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What I've Learnt - Nikki Gemmell (Wing) · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

0:08
SPEAKER_01: Well an explosive contemporary literary thriller from international best-selling author Nikki Gemmel has landed.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Wing is Lord of the Flies, meets Picnic at Hanging Rock, meets promising young woman.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Students from an elite girls' school go on a camping trip into the Australian bush.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: Four of them, a girl gang, a group of best friends dubbed The Sins, other teachers, become separated from the main group.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: A male teacher volunteers to look for them.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, initially none of the five come back, but you'll have to read on to see what happens.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, Nikki has done it again, enthralled us with her storytelling, capturing the essence of the female lens.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm so excited to have Nikki Gamel, best-selling author, back on the pod, back on the What I've Love podcast.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: I do have to say, she's written this beautiful little reflection of her time touring on this massive book tour for her new book wing.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: And this is just a little excerpt of what she posted, which I loved.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Book talks and book signings and portrait sessions and film meetings and possible opera chats.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: The city's energy, like London, with the sheer volume of the creativity that lifts and carries you and makes you want to move there instantly to do, write, film, paint, create, pinged alive by all the people, ideas, dynamism that surrounds you.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: I love that, Nikki.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually I love Melbourne.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: You are a woman after my own heart.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, I love that little description.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: And you go on if anyone wants to look at her Insta.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: It's quite beautiful because you're a deep dive creative at heart, like me.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: And I love the way that you reflect, you know, you sort of hold a mirror up to whatever it is that you're doing, which is very much your thing.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: But talk to me about you were just we were just having a little chat about the, you know, the the grueling nature of touring, but how you're really an introvert at heart.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, coping.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look, Deb, I I am a real introvert, and people are often surprised when they hear that.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I have trained myself since teenage years to be out in the world, to exist with a public persona.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: But I and I love book tours, I love meeting my readers, people who've read me through, you know, 30 years of words.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: It is so beautiful.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: But I must admit, it kind of just takes so much out of me.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: So that when I come back back to home, I'm someone who thrives on quietness, routine, certainty, knowing my world around me.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: So I come back after my crazy, wonderful book touring situations like I've just done in Melbourne.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: And then I just kind of decompress and recalibrate so I can get creative again.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: But it's very important to me that I'm able to just kind of step back and go, whew, and just kind of, you know, put that little cloak on introversion.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: Like a little snail.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like a little snail back in its shell.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting to me because I often do reflect, and I interview a lot of writers, as you know, on this show, but I do reflect whether you need to, in some ways, have a capacity for introversion in order to be a writer, let alone a creative.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: What do you think about that?
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've often because obviously when you're out and about and blah, blah, blah, flittering, it's very hard to focus on the creative sensibility.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think writers, as introverts, are we are um the observers.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: We are curious about the world, we are the listeners.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, our natural way of being is to quietly, if we can, just watch everything around us, observe everything, write down, note what we're observing, but giving ourselves space and time in our lives just to be still with that observation.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a lot of writers at heart.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the we the industry has changed.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I my first novel, Shiva, came out when I was 30, and it was a very different world then.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: But now, you know, you've really got to be the face of your writing, you've got to be out there in the world.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, you know, it's a bit ugly, you've got to kind of sell your work, what you've done, which kind of doesn't sit comfortably with a lot of writers.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: But I think that's a such a good point.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, first of all, I love that book, Shiva, one of my favorites.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: But but to that point, I think that's an interesting thing because we've had to pivot.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, I had a column in The Age called What I've Learned.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: And that was my, oh, that was wonderful because I was having babies and I could write articles, you know, I do interviews and it would go in, you know, I just ring my editor, and blah, blah, blah, as you know, because you do your column.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: But suddenly I'm on a podcast and I'm a writer, and I'm I'm interviewed 300 guests, but I love it, and I found this beautiful space that I bring people into, like yourself.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: But it's a pivot.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's a very similar notion that you've had to do.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: And to be honest, you have to be out in the world because, in a sense, the risk of the creative is to, it's whether you're a singer or an artist or an actor or whatever it is, you have to actually connect with the audience over and above what's on the page or in the play or on the Netflix series, you know.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it was Ian Foster who said only connect.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of been a tuning fork throughout all my writing that, you know, I need to connect with people if I want to be a writer.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: And I I discovered pretty early on in my writing career that the way I can connect really powerfully is through honesty.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, in a way, honesty is my tuning fork.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: It scares me terribly.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I tell you what, you're damn good at it.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Let's be honest.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you are, I mean, I've seen you at quite a few book, you know, literary festivals, and I've we've spoken quite frequently.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, you're you really seem extremely natural at that.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: And that's part of the appeal, is your authenticity, which by the way is a big zeitgeist, right?
