Latest / The Book Deal / Irma Gold on managing constant crises of confidence, finding the spark in your writing and how to trick yourself into writing a novel.

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Irma Gold on managing constant crises of confidence, finding the spark in your writing and how to trick yourself into writing a novel. · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  This is the Book Deal podcast where you will discover the inspiring stories, the authors behind your favorite books.
• 0:15
  No matter what sage of writing you are at, we've got you covered.
• 0:19
  I'm Tina Strachan.
• 0:20
  And I'm Madeleine Cleary.
• 0:21
  And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors one deal at a time.
• 0:29
  Madeleine Cleary: The Book Deal Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters, which it's recorded on.
• 0:35
  Madeleine Cleary: And pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging..
• 0:43
  Madeleine Cleary: I had the joy of chatting with Irma Gold, Award-winning writer, editor, and podcaster just after the release of her brilliant second novel Shift, Out Now with Midnight Sun.
• 0:53
  Madeleine Cleary: Books in publishing recently said about Irma that she has cemented herself as a standout voice in Australian contemporary fiction Irma's.
• 1:01
  Madeleine Cleary: Writing accolades are numerous, so I will do my best to summarize them.
• 1:06
  Madeleine Cleary: Irma's Debut novel, the Breaking, Won the New South Wales Writers Center Varuna Fellowship, canberra Critic Circle Award and was shortlisted for the a ACT notable award for fiction.
• 1:17
  Madeleine Cleary: Irma's Short fiction was published in a collection called Two Steps Forward, and also has been widely published in journals and anthologies.
• 1:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Irma is also the author of Five Picture Books for Children most recently, where the Heart Is Irma has so much advice to give from all angles of the industry as an editor for over two decades and a co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, secrets from the Green Room.
• 1:42
  Madeleine Cleary: I hope you enjoy Irma Gold.
• 1:48
  Madeleine Cleary: Welcome to the book Deal podcast.
• 1:50
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you for having me.
• 1:52
  Madeleine Cleary: It's so exciting to do a podcast crossover as well.
• 1:55
  Madeleine Cleary: It is.
• 1:56
  Madeleine Cleary: It's so exciting.
• 1:57
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm so thrilled to be here with a fellow podcaster.
• 2:00
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 2:00
  Madeleine Cleary: And I see we're actually wearing matching green colors as well.
• 2:04
  Madeleine Cleary: I know.
• 2:04
  Madeleine Cleary: What are the odds?
• 2:07
  Madeleine Cleary: We're just already in sync.
• 2:08
  Madeleine Cleary: That's all right.
• 2:09
  Madeleine Cleary: So I'm so excited.
• 2:10
  Madeleine Cleary: We are here to talk about your latest novel shift, which, um, we were just talking about before we hit record is such a beautiful novel.
• 2:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I.
• 2:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Went straight through it, but I really wanna read it again so I can.
• 2:23
  Madeleine Cleary: Go sentence by sentence because it's so beautifully crafted.
• 2:27
  Madeleine Cleary: So congratulations on, thank you so much.
• 2:31
  Madeleine Cleary: Before we do though, I actually wanted to reflect, I, I don't think you know this little anecdote.
• 2:36
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I, so last year you were at the Sorento Writers Festival.
• 2:41
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I was visiting as a, uh, not, not as a writer or a speaker, but as an attendee.
• 2:47
  Madeleine Cleary: And I actually saw you from across room.
• 2:49
  Madeleine Cleary: We hadn't met yet.
• 2:51
  Madeleine Cleary: I saw you from across the room in the Conti and you were having lunch, I think, with some writers.
• 2:56
  Madeleine Cleary: And I recognize you because I'm a big fan of your podcast.
• 3:00
  Madeleine Cleary: And I was like, go Madeleine.
• 3:02
  Madeleine Cleary: Go introduce yourself to Irma say hello.
• 3:04
  Madeleine Cleary: Tell her how much you love the podcast.
• 3:06
  Madeleine Cleary: I.
• 3:07
  Madeleine Cleary: But I didn't, well,
• 3:09
  Irma Gold: I was too afraid.
• 3:09
  Irma Gold: Oh, it's, it's like a such a familiar story.
• 3:12
  Irma Gold: I remember being like that.
• 3:13
  Irma Gold: And sometimes I still am not so much anymore, but especially before you've been published, I think you feel like, oh, why would that person want to talk to me?
• 3:21
  Irma Gold: I have to say, I feel like it's a very odd thing when people say, say that to me, and they tell me these stories about how they were too scared to come and talk to me.
