And then we went back to our little wooden chairs and pretended that our teeth weren't chattering and we weren't freezing.
36:29
Emily Paull: And then they announced the winner.
36:31
Emily Paull: And it wasn't me, it was Catherine Allen for her amazing book, the Skeleton House, um, which is just such a fantastic read.
36:39
Emily Paull: So, um, if you haven't read that, please read it and.
36:42
Emily Paull: So then the adrenaline all sort of let down and I realized how cold I was and I like rushed off the side of stage.
36:47
Emily Paull: Um, and Emma Young, another Fremantle press author who has been shortlisted for the award, gave me a hug and I'm going, oh, don't hug me or cry.
36:55
Emily Paull: And then Georgia Richter, who is the publisher at F Freemantle Press, came over to give me a hug as well and to tell me that they still wanted to publish the book.
37:04
Emily Paull: And I said, I tried to disguise it by giving it a new title'cause you've rejected it before.
37:09
Emily Paull: And she said, I know.
37:11
Emily Paull: 'cause you don't get anything past Georgia.
37:13
Emily Paull: That's why she's such a good editor.
37:15
Emily Paull: So what changed for Fremantle Preston?
37:19
Emily Paull: I think.
37:20
Emily Paull: I had always been starting the book in the wrong place.
37:23
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
37:24
Emily Paull: And I assume that publishers are very busy people and if I had a slow saggy start to my story, they never got to the good bit.
37:33
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, yeah,
37:33
Emily Paull: yeah.
37:34
Emily Paull: So you have to put the good bit
37:35
Madeleine Cleary: first.
37:35
Madeleine Cleary: That is a really good tip.
37:36
Madeleine Cleary: Everybody.
37:38
Madeleine Cleary: That must have been the most amazing night ever.
37:40
Madeleine Cleary: 'cause not often do you get a publisher in person telling you that they're gonna publish your book.
37:46
Emily Paull: Um, yeah.
37:47
Emily Paull: I mean, I'm pretty lucky here having Fremantle Press because I have known people from that publisher for a long time in various contexts.
37:58
Emily Paull: Um, I've reviewed books for them previously.
38:01
Emily Paull: Their team is often out at events, so I had met a lot of these people before as well.
38:06
Emily Paull: Um, so.
38:08
Emily Paull: Yeah, I mean, to, to get a hug from Georgia and have her tell me in person that she wanted to publish the book was really, really cool.
38:14
Emily Paull: I didn't end up working with Georgia as my editor.
38:17
Emily Paull: I worked with Rachel Hanson, who she was incredible and very thorough, and also gives amazing pep talks when I'm having an anxiety spiral.
38:27
Emily Paull: So, um, yeah, that whole team is just incredible people.
38:31
Emily Paull: So let,
38:32
Madeleine Cleary: let's talk a little bit about the setting of the novel, um, in Fremantle.
38:36
Madeleine Cleary: Um, I think your novel, it, it does so well.
38:39
Madeleine Cleary: It really anchors you in time and place, and, and that's what good historical fiction does.
38:44
Madeleine Cleary: It, it transports you, um, but you don't overdo it.
38:48
Madeleine Cleary: You don't take too many liberties by you, you, you never do it in a way that it compromises the flow of the story.
38:54
Madeleine Cleary: Like the story is very much at its heart.
38:56
Madeleine Cleary: But, um, I loved being transported to Fremantle that time.
39:00
Madeleine Cleary: Can you talk a little bit about the research that went into that and how important the setting is?
39:05
Emily Paull: Yeah, I mean, I, I do worry at times that my writing is too, uh, Western Australian, that it's too like, I don't know, parochial because when I did my honors year at the end of my first uni degree, I looked at, um, nostalgia in West Australian fiction and whether or not Western Australian fiction was its own genre and what the hallmarks were, and sort of identified that West Australian fiction kind of has this very self-referential streak to it, where it's just kind of trying to almost like justify its own existence and write back against the, the literary, um, conglomerate of Sydney and Melbourne.