6:22
SPEAKER_01: Like authenticity is the big zeitgeist.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: People want to see real, they want to see and connect with real.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: And you don't seem shy in your, in fact, you're the quite antithesis, almost like your alter ego.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess because for me as a writer, I realize it's such a powerful thing.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: It it it it could, you know, the women writers who have been the ones that I adore and I get so excited when they've got a new book out, and I instantly run out to the bookshop and I get it, is are writers like um Elena Ferranti, um, Deborah Levi, who's got a new one coming out in a few weeks, um, and I know um the French writer who won the Nobel Prize, I think two years ago.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: They are all writers who deal in vicious, ferocious, courageous honesty, honesty about themselves as much as anything, but there's so much bravery in there.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And when I read their words, it kind of sets the bar really, really high for me because I think, you know, we are interested in the female experience, the female journey.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: And I've kind of been writing about it since my teens, early 20s, in a way.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm now almost 60, and I'm still writing about it.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: But I love that I can kind of see the arc of my career now.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: It is tracking the female narrative through a woman's life.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: And I know, you know, she's written about losing her virginity and having an abortion in her early 20s and affairs, and um, you know, her mother dying and and that kind of thing.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: So she has written all her life about seminal moments in her life.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: I write fiction as well as non-fiction.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: She mainly specializes in um nonfiction.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: But those kind of writers are the ones Inspire.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, inspire, keep me brave, with the honesty.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, the bravery is a really interesting one because obviously, you know, your your very renowned bride strip bear, which I loved and read about three times, because I was like, wow, and that whole story in itself is fascinating, how that all came to be, and we've touched on that in previous interviews, but but that really exemplified, you know, many years ago, a bravery that a lot of people weren't doing.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think what's happened, particularly with social media, and we know the negatives of social media, but I suppose some of the positives is, for example, you know, you've got the new menopause documentary coming out, you've got, you know, writers speaking, um, actors owning their story.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: There's a, I mean, suddenly the world has sort of opened up.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is wonderful.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: So we talk, I mean, there are negatives to social media, but there's a lot of benefits in that I think the bravery can be honored.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and you can reach a lot of people.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look, absolutely, because I also think honesty is about vulnerability, which is what Bride was.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, Bride is a book about vulnerability, Bride Street Bear, as much as anything.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And that is so connecting.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: So I I feel like bring on the honesty and podcasts and social media, bring on all our stories because you know, everyone's got difficult journeys, everyone.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: And it is really good to hear that you are not alone, whatever your struggles are, you know, you are not alone there.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And there are others going through similar situations.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: I find that so connecting and so affirming.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: So I actually love that about you know, social media and this age that we're in, and the power of the pod.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's very interesting.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a few of us doing it, but I tell you what, what I have learned literally interviewing people like yourself and these beautiful, and I do uh I interviewed Trent Jolton recently, who I adore, and you I know adore.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: I do um, we love him, like it's a whole fan club, because he he, in a way, is also, you know, the the authenticity is what has been his power tool.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: And I think that the podcast has given us another voice, or you know, that beautiful uh wiser than me, that podcast with Julia Louise Dreyfus.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've listened to that, but you'd love it.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: No, I haven't listened to that one, but I love her.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh, love her.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, you'd love this.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting because your fandom is very loyal.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: You have certainly, you know, whether it's reading at a bookstore or attending literary festivals, how have you found that?
10:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how how does that fill your cup?
10:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it does.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look, enormously it fills my cup.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: All my beautiful readers who come up to me at book signings and book festivals in the street sometimes.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm in woolies or something doing the grocery shop.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, because for me, creativity and particularly female creativity is all about confidence.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: And for my creative journey, I began in my late teens wanting to be a writer.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get my first novel published until I was 30.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm now like 22 books down the track.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: But it has not been this kind of upward trajectory into confidence.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: It's been ups, downs, and rejections, and rejections, and more rejections, and dippings of confidence along the way.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: I did menopause really badly a couple of years ago.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was the thickening.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm holding my arms out so my football bitters don't look quite so wearing that like the the tie shirt.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, every everything that every symptom that you could get in menopause, yes, that was me.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: I got everything.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: But alongside the kind of mental kind of fragility, the low-level depression that I'd never had before in my life, waking at 3 a.m.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the rage, the madness.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Alongside all of that was this incredible fragility in terms of my confidence.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'd never really had that before.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: I'd always believed in myself and believed in my writing.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly a couple of years ago, I was like, I can't do this anymore.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: I just I don't know that I have another book in me.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: I just I just don't know what I'm doing.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: It was just a complete kind of unmooring from the anchor of certainty in my life.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: And it was really these beautiful women coming up to me at literary festivals and you know, in bookshops and saying, please keep doing what you're doing.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And I can't, you know, that to them it was just what you know, a single conversation in the whole wash of life.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: To me, it was like, oh my God, that they're keeping me going.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: It felt like such a lifeline.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: So, no, look, I I love the people who read me and who've read me for years, or even the new readers who've just found me.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: But I love it when that's articulated because it's just that little boost in confidence.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Um and camaraderie.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think what you you also tap into, like you know, as you describe, there's sort of that universal humanity.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, certainly the menopause story, which is just a sidebar, but it's actually become very in the forefront for a lot of middle-aged women, or I hate that word, middle-aged women, but women in the middle of life.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, because it so sort of sounds like heavy.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: But the truth is, you know, we're in a similar genre, you and I.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: And I just think the discussions around this are really, really important because it's it's making, as you say, us not all feel alone.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: Certainly the Naomi Watts and the people that are, you know, taking the leadership in this arena, certainly give us comfort.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: And as you say, whether it's a fan or whether it's you understanding, I mean, can you imagine our mothers?
14:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, none of this was discussed, and so many of them.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: And my mother, who is an extraordinary woman, she's a magistrate and she's a judge, she's incredible, but not a word.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: No, no, and not a daughters either.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: No, I know I never spoke to my mum about the menopause.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: The only thing she told me was that for her, her bleeding stopped when she was 52.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm now 57 and I had a period like uh two or three months ago, you know, and yet knock me down with a feather.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, it's like, when is this going to happen?
14:39
SPEAKER_01: So is that just oh that's really interesting.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I thought it was like because I don't know enough about, but I gathered that, you know, I thought it was like a you're on the decline, but that's that's unusual.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, a girlfriend told me her mother went until she was 58.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, I just know that's how you're fine.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, they say it can go 10 years.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what anyway?
14:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's very interesting though, because we are having these discussions.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting to me, and we'll come to your book because this is this this was a reflection I had because we are at a certain age, and clearly you have a teenage daughter, as we've just discussed.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: But I thought it was really interesting your insights in the book, Wing.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: And I'll give the read, I'll give the listeners a little bit of insight.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: And I have talked about this in the introduction, but the four girls are quite defined and their characters are all engaging and you know, very sort of um, like you felt like you knew them, right?
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Like I was like, I know a girl like that, right?