• 3:28
  Irma Gold: And I think it's just, I'm like, but why?
• 3:32
  Irma Gold: I'm just me.
• 3:33
  Irma Gold: But I remember feeling that way myself and.
• 3:36
  Irma Gold: So, I mean, I've said on our podcast quite a lot.
• 3:39
  Irma Gold: Really encouraging people to come up and say hello, because actually it's so great.
• 3:44
  Irma Gold: Like it's the best.
• 3:45
  Irma Gold: And we're all just writers together, you know?
• 3:48
  Irma Gold: That's great.
• 3:49
  Irma Gold: We all are interested in the same things.
• 3:50
  Irma Gold: We all wanna chat about the same things.
• 3:52
  Irma Gold: And I think there's very few writers who would sort of snub somebody.
• 3:58
  Irma Gold: I mean, they, you know, there are writers like that and there are stories like that, but I'm not one of them.
• 4:03
  Irma Gold: So everyone should come and
• 4:04
  Madeleine Cleary: say hello.
• 4:05
  Madeleine Cleary: That's right.
• 4:06
  Madeleine Cleary: All right.
• 4:06
  Madeleine Cleary: If you see Irma out and about.
• 4:08
  Madeleine Cleary: Go say hello to her.
• 4:08
  Madeleine Cleary: Absolutely.
• 4:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Please do.
• 4:12
  Madeleine Cleary: Do you think it's a bit of imposter syndrome before you're published where you feel like you're not part of that community and does, is that something that you've now got two novels out in the world and you've got a whole series of other books as well?
• 4:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Does this imposter syndrome ever go away?
• 4:25
  Irma Gold: I don't think it does, but I think certain things change like that cha what you're talking about there, that does really change, I think because once you, it's like any social gathering, right?
• 4:33
  Irma Gold: If you know a few people, it's not nearly so daunting and you've already kind of got a crew.
• 4:38
  Irma Gold: So, but you know, I've been to writers festivals, you know, sometimes where I don't know anyone.
• 4:43
  Irma Gold: And then that is then daunting until you see someone who you know.
• 4:48
  Irma Gold: So I do think it shifts.
• 4:50
  Irma Gold: There's definitely that period where you sort of feel like you're trying to break into that community.
• 4:55
  Irma Gold: Uh, and unless you already know people in it, that can just feel really hard until you're actually published.
• 5:01
  Irma Gold: But I think imposter syndrome just continues on.
• 5:04
  Irma Gold: I mean, we were talking just before we started recording about how.
• 5:09
  Irma Gold: You know, you have this worry before your book comes out.
• 5:12
  Irma Gold: Will everyone hate it?
• 5:13
  Irma Gold: You know, and everyone feels that still.
• 5:16
  Irma Gold: It doesn't matter how many books you've published, you have this absolute dread that, oh my God, what if nobody likes it?
• 5:22
  Irma Gold: And so for me, like you know, with Shift, when I got the first book, books and publishing review.
• 5:29
  Irma Gold: Which was said the most amazing things, like more than I could have possibly hoped for.
• 5:33
  Irma Gold: Like just such amazing things about the book and about me as a writer and the predominant emotion that I felt was relief.
• 5:42
  Irma Gold: And I, and I just think that's always the way.
• 5:44
  Irma Gold: So I don't think it ever, that self-doubt ever really goes away.
• 5:47
  Irma Gold: And you know, on Secrets from the Green Room, I've spoken to so many people now, you know.
• 5:51
  Irma Gold: People like Charlotte Wood and Christos Tsiolkas and you know, all these people who've had huge success and they all still have some element of that imposter syndrome.
• 6:00
  Irma Gold: Self doubt.
• 6:01
  Irma Gold: It's just, I think it's just part of being an artist actually.
• 6:04
  Irma Gold: And you know, in Shift, Arlie, the main character is a photographer.
• 6:09
  Irma Gold: I'm sure we'll get onto this, but.
• 6:10
  Irma Gold: He has this too.
• 6:11
  Irma Gold: And that's one of the things that I think is really common across the arts because it's such a vulnerable thing to put your workout into the world and have it judged essentially.
• 6:21
  Irma Gold: So it's really vulnerable.
• 6:22
  Irma Gold: There's, I think there's always gonna be self-doubt there.
• 6:25
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, that is very reassuring'cause I did just say earlier that I was awake at 3:00 AM wondering if everyone, well, one, if anyone's going to read my book, two, if everyone's gonna hate it, or three, which I think is even worse if there'll be like a neutral response to it.