39:43
Emily Paull: So.
39:44
Emily Paull: I am lucky in a way that working with a local West Australian publisher, that they've been to these places, they love them as much as I do, and they were willing to let me leave in as much of that speci specificity to Western Australia, um, as they did.
40:00
Emily Paull: Have you been to Fremantle yourself, Madeleine?
40:02
Emily Paull: I, I didn't
40:03
Madeleine Cleary: wanna admit Emily.
40:04
Madeleine Cleary: I've never been past LA going west.
40:07
Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
40:08
Emily Paull: You'll have to come like, you know, I would love to tech festival if you're listening, butterfly, women, like get on that.
40:15
Emily Paull: Um, yeah.
40:16
Emily Paull: So the place is almost like a character in the book is one of the things that we decided on.
40:23
Emily Paull: And so, um, you may or may not be aware, Fremantle was the busiest Allied Naval port in the Southern hemisphere in World War ii, and it was the second busiest Allied Naval port in the world with the first one being Pearl Harbor.
40:37
Mm.
40:37
So.
40:39
Emily Paull: December, 1941, Pearl Harbor is bombed, and subsequently the Americans joined the war, and by March, 1942, Fremantle is full of British, Dutch and American submariners.
40:51
Emily Paull: There is a submarine base in Fremantle Harbor, which is supposed to be kept secret, but I think it's virtually impossible that nobody knew about it because suddenly there were all these armed forces personnel walking around in naval uniforms that brought a sense of security and fun and novelty to the town.
41:10
Emily Paull: But it also would've brought a degree of anxiety as well, because suddenly, you know, most of the American Navy.
41:17
Emily Paull: Is based outta Fremantle, and that makes Fremantle a big target.
41:22
Mm.
41:23
Emily Paull: So it became this sort of hub of activity as it had been in other wars as well.
41:28
Emily Paull: Um, a lot of tro ships left from Fremantle.
41:31
Emily Paull: Um, it's a, a town that is very less of a residential area and more of a business and manufacturing and shipyard type area.
41:42
Emily Paull: Even today, you know, there are people who live.
41:44
Emily Paull: In Fremantle, but people tend to live more in the outer suburbs.
41:48
Emily Paull: And the closer you get to Fremantle port, the more it's businesses now.
41:53
Emily Paull: We get lots of container ships and cruises going in and out of there.
41:57
Emily Paull: So I assume there would've been cruises in and out of there earlier in the 20th century as well, but maybe not while the wall was going on.
42:03
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
42:04
Emily Paull: Um, so it's a very busy sort of hub of activity and it's a mix of different class backgrounds and also of different cultural backgrounds.
42:13
Emily Paull: So post World War ii, um, there were a lot of Greek and Italian migrant.
42:19
Emily Paull: Communities that sort of settled in that area.
42:22
Emily Paull: So now we have very famous fish and chip shops like cis and CA brothers and yeah.
42:27
Emily Paull: So it's, it's a very interesting place.
42:29
Emily Paull: It's a place I spent a lot of time in my teenage years, so I did something that we Oh, I'm so jealous, Emily.
42:34
Emily Paull: That's, I think parts of Melbourne would be like that too though.
42:37
Emily Paull: I mean, before we started recording, we were talking about the state library of Victoria and that's got that beautiful reading room.
42:43
Madeleine Cleary: There are some parts with the desk in the middle, although, um, I hadn't set the much of my book in, um, sort of those grand buildings.
42:51
Madeleine Cleary: It was more just in the slums and Yeah.
42:53
Madeleine Cleary: And those got demolished to make way for fancy houses.
42:56
Madeleine Cleary: That's right.
42:57
Madeleine Cleary: That's right.
42:57
Madeleine Cleary: So it's wonderful having that visual, isn't it?
42:59
Madeleine Cleary: And yeah, and looking straights and even of course, you just have to transplant images of what it would've been, because obviously taking away all the modern Yeah,
43:07
Emily Paull: I mean, I think, you know, there's the, the element of like, the more things change, the more they stay the same too because mm-hmm.