15:34
SPEAKER_01: But what was also interesting was the mothers of the school.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, which I thought was really interesting.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, I definitely know someone like that.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: And that's part of your charm and what your talent is, is that ability to nail the character and give you a sense that, oh, that's real.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: I know somebody like that.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Like this is real.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Tell me what fueled one, you're embarking embarking on a story like this, which is really focused on teenage girls at school, but really about a culture and about womanhood.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Tell me how you went back, because you're sort of going back in a way to to youth.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess I'm just interested in womanhood, in all its manifestations.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm a menopausal woman with a teenage daughter.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And so I was fascinated by that world.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've poured everything into Wing that I've observed uh in terms of the female journey, you know, since the bride strip bear days.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: It's like several decades of observations, uh, interesting things I've found about the female condition have been poured into this book through the lens of four teenage girls who go missing in the bush, you know, what it's like to be um a young woman in Australia today.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And um, basically a male teacher go volunteers to go in and find them.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: They get separated from a school camp, these girls.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't come back, but the girls do.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: So then it's a mystery of like, well, will he come back?
17:03
SPEAKER_00: What happened?
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Who's guilty?
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Who isn't?
17:06
SPEAKER_00: Did nothing happen?
17:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're all very shut down, they're all very no one's speaking, no one's saying what's happened.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: But I was fascinated in terms of girls at a school in Australia now because there's such rich material in terms of parents and daughters and teenage boys and teenage girls.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, the protagonist of the book is a school principal, and you know, the body of people that she finds the most intimidating to deal with are the parents.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: So I was interested in that dynamic too, the teacher-parent dynamic.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Then there's the school board principal dynamic, and then there's the dynamic of older feminists looking at these beautiful, blazing, articulate, strong, confident, stubborn, sparky young women around us.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: But our hearts are in our mouths too, thinking, oh my God, will they fly?
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Will they be okay?
18:00
SPEAKER_00: So I was interested in that dynamic, also, kind of, and also the dynamic with older men around us, who some might consider dinosaurs.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: But you know, I'll tell you what else was interesting, which I found really fascinating, was the relationship between the protagonist, the voice, the teacher, and her old friend, yes, um, who she was mourning the loss of uh the friendship having been that was so powerful for me because I think we've all been there where you go, Yes, wait, we love each other.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: What happened?
18:33
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, like we've all got that, you know, that really good old beautiful friend that you have to sort of work out, like what I mean.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: That was powerful.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: The way he was like, What should what did I do?
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Why isn't she talking to me?
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Like I mean, that was a really powerful observation and and relationship.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: And I wondered if that was based on anything you'd observed or experienced yourself.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: So, one of the main things about Wing is um female friendship.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: I really, really wanted to explore that in all its complexity.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, my girlfriends are my life, I hold them to my children so dearly.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: But I really wanted to write about a friendship that's soured, a deep, deep friendship that goes back to school days and doesn't work anymore.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: And one of the women in that friendship is blindsided at the ghosting, the friendship ghosting by the other woman.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I've been through that myself.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And um, I remember thinking at the time, gosh, how to how to break a woman's confidence.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, this feels worse than a breakup, than a romantic like a divorce.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like a divorce.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: And it's and they they hold, you know, I think we've all, everybody that I know would have had something.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: That's why I thought that was a really powerful sort of was sort of a little bit to the side of the main story, but it also kept coming back because it's one of her daughter is one of the missing and the goddaughter of the principal.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just it's devastating on so many levels, and she's got to deal with this woman who kind of she's got an awkwardness with now and doesn't even understand really what happened there.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: So it's discombobulating, but I just wanted to make it very kind of true to life and moving.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: It was moving, very moving, and very like it sort of made you feel anxious because you had that sense of the vulnerability of the the person that's been inverticomas abandoned, yeah, having no sense of how to navigate that.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: And also having been presented as very strong their whole lives and never having to deal with such a sense of failure in in her thinking, the failure of the death of this friendship.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, I thought that was so it's interesting.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: So you did base that on something you'd experienced or observed.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: I've been through it.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not fun, not fun at all.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: It's like tapping on a on a big steel door, it's horrible feeling.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: And to that point, I suppose there's a sense that that is very unique to women, I think.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: I think it's I think to your point, women friendships which you observe throughout the book are complex.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Even the way that you describe the four girls and the different roles that they have in the friendship group.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: So they're the four very different girls and they're friends, but kind of the whole narrative of what actually happened out there hinges on the dynamics of those girls.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: What girls will do for attention with other girls, how they will compete with other girls to be the closest friend of one of those girls.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, schoolgirl crushes that we all, a lot of us have when we're younger, you know, one girl for another girl, that kind of thing.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, a cool gang.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: What what are the dynamics of that and how You retain your coolness and what happens when you lose that sense of coolness?