• 6:41
  Madeleine Cleary: 3, 3, 3
• 6:42
  Irma Gold: and a half star.
• 6:43
  Irma Gold: I'm sure that won't happen.
• 6:45
  Irma Gold: I mean, you've got such a fa a fascinating premise for the book.
• 6:48
  Irma Gold: I'm very excited to read it, so I am sure that's not the case.
• 6:52
  Madeleine Cleary: Alright, now I wanna talk.
• 6:53
  Madeleine Cleary: So let's go back to the beginning because I'm really curious to know what was the first thing that you ever published, Irma?
• 7:00
  Madeleine Cleary: I
• 7:01
  Irma Gold: think it was a short story and I had a really.
• 7:05
  Irma Gold: Like unusual set of circumstances that probably set me up badly for thinking this is what writing and publishing was like, because it was a competition and I won first prize and then, you know, the, the local newspaper came and took my photo and, and like took the worst photo you could ever, I mean, I don't know why they took it from the ground looking up and I was young and they gave me a double chin.
• 7:31
  Irma Gold: I mean, come on.
• 7:34
  Irma Gold: Um, but yeah.
• 7:35
  Irma Gold: And there was prize money and, you know, it was all the things.
• 7:38
  Irma Gold: Was that for like a short story?
• 7:39
  Irma Gold: Yeah, it was a short, and it was a really short story.
• 7:42
  Irma Gold: Like, I can't remember how many words, but I know it was only one page.
• 7:45
  Irma Gold: Wow.
• 7:46
  Irma Gold: And that you got a photo your picture taken?
• 7:48
  Irma Gold: Yes.
• 7:48
  Irma Gold: It, well, it was part of reconciliation week.
• 7:51
  Irma Gold: Oh, okay.
• 7:52
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 7:53
  Irma Gold: So it, it was just like this lovely, lovely thing.
• 7:56
  Irma Gold: And I think I even got some like medallion type thing or something.
• 8:01
  Irma Gold: I can't, I can't remember now.
• 8:01
  Irma Gold: It's so long ago.
• 8:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Was that the first thing you'd ever written, or have you always wanted to be a writer?
• 8:07
  Irma Gold: So I, my mom taught me to read before I started school, and I just always wrote, I was always making books, but I didn't actually know you could be a writer.
• 8:16
  Irma Gold: I know that sounds kind of dumb, but I never Irmagined it.
• 8:19
  Irma Gold: You know, writers were these kind of hallowed beings.
• 8:22
  Irma Gold: I never conceived of being a writer, even though I was making my own books from I, I mean, as early as I can remember, and I think there are like a few things that happened along the way that.
• 8:34
  Irma Gold: All kind of fed into each other.
• 8:37
  Irma Gold: I still really distinctly remember when I was 16 and I'd just moved schools and I'd made friends with this girl called Simone, who is still one of my dearest friends.
• 8:47
  Irma Gold: And shortly after I started at the school, her mum died.
• 8:50
  Irma Gold: And I remember sitting there talking to her about it and I'd never had anybody close to me die.
• 8:56
  Irma Gold: And.
• 8:57
  Irma Gold: She was talking about how angry she was and how, you know, people were just saying these platitudes, the adults around her, and I remember.
• 9:05
  Irma Gold: Just feeling really kind of useless about how I could actually support her and help her.
• 9:10
  Irma Gold: And we were both big readers and we were, you know, doing lots of writing.
• 9:14
  Irma Gold: And so I went away and I wrote this short story from the perspective of a, a girl our age, but who has her grandmother die.
• 9:22
  Irma Gold: And I put all of the kind of feelings that I was observing in my friend into this young girl's character.
• 9:29
  Irma Gold: And when I gave it to her, she said, so vehemently.
• 9:34
  Irma Gold: That is exactly how I feel and no one understands that is exactly how I feel.
• 9:39
  Irma Gold: And I mean, it was such a, a great thing for me to be able to do for her.
• 9:43
  Irma Gold: But I remember it was the first moment where I went, oh.
• 9:47
  Irma Gold: I have actually been able to put myself into the shoes of someone else's lived experience, and it's not something I've experienced, but I've been able to make that feel true on the page.
• 9:58
  Irma Gold: And that was, I look back on that now and I think that was really pivotal.
• 10:01
  Irma Gold: I still didn't know I could be a writer at that point, but that was like really pivotal in me going, oh, this is actually something I can do.