43:14
Emily Paull: I think some.
43:15
Emily Paull: Ways of thinking would have you imagining that a hundred years ago the past was so different and you can't even, but actually I, people are just people and there would be some things that would be different, but there would be some things that are essentially just the same, like about, you know, the things that teenagers wanna do and their parents aren't looking and about, you know, blokes getting jealous over girls and fighting.
43:39
Emily Paull: Like there's some things that are just universal.
43:41
Emily Paull: And I love this idea that historical fiction is a bridge between now and then.
43:45
Emily Paull: So there may be some things that.
43:48
Emily Paull: Occasionally feeling a little bit too modern or in particular I'm thinking about things to do with views about gender and class and race.
43:56
Emily Paull: And a lot of heroines in historical fiction are very ahead of their time in terms of their, their worldview and their belief in what women can do and be.
44:06
Emily Paull: And I think that's because historical fiction is a bridge, it's a way of doing that time travel.
44:11
Emily Paull: Mm-hmm.
44:11
Emily Paull: So having the setting be as accurate as possible and trying to get that five senses sort of view of the world in is really important.
44:19
Emily Paull: So in, um, I think it was 2014 or something like that, my mom and I went down to Fremantle with the explicit purpose of doing site specific research and bringing out the setting.
44:30
Emily Paull: And she walked around taking photos of old buildings and, you know, I would sort of say like, that house looks like Winston's house.
44:36
Emily Paull: So she'd take a photo of it for me and um, and then she had me lie on the grass up at the round house and.
44:42
Emily Paull: Described to her what I could hear and what I could smell and what I could feel, and I had to have my eyes closed the whole time.
44:48
Emily Paull: So listening to, there's a big flag post behind the round house where there's an old cannon, um, on display, and you could hear the metal part of the, the hoist for the flag hitting the mast of the flag in time with the wind, and you could hear seabirds and ship horns and yeah, it was really, really invaluable.
45:09
Emily Paull: So when you talk about research.
45:11
Emily Paull: Even though most people's minds are going to sitting in a room full of archives going through service records and photos, um, I think that site specific stuff is really important too.
45:21
Emily Paull: And if you can go to the places you're writing about or to what they are now and maybe strip away some of those layers of modernity, definitely do
45:30
Mm,
45:30
Emily Paull: great
45:31
Madeleine Cleary: tips.
45:31
Madeleine Cleary: Um, the way you were talking about it, you, you, it's almost like you are talking about it like a character itself, which I think is wonderful and you are very, you're really so lit up when you talk about it, Emily, so clearly it's something, you know, that's really touched you and been part of your life for so long.
45:47
Madeleine Cleary: Um, there's also a section of the novel set along the Thai railway, um, and um, we won't give any spoilers away, but it's, um, very much focused on the prisoner of war camps there.
45:58
Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
45:59
Madeleine Cleary: Um, how, what about that, because that, that was, um, uh, quite extraordinary part of the novel and you, you approached it so sensitively as well.
46:08
Emily Paull: Yeah, well, I mean, I felt.
46:09
Emily Paull: Very much that I had to do it justice.
46:11
Emily Paull: Um, I sort of stumbled into writing about that because when Winston does enlist, I looked at where he might have ended up.
46:21
Emily Paull: And when I learned about the fall of Singapore and what happened, uh, after February, 1942 to men who had been stationed in that area, that led me to things like the Santa Can Death marches and the um, Thai Biral way and, uh, all sorts of horrible things that happened in that region.
46:39
Emily Paull: And so I originally had written a very sort of brief glossing over of what happened to Winston during the war.
46:48
Emily Paull: I was, you know, quite young when I started the book, and I didn't have any understanding of how I could research that period without getting on a plane and going to Thailand or going to Burma.
46:58
Emily Paull: I had been to Singapore and um, you know, been to Changi Airport, but I'd never been to any of the historical sites and I still haven't been to many of those places.
47:07
Emily Paull: You know, it just isn't.
47:09
Emily Paull: Always possible for writers to go to the places that they want to write about.