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Just lots of different things.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, it takes in all the stuff about everything that girls are dealing with now, you know, social media and school refusal and um boys, you know, the opposite sex and consent.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, I feel like there's a bit of Chantel Contos and um Grace Tane.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: About the whole thing.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: It was like picnic and hanging rock meets promising young woman.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm reading it going, I well, I Picnic and Hanging Rock very much stood out to me as a, you know, and obviously you refer to that in um in sort of the blurb about the book.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's true.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: Like, and it's the notion of and also your observations of the girls, both visually and and the way they respond, and also the aching for sin and how she, which is one of the which is the goddaughter of the main protagonist.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I thought was really interesting too was the observation of the mothers.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: So you then had because often, as we know, the girls grow up to be mothers, and there's also those cliques and those groups and those cool mothers versus the, I mean, there's all of that just gets replicated, I think.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: As you get older, it's hilarious.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, you know I'm terrified of the school gate.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Still, I've got two in high school, and it's kind of a relief that we don't have that intensity of the primary school years to have to deal with anymore.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: I have felt so kind of alone at the school gate, waiting for my, you know, younger children to come out.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I haven't felt like that since my school days.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: That's very interesting you say that because I can relate to that, but I think a lot of my listeners would too, because I mean, my three are through, and I was like, yay, I never have to do that whole thing again.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: And certainly primary school where you have to stand around with all the mothers and it some of who became, by the way, very close friends, and I'm sure you're the same.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you you have enormous connectivity at that time, but it's sort of a relief to then choose which who you want to do that with, basically.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: Once you leave, you sort of don't have to like be at every event and function and whatever.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's actually, yeah, it's sad that you I I relate to that, but I think it's sad that there's a lot of women that do feel alone at the school gate.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: And those mothers, you know, in the book, some of whom are strident and pushy, and and even the teacher she she feels bullied.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I just think as well as celebrating female connection and friendship, it's uh I I I quote in the book um uh psychologist who talks about how women bond and women connect.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: And I thought this was a really interesting philosophy, and I've seen it play out in circles around me, friendship circles amongst females.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the um and I can't remember her name, you'd have to go and get wing and I'm so sorry.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's right.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: But it's a really interesting philosophy.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Basically, she says women connect in those intense babyhood, child rearing years because women need a collective around them.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, back in Haveman times, they needed to be protected in a group while the men were out hunting and gathering.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all that.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: That's a bit like take it takes a village.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: It takes a village, yeah.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: So the women get their circles, get their tight-knit groups, but everyone has to be kind of similar.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: And if if one of the women displays difference, if she's an outlier in some way, it's the scapegoating syndrome.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Then those other women will work together to push her out of the group, which I think can be extraordinarily destructive.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Because if that woman is very, very different and thinks differently and has different ideas, she's kind of a threat to the group, and she's a threat to the thinking of the other women and to their life choices.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: So it's a really interesting philosophy of how women work and connect and how we push away some women.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was fascinated about by that, and I wanted to explore that in the book.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think you definitely did, and certainly the mothers.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: I got anxiety just reading about some of them.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: That was perfect.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: That's what you want.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: You want us to resonate.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: The missing male teacher is both loved by the protagonist, yet there's some doubt about what happened out there.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: What were you reflecting here?
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Was it the the sort of because he's a sort of a little bit of a mystery character?
26:40
SPEAKER_01: And is that was that a ref I mean, there was some innuendo that he may have either done something not so good.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna find these spoilers.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, because we haven't, no, we're not, but you know, it's like you immediately, especially in this sort of whole time of Diddy and God knows what else, right?
27:01
SPEAKER_01: You just your brain goes, what happened out there?
27:04
SPEAKER_01: What do you do?
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Right?
27:05
SPEAKER_01: And that's not necessarily a good thing because we love men, right?