• 10:10
  Irma Gold: And but to go full circle, just so it's not, not as great as it it sounds because then years later, so I went after school, I didn't know what to do.
• 10:19
  Irma Gold: I mean, it seems so obvious now that I would be a writer and an editor, but I had no idea.
• 10:24
  Irma Gold: I.
• 10:25
  Irma Gold: And so I went off to the UK and I was working terrible jobs and traveling and partying, and I stopped writing for the first time in my whole life.
• 10:33
  Irma Gold: And it was that moment of stopping writing when I realized, oh, this is actually something I have to do.
• 10:38
  Irma Gold: And that was when I decided I.
• 10:40
  Irma Gold: I dunno if I'd quite decided I was going to be a writer.
• 10:44
  Irma Gold: I think I probably had, but I decided I was gonna come back to Australia and study creative writing.
• 10:50
  Irma Gold: And in my first shoot of creative writing, we had to write a piece and I was just so like, oh my God, what can I write?
• 10:58
  Irma Gold: It's gotta be good.
• 11:00
  Irma Gold: I kept writing stuff and I couldn't come up with anything I was happy with.
• 11:03
  Irma Gold: And in the end I was like, you know what?
• 11:05
  Irma Gold: I'm going to use that story that I wrote when I was 16.
• 11:08
  Irma Gold: Now, at the time, that story got an a plus.
• 11:12
  Irma Gold: It was selected to go in the school.
• 11:14
  Irma Gold: You know, we had a magazine ended the, at the end of the year, featured the best works.
• 11:18
  Irma Gold: It went in there.
• 11:19
  Irma Gold: So, you know, it was generally regarded as an exceptional piece of writing.
• 11:23
  Irma Gold: Well, I gave that into my first shoot.
• 11:26
  Irma Gold: I had, uh, the brilliant Susan Hampton.
• 11:29
  Irma Gold: This was in Canberra, and she tore it to shreds, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me because I was like, right, if I actually wanna be a writer, I'm gonna have to step my game up.
• 11:43
  Irma Gold: That that story was a 16-year-old story.
• 11:46
  Irma Gold: It was not good enough.
• 11:47
  Irma Gold: So it was like, it was an amazing thing.
• 11:49
  Irma Gold: It was really, honestly, the best thing that could have happened to me.
• 11:52
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 11:52
  Madeleine Cleary: Don't rest on your laurels as a writer.
• 11:55
  Madeleine Cleary: Don't draw from your 16 yourself.
• 11:57
  Madeleine Cleary: I mean, draw from that, that, that, that nostalgia, those themes perhaps.
• 12:01
  Madeleine Cleary: But you can keep persisting.
• 12:02
  Madeleine Cleary: So what do you think?
• 12:04
  Madeleine Cleary: So, so, so you're studying creative writing.
• 12:07
  Madeleine Cleary: You, you sort of have this, now you've conceived an idea of being a writer and being a writer is something, where do you go from there?
• 12:13
  Madeleine Cleary: So you're writing of short fiction and you've published, um, in a, in a newspaper.
• 12:18
  Madeleine Cleary: You've won this competition.
• 12:19
  Madeleine Cleary: What, what next?
• 12:21
  Irma Gold: Well, the first thing was when I decided to do something, I throw my, my whole self in.
• 12:25
  Irma Gold: And so I was like, I am only gonna be a writer, and if that means I'm gonna live in a Garrett and earn no money, so be it.
• 12:33
  Irma Gold: And I had, in my second year, my tutor was Craig Cormick, who I did the first two seasons of The Secret from the Green Room podcast with, we are great friends, we've been friends since then.
• 12:44
  Irma Gold: But he said.
• 12:47
  Irma Gold: You know, you guys are gonna need to support yourself with something other than writing.
• 12:51
  Irma Gold: And I was just like, oh no, I'm not.
• 12:55
  Irma Gold: I'm just gonna, just gonna be a broke writer.
• 12:58
  Irma Gold: That's what I'm gonna do.
• 13:00
  Irma Gold: And, and then after a little bit I was like.
• 13:03
  Irma Gold: You know what?
• 13:04
  Madeleine Cleary: I think I might actually have to live.
• 13:06
  Madeleine Cleary: So after eating probably two minute noodles every night.
• 13:09
  Madeleine Cleary: The last two months.
• 13:10
  Irma Gold: Exactly.
• 13:11
  Irma Gold: So then I volunteered on an arts magazine, uh, in Canberra, which was called Muse Magazine.