47:15
Emily Paull: But I knew that I had to write about it properly and I had to find a way to do it justice.
47:20
Emily Paull: Particularly when in, I think it was 2013, the Narrow Road to the Deep North came out and I went, oh damn, somebody else has written about the Ty Railway.
47:28
Emily Paull: And then he went and won the Bloody Booker prize for it.
47:31
Emily Paull: So, um, you know, my biggest worry when this book came out in April was that people were gonna think I'd copied, even though I'd already been writing about the Ty Railway.
47:41
Emily Paull: So,'cause the TV show, it came out, um, two weeks after my book did.
47:46
Emily Paull: So it was all front of mind for a lot of people, including me.
47:49
Emily Paull: And so.
47:51
Emily Paull: I just had to do as much research as I could by reading firsthand accounts, by reading the War Diaries of Weary Dunlop and the, um, the diaries of somebody called Jack Chalker, who was a British, um, pilot who had been in many of the same camps as Weary Dunlop and had drawn a lot of the scenes.
48:10
Emily Paull: So his artwork and the ways that he hid his artwork.
48:14
Emily Paull: Sort of feed into some parts of Winston's experience and yeah.
48:17
Emily Paull: So I read a lot of self-published accounts of being in those camps, and I read a lot of, um,
48:26
Madeleine Cleary: secondary documents.
48:27
Madeleine Cleary: You did such a good job.
48:28
Madeleine Cleary: And I was actually wondering, as I was reading the book, um, obviously Winston goes off to war.
48:33
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
48:33
Madeleine Cleary: And I was wondering how you would, because it, the novels told from both Winston and Sarah's perspectives.
48:39
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
48:39
Madeleine Cleary: And I was, and, and it, it, and it doesn't switch.
48:43
Madeleine Cleary: It's sort of, you know, they're in chunks and I was wondering how you were going to do that and reflect the experiences.
48:49
Madeleine Cleary: And I think you are absolutely right.
48:51
Madeleine Cleary: You couldn't gloss over something like that.
48:53
Madeleine Cleary: It is transformative.
48:53
Madeleine Cleary: No, it's, um, you know, a really important part of the, his experience and his story.
48:59
Madeleine Cleary: And you did it in such a.
49:00
Madeleine Cleary: Beautiful way.
49:01
Madeleine Cleary: I was just, I couldn't put it down that whole section.
49:05
Madeleine Cleary: I had to read it from start to finish.
49:06
Madeleine Cleary: It was it, and it's, it was almost like a short story in inside a story, um, inside a novel.
49:13
Madeleine Cleary: And I could see your short story skills coming through, I think in that as well.
49:17
Madeleine Cleary: So yeah, you did it a, you did a really good job.
49:20
Madeleine Cleary: Oh, thank you.
49:22
Madeleine Cleary: Um, I would like to talk about.
49:25
Madeleine Cleary: Your experience as a librarian just briefly'cause I know that we're running out of time.
49:30
Madeleine Cleary: Oh, sorry.
49:31
Madeleine Cleary: I talk too much.
49:32
Madeleine Cleary: No, this has been so, so interesting.
49:34
Madeleine Cleary: Um, libraries are just wonderful places.
49:37
Madeleine Cleary: My mom used to be a librarian.
49:39
Madeleine Cleary: Um, I love, I used to go to the libraries every week as a little girl for years and years and years, and I still use libraries.
49:46
Madeleine Cleary: Um, they're also great for authors, um, to work hand in hand with LI libraries as well.
49:52
Madeleine Cleary: It's an opportunity for us to not just promote our books, but um, you know, be part of, I suppose, the writing community and earn a little bit of extra additional income as well.
50:02
Madeleine Cleary: Do you have any top tips for authors and how to work with libraries?
50:08
Madeleine Cleary: Approach libraries, pitch events.
50:11
Emily Paull: Yeah, I mean it can really vary depending on how each library does their events, if they're in a position to do their events.
50:20
Emily Paull: Um, I mean, libraries rely on funding.