27:10
SPEAKER_00: But exactly.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: I I really wanted to create a character.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: This is the this is the male teacher who goes in and tries to retrieve the girls.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to create a male character who is seen perhaps by the outside world as a bit of a dinosaur, pale male stale, that kind of thing.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: But the protagonist and also the writer um has incredible tenderness for a man like that because he's bewildered.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: He can sense around him that the ground is shifting under his feet.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He's used to, you know, being in the dominant position and having control.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: He's been raised to be that kind of man.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly all his certainties are becoming uncertain and shaky.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And I was fascinated.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: I I thought, you know, raising the stakes as a novelist, how can I do this?
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll make the principal and the deputy principal, this man, really great mates.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, he's the go-to man, he helps her, he's the disciplinarian of the school.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that they'll put their feet up on a desk on, you know, on a Friday afternoon after everyone's gone home, and they'll crack open a bottle of wine or something and go, Well, what a week, you know, that kind of thing.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, he was an ally.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like an ally in her journey to, you know.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: But I was also fascinated by how older women can see men like that with kind of fondness and affection.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: But younger generations of females look at a man like that with rage, with unforgiving rage.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I wanted to explore in wing two, the generational differences towards masculinity, and how we can possibly soften, soften to the complexities of life and to the failures that everyone holds within them, all of us.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, as we age, we see that, we recognize that, and we we loosen and we're more open to compromise, that kind of thing.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: We're more sort of tolerant, some of us, some, yeah, um, but yes, I mean it's all the rage before it.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm interested also, the power of fiction.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh, do you think it's been accelerated by the new raft of books being turned into Netflix series?
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Thinking of our friend Trent Dalton, who's like amazing what happened with his, you know, the trajectory was just incredible with Boy Swallows Universe and how it, you know, won all the awards and it became, and I mean, there's so many examples whether you look at big little lies, and they all started with beautiful Australian writers.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: I could see this becoming a series, I'll be honest.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: But hey, you'll just have to tap Reese with a spoon.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Just tell her that you're send her a copy, um, you know, or uh made up stories, send her a copy.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, but do you think that because I think that's wonderful because what we're getting is these beautiful opportunities for stories to be told, taken to the silver screen, not silver, the the Netflix screen, the TV.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: But what do you think?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look, I love it.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: And I love seeing Australian settings on screen.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, I love seeing 80s Brisbane, you know, with Trent's Boy Swallows Universe.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: I love seeing a health retreat that Nicole Kidden was at in the Byron Bay Hinterland.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I love seeing Australian accents on screen.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's it's a really exciting time to be a writer.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's hard financially, it's really hard to make a living.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know of any writer, possibly Trent, but I don't know of any other writer who can just exist as purely a fiction writer.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're all moonlighting doing something else for me.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: It's uh my column in the weekend Australian magazine.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: That is the only way I get a regular income, which buys me time to do what I really want to do, which is write fiction.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, other writers around me, they're working in bookshops or they're teaching, they're mentoring writing, that kind of thing.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, they're they're um moderating at writers' festivals and at book events.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: We're all doing something else to try and uh turn a buck in this, you know, this industry with very slim margins.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: I think the average wage for a novelist in Australia is about$18,000.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: If that's it's just insidious, it's insane.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I certainly, you know, I pivoted into publishing and into podcasting, and that's been great for me.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: But I also think, as you say, it takes enormous courage, focus, and I suppose financial compromise to do what you're doing.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: And yet, that is the backbone of our cultural essence to ensure that we do have great writers and great artists.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the same in the arts community, it's also challenging.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I interview a lot of artists, the musicians, you know.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Jane Harper was talking.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, Jane Harper, obviously with the dry, and she's done brilliantly, but you know, she was a journalist.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: She was a journo like you and me, and she she's found an incredible trajectory, but it's still required, you know, a long time before she got reaped those rewards.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: But it's a pivot, but a pivot without forfeiting what you love to do and what you're good at is not always so easy.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy, but I I went to a party the other day.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: It was um for a woman who turned 60.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: We had done our cadet ship back in the day at ABC Radio.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: And one of those old subs, who I must admit, was I was terrified of.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Me too.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: I was scared.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: I'd actually try and walk around the herald like the other side, so that I'd have to walk past the sub desk with all of them lined up like this.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: So one of them came up to me at that party a couple of weeks ago and she said, Nikki, you know, I I've seen so many people go through that newsroom over the years.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: She's only just retired herself.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Um, you were the only one who turned your passion into your profession.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow, that's a beautiful I guess I did.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: It's it's really hard.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: And and, you know, I don't have super.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and I just dream, I don't I'm terrified of, you know, my retirement years because I don't have those foundations of long service leave, holiday pays, superannuation, all the rest of it.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: And as I get older, it's like, you know, I need certainty.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: But it's like, was it worth turning my passion into my profession?
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: No regrets.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: It's given me a big life, a much bigger life than if I just stayed in that newsroom, that little newsroom, um, which I thought was at the time.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's so funny because it you felt like it was all defining at the time, and I remember the same as a cadet.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: But I think that I suppose it's an interesting notion of safety versus safety and comfort zones versus bravery and risk taking, and how you balance that, especially I know you've got children and you're trying to, you know, it it's challenging because you're trying to live your best life, honor your passion as you've done, and then also practically you still have to, you know, have the mortgage and the the food on the table and all of that, you know.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look, exactly.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: And when I was younger, I traded on the kind of image, the boho image of the kind of gypsy wanderer writer.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I was the young writer who went to Antarctica and and went off to Darwin and then Alice Springs and then chuffed off to London and all that kind of and that was my persona.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: I was always going to places as fuel for my fiction.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly I had a child, and then I had another one and another one and another one.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: And then you've got, don't you?
34:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: And such a rock star just doing that.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm exhausted just saying that.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And I get you.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: But but you know, suddenly I realized, gee, in my life, I need for them is routine, the power of routine and stillness and certainty, that that rock, that anchor of a home.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: So ever since I've had kids, I've just realized the importance of just staying put and settling.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: And that was really hard for many, many years because I loved just moving to other places because that always gave me fresh material for my writing.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly I I was, you know, a mum at home with four kids.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, but so hear you.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's such a such a universal experience for a lot of women I know that that, you know, I also was boho hippie flying around.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I do think if you get to middle age or you get to this stage of life, shall we say, and you can look back and go, hey, I did that, I played that gig, I went on that trip, I wrote that book.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, really honestly, in terms of, I don't know, but to, you know, from what you're saying, I feel the same.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: The value of those things, they're sort of you can't put a price on that because it's gone.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: It's done.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: Like you either did it or you didn't do it.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: And so, okay, so you got some financial catch-up, whatever.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, what a wonderful thing to have done with your life journey so far.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I feel really excited about the years ahead too.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my youngest is in year seven, so I've got about five years to go.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: But as soon as he's out the other side, it's like, oh, watch out world.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: I just want to seize it and you know, go to all the places that I never had a chance to go to.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about kind of the third trimester of living, of you know, what that is and where that will be.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're all very excited to see where that takes you to because if your past history is anything to go by, you're certainly an adventurer and explorer, even with four kids, betting you down as well.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh, they hate it.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're like, oh, where are we there, Mom?
37:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, whenever we're in the car, I often drive between Sydney and Melbourne and I take little side routes to obscure places and just the groans from the back seat.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: So, no, they don't like mum being the adventurer and the explorer.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
37:22
SPEAKER_01: They will look back and they'll realize just what an absolute blessing and gem.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: And also, you've carved yourself a really important um role in literary history in terms of both Australian and overseas, and that is in itself a feat.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: And we need to, as women, own our own journey as well, and that's challenging because we give birth and we we we nurture the children because it's a great honor to do that, but trying to hold on to oneself in the process.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: I think you've done a really amazing job.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: So go you.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: And go you, Deb.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: You are amazing too, and I love your podcast.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: I just love it, love it, love it.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: So just keep on going with those beautiful questions and those beautiful conversations that you have with so many interesting people.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: And thank you.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: That means a lot coming from you.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: You now go be still, be quiet, relax, and enjoy the peace.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: You've earned it.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: You've earned it.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, darling.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: Lots of love.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: You too.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Love Death.