50:22
Emily Paull: Um, I don't know what it's like in other states, but in Western Australia, public libraries get funding from their local council and also some funding from the state library, and that's sort of, their collection is built using.
50:33
Emily Paull: The two different pots of money.
50:35
Emily Paull: And then maybe they also get funding from their council budget to put towards doing events.
50:42
Emily Paull: Some libraries that money would be split across adults and children's events, and I know that when that's the case, a few places really have to prioritize that.
50:51
Emily Paull: Children's events because there is so much demand from the community for things that support young people and, um, you know, get that lifelong learning thing started.
51:02
Emily Paull: But if you are lucky enough to have a library in your area that puts on events, what I would say is make sure that you have your media release sheet ready to go, which has got your blurb of your book, the cover of your book, your blurb, all of the information like the ISBN and the price point and who to contact about events so that you can, if you're going in, in person, leave a piece of paper that's not just like a scrap with your email address written on it.
51:29
Emily Paull: Um, or you can email it to them.
51:32
Emily Paull: Uh, I would say don't do a bulk email where you put every single library's email address in the two line, and you know, to whom it may concern.
51:39
Emily Paull: And here's the same email, like maybe it'd be a little bit.
51:42
Emily Paull: Strategic about it and identify a few libraries that are ones that do events like the kind of thing that you are proposing, and do them first and, you know, do a few batches, um, rather than that scatter gun approach.
51:56
Emily Paull: And I would also say like, start with libraries where you're a member, where you're an active user.
52:00
Emily Paull: Like start with libraries where you have met some of the staff and you have a bit of a relationship.
52:06
Emily Paull: Um, you know, I have been known when I've had an author approach me when I've been on the front desk.
52:12
Emily Paull: And, and I will say that I don't really have any sway over who gets booked at our libraries.
52:17
Emily Paull: I can suggest people, but there are people higher up in the ranks than me who make these decisions.
52:22
Emily Paull: But I, I will occasionally, if somebody comes in.
52:26
Emily Paull: To talk about their book and say, you know, we want the book to be in the library and we would like to do an event, and here is the information.
52:32
Emily Paull: I will look up and see if they're a member.
52:34
Emily Paull: Mm.
52:34
Emily Paull: Because when I then pass that information on to my bosses, if they are a member, if they're someone who lives in our local community, libraries often have in their collection development guidelines or in their policies, something about supporting members of their community who are writing.
52:50
Emily Paull: You know, we at the library, I work, have a local authors collection.
52:53
Emily Paull: So if you are living in one of the suburbs that is part of our council area and you have written a book, they will put it into the local authors collection, even if it's not strictly relevant to.
53:05
Emily Paull: Any of the other collection development principles, it's about preserving the cultural heritage of our area, and it almost sits with local history in that way.
53:14
Emily Paull: So be familiar with your library.
53:16
Emily Paull: You know, go to other library events, talk to the staff, be friendly.
53:19
Emily Paull: Borrow books from there.
53:20
Emily Paull: Be part of your library community and start with your local library where you're a member of the community because if they can support you, they will try.
53:29
Emily Paull: They're darnedest to, to do something for you.
53:32
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
53:32
Madeleine Cleary: And librarians are great people, so just chat.
53:35
Madeleine Cleary: It's always good to just go in and have a chat and talk books.
53:38
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
53:38
Emily Paull: Librarians love talking about books like, please come and talk about books with me.
53:42
Emily Paull: I, I specialize in something called Reader's Advisory, which is basically telling people what to read.
53:46
Emily Paull: So I'm happy to pig in mud.
53:48
Madeleine Cleary: That's a fantastic job.
53:50
Madeleine Cleary: I was just reflecting when you were talking about approaching your local library.
53:54
Madeleine Cleary: Um, I, um, booked an event with via local library because, um, I mean, I regularly visit there myself, but my mom was down there and she was just chatting to the librarians and then she pitched my book to the, the, um, lady at the counter who happened to be the events person for the library.
54:12
Madeleine Cleary: That was lucky.
54:13
Madeleine Cleary: I know.
54:14
Madeleine Cleary: And so I got a phone call, a frantic conversation.
54:16
Madeleine Cleary: I was traveling for work and it was my mom, and she said, quick, quick, Madeline, send them an email.
54:22
Madeleine Cleary: They're, they're finalizing their schedule, but you have to email them tonight.
54:26
Emily Paull: Yeah, actually that's an important point too.
54:29
Emily Paull: Like the schedule is a big thing.
54:31
Emily Paull: Um, you know, I think six weeks is roughly a good amount of time for the event to be being publicized, to get a decent sized audience.
54:40
Emily Paull: So, uh, you know, if your library service has a, a schedule of how often they put out their event.
54:47
Emily Paull: So if they do a brochure that covers like a two month period, you know, um, October, November, December, I think would be being worked on now.
54:56
Emily Paull: So they've already locked everything in.
54:58
Emily Paull: They're doing the designing now.
54:59
Emily Paull: So I wouldn't go in and expect them to be able to find you a spot in November when it's the first week of October.
55:04
Emily Paull: You need to be prepared to pitch them something.
55:08
Emily Paull: That's going to be in the future at some point.
55:11
Emily Paull: So if your book is coming out in yours was end of April, wasn't it?
55:15
Emily Paull: So you probably would've been looking at speaking to them.
55:18
Emily Paull: End of January, early February, so that you could have all those discussions and then they could have made the decisions by the time they start reserving the spots in that next program.
55:27
Emily Paull: Uh, I think we get approached a lot of people with short timelines and then they get disappointed.
55:32
Madeleine Cleary: It's a, it's a really good point, Emily.
55:34
Madeleine Cleary: And actually, like, I'd lined up a couple of libraries, um, by just going to the events the previous year and talking to the librarians about the book coming out.
55:43
Madeleine Cleary: Um, and I think knowing the audience as well and what they're interested in and so, um.
55:49
Madeleine Cleary: And I actually did those for free and I said, I don't, I'm happy to waive the fee, um, because it's during my promo month.
55:55
Madeleine Cleary: Um, and I said, I think that was more, um, amenable than if I had sort of, and because I think libraries, like you said, have limited budget, but I think you also as an author have to make the point that you, you are, you are coming in presenting for free, um, because it's during the promo period because Yeah.
56:11
Madeleine Cleary: Otherwise they might come back and say, do you wanna do another talk for free again?
56:14
Madeleine Cleary: Exactly.
56:14
Madeleine Cleary: Exactly.
56:15
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
56:15
Madeleine Cleary: Where you might have to, you're not on leave from work and you might have to take that time.
56:19
Madeleine Cleary: So, um, yeah, it's an important point.
56:21
Madeleine Cleary: Um, my local library actually does their, um, scheduling six months out.
56:25
Madeleine Cleary: Six months,
56:27
Emily Paull: yeah.
56:27
Emily Paull: Wow.
56:28
Emily Paull: So they would do like a big
56:28
Madeleine Cleary: glossy brochure or something?
56:30
Madeleine Cleary: They do.
56:30
Madeleine Cleary: They do, yeah.
56:31
Madeleine Cleary: And um, so I'm talking with them about now, about doing an event in May.
56:35
Madeleine Cleary: So we've lost time in May next year.
56:37
Madeleine Cleary: So it's time.
56:38
Madeleine Cleary: And I
56:38
Emily Paull: think, you know, knowing your library service and knowing how they do their events, it's gonna be really obvious to the library staff that you don't know how they do their events if you are not.
56:48
Emily Paull: Aware of that sort of timeline.
56:50
Emily Paull: You know, if you're going in this week to say, let's do something in November.
56:53
Emily Paull: Yeah.
56:54
Emily Paull: They're going, well, you obviously don't know we have a six month lead time for our brochure.
56:58
Emily Paull: Exactly.
56:58
Emily Paull: So you just
56:59
Madeleine Cleary: have to ask the questions to go.
57:00
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
57:01
Madeleine Cleary: It's nice going in in person I think.
57:03
Madeleine Cleary: And so, so when you
57:03
Emily Paull: approached people after the events that you attended as an audience member, were you bringing business cards with you or did you have like a, a fact sheet or what did you do?
57:13
Madeleine Cleary: Well, um, I mean it was convenient'cause my mom had actually worked at the branch.
57:16
Mm-hmm.
57:17
Madeleine Cleary: So when mom and I would, we always go and attend a particular branch's events and so we, I think we were on our third or fourth and mom knew the staff there so that she introduced me.
57:27
Madeleine Cleary: So I had sort of an in, um, and then with the other one where I didn't have an in, um, I.
57:33
Madeleine Cleary: I actually had attended a couple of events and then afterwards sent an email, um, following up and said, yeah, you know, this is who I am.
57:42
Madeleine Cleary: Um, this is what I can add.
57:43
Madeleine Cleary: I know it's similar to some of these events that I've attended.
57:45
Madeleine Cleary: Um, would you be interested, and I think working with your publicist on this as well in the lead up period?
57:51
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, because I, my publicist did, did pitch to libraries, um, for events.
57:56
Madeleine Cleary: Um, but she didn't actually have any success with that.
57:59
Madeleine Cleary: So it was through like my connections and, and being part of the community that I actually got and booked those events rather than through my publicist.
58:08
Madeleine Cleary: But at every technic time I was telling her, I'm actually gonna go to this library now.
58:11
Madeleine Cleary: And she said, yep, no worries.
58:13
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, work with
58:14
Emily Paull: your publicist because you don't wanna be pitching and they're also pitching and Exactly.
58:18
Emily Paull: Working at cross purposes, but absolutely having your face attached and going and introducing yourself is gonna be so much more.
58:26
Emily Paull: Memorable than an email from a publicist that might not just be about your book.
58:31
Emily Paull: It might be like, here are the four books we have coming out in the next couple of months.
58:34
Emily Paull: Exactly.
58:35
Emily Paull: Yeah,
58:36
Madeleine Cleary: exactly.
58:36
Madeleine Cleary: So, no, it's good.
58:38
Madeleine Cleary: Um, I just, I know we're way over time, but I just wanna also talk about your work as a book reviewer as well.
58:44
Madeleine Cleary: How did you get into that?
58:47
Emily Paull: Oh gosh.
58:48
Emily Paull: Uh, I had a blog from probably around 2008 as well.
58:52
Emily Paull: When I decided that I was gonna be a serious writer, I set up a blog and it was through like the Google platform for blogging, which is called Blogger.
58:59
Emily Paull: And I just started reviewing the books that I was reading, um, as a way of having content to put on there rather than just these like really earnest diary entries that most of the embarrassing ones have been deleted now.
59:11
Emily Paull: So like, just don't even look, they're not there.
59:13
Emily Paull: Um, but I started occasionally being sent books from publishers because I had done a few reviews and they weren't getting like.
59:22
Emily Paull: Viral levels of, of engagement or anything like that.
59:25
Emily Paull: But, uh, I started to feel like, yeah, okay, I'm kind of good at this.
59:29
Emily Paull: So my friend Simon, is the books editor for the AU review.
59:33
Emily Paull: And I, uh, he either approached me or I asked him how I could get involved.
59:40
Emily Paull: And I think I've been reviewing books for the au review for about eight years now.
59:46
Emily Paull: Um, last year I published about 20 book reviews.
59:48
Emily Paull: This year I'm gonna try and do the same number and I've also started doing TV reviews because in my downtime, after all the promo of doing book tours and things like that, not that I did much of a tour, but it was still exhausting.
1:00:01
Emily Paull: I was watching ridiculous amounts of tv.
1:00:02
Emily Paull: So I thought, well, how can I at least turn this into something because I haven't published a book review in a really long time and they're gonna get a little bit anxious that I'm not.
1:00:11
Emily Paull: Turning anything in.
1:00:12
Emily Paull: So I reviewed a few TV shows as well.
1:00:14
Emily Paull: Um, yeah, so it's a, a really fantastic Australian site that mostly focuses on like music and, um, concerts.
1:00:22
Emily Paull: And they do quite a lot of movie reviews, but we have a really active books department.
1:00:27
Emily Paull: Um, there's about, oh gosh, I think there's about five of us at the moment who are really actively reviewing books.
1:00:35
Emily Paull: Um, and because of my connection with the debut crew, I've tried to connect as many debut Australian authors with a reviewer as I can, schedules, permitting.
1:00:44
Emily Paull: Just so that we can help in any way we can with that discoverability issue.
1:00:49
Madeleine Cleary: Oh, Emily, you are quite a remarkable person, I must say.
1:00:52
Madeleine Cleary: You, you have so many hands and so many pies, but I think it's, it all centers like what we were saying at the start about, about books.
1:01:02
Madeleine Cleary: You know, you are such a champion of Australian writing, of debut writing and wa writing.
1:01:07
Madeleine Cleary: You've um, you're a library, your book advisory, you are writing book reviews.
1:01:12
Madeleine Cleary: Um, you know, you are an industry citizen.
1:01:16
Madeleine Cleary: An excellent example of an industry.
1:01:18
Madeleine Cleary: Love that Industry citizen.
1:01:20
Madeleine Cleary: That's right.
1:01:20
Madeleine Cleary: That's Kate Melbourne Hall's term for it.
1:01:22
Madeleine Cleary: I love that.
1:01:23
Madeleine Cleary: And you are an excellent example of it.
1:01:24
Madeleine Cleary: So we're lucky to have you, Emily.
1:01:27
Madeleine Cleary: Um, in the spirit of that, can you recommend a day novel?
1:01:30
Emily Paull: I mean, it would be remiss of me not to recommend the Butterfly women, um, but because I can see that you're embarrassed.
1:01:37
Emily Paull: I bought some backups, um, brought by her hand by Marian ta, which is.
1:01:44
Emily Paull: Violent and brutal.
1:01:45
Emily Paull: Uh, brutal.
1:01:46
Emily Paull: Yeah, that's, that's the best word for it.
1:01:48
Emily Paull: It's beautiful and brutal and, uh, just so deep and yeah, it was incredible.
1:01:54
Emily Paull: And also, uh, the Daughters of Batavia by Stephanie Cos another WA debut writer.
1:02:00
Emily Paull: Most people know about the shipwreck of the Batavia off Gerald's coast.
1:02:04
Emily Paull: And that's a really, really beautiful novelization of some of the things that might have happened on the ship.
1:02:11
Madeleine Cleary: I love it.
1:02:11
Madeleine Cleary: And you've gone historical fiction to have to Yeah.
1:02:14
Madeleine Cleary: On theme.
1:02:15
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
1:02:16
Madeleine Cleary: Okay, so we're gonna end, as we always do with your number one top tip for writers, Emily.
1:02:22
Madeleine Cleary: Oh gosh.
1:02:23
Emily Paull: Um, pretend to retire, like actually mean it if you need to, but that's true.
1:02:28
Emily Paull: Yeah.
1:02:28
Emily Paull: Pretend to retire if you need a break.
1:02:31
Madeleine Cleary: That's a great way to end it, I think.
1:02:33
Madeleine Cleary: Um, and it's, it's an interesting concept as well, pretending to retire as well.
1:02:37
Madeleine Cleary: You like, you know, that you're always gonna come back, but giving yourself a break is really important.
1:02:42
Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
1:02:42
Madeleine Cleary: And 17 years in the making, uh, the distance between dreams is now available and out everywhere.
1:02:50
Madeleine Cleary: I highly recommend you, you pick up a copy.
1:02:53
Madeleine Cleary: It's a beautiful book.
1:02:54
Madeleine Cleary: Um, and Emily is a wonderful industry citizen, so thank you for joining us, Emily.
1:02:59
Madeleine Cleary: Thank you so much for having me.
1:03:05
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