• 13:18
  Irma Gold: It's, it's now defunct, but it was a magazine that had a long history and I started volunteering there.
• 13:24
  Irma Gold: And.
• 13:25
  Irma Gold: I thought, this is the only job I want.
• 13:27
  Irma Gold: So this is how I realized I wanted to be an editor as well.
• 13:30
  Irma Gold: It was the two kind of came in tandem for me.
• 13:32
  Irma Gold: And, and, and so I, I thought when, when I finished uni, I thought that's the only job I want to do.
• 13:41
  Irma Gold: And I thought the person doing that is never going to go somewhere else, so what am I gonna do?
• 13:46
  Irma Gold: And then a month later I get a call saying that she was moving to another position and would I take the deputy editor's job?
• 13:53
  Irma Gold: And then a year after that, the editor left and I interviewed for the job and I got the editor's job.
• 13:59
  Irma Gold: So my writing, my editing kind of happened in tandem.
• 14:03
  Irma Gold: And at that time I was starting to publish short stories and it kind of went on from there.
• 14:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Hmm.
• 14:10
  Madeleine Cleary: So your debut collection of short stories, two steps forward, so that was published in 2011.
• 14:16
  Madeleine Cleary: Was that the first, um, uh, sort of stories collection that you'd published?
• 14:21
  Irma Gold: Yes, it was.
• 14:22
  Irma Gold: So I'd had a couple of kids books out before then, which kind of happened accidentally.
• 14:27
  Irma Gold: How does publishing picture books happen accidentally, Irma?
• 14:30
  Irma Gold: Well, well I was working as, uh, an editor for the National Library of Australia and they decided to set up what is now a hugely successful children's publishing program.
• 14:43
  Irma Gold: And, uh, Susan Hall, who was then the publishing director, said to me.
• 14:49
  Irma Gold: Would you like to write a couple of children's books based on the collections?
• 14:55
  Irma Gold: And so I, and so I did What a great opportunity.
• 14:58
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 14:58
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 14:59
  Irma Gold: And they were great fun to do.
• 15:01
  Irma Gold: Uh, so that was, they were the first books I had published.
• 15:04
  Irma Gold: But yeah, they were kind of accidental and I.
• 15:06
  Irma Gold: For a while, some people thought that I was a children's author first, which I never was.
• 15:10
  Irma Gold: I was always writing adult fiction from the start.
• 15:14
  Irma Gold: And then with my short stories I submitted for, so that was published with a firm press as part of a series of five short fiction collections called Long Story Shorts.
• 15:27
  Irma Gold: They did a call out for submissions.
• 15:29
  Irma Gold: They got 450 submissions and I was, uh, shortlisted, but ultIrmately rejected.
• 15:38
  Irma Gold: And when I got the rejection letter from Martin Hughes, he said to me, would you like feedback?
• 15:44
  Irma Gold: And I was like, yeah, sure.
• 15:46
  Irma Gold: Now this is a lesson to everyone take up the opportunity to get feedback because apparently a lot of people never responded to that Irmail.
• 15:52
  Irma Gold: What really isn't that?
• 15:54
  Irma Gold: What isn't that gold though?
• 15:55
  Irma Gold: It's mind blowing to me.
• 15:57
  Irma Gold: You know, if ever if your work is rejected and, and it had been shortlisted, so it had got close, that feedback may not.
• 16:05
  Irma Gold: Tell you anything, but it also might, and definitely if someone's offering feedback, always take it.
• 16:11
  Irma Gold: So anyway, I said, yes, please.
• 16:13
  Irma Gold: And he went back to the two readers reports and they said really opposing things.
• 16:18
  Irma Gold: And so he thought, well, to give em a feedback, I'm actually gonna go away and read this manuscript.
• 16:23
  Madeleine Cleary: Wow.
• 16:23
  Madeleine Cleary: So
• 16:24
  Irma Gold: I know, which is amazing for publisher to do that.
• 16:26
  Irma Gold: So over his Christmas holiday, no less, he went away and read.
• 16:31
  Irma Gold: Manuscript, which became two steps forward, and then he phoned me to offer me a contract.
• 16:37
  Irma Gold: Oh my gosh, I just got shivers.
• 16:40
  Irma Gold: So it was such an amazing thing to be, to be shortlisted, rejected, and then get a contract.
• 16:46
  Irma Gold: So always, always say yes to feedback.
• 16:49
  Irma Gold: What was it like when you got that phone call?
• 16:51
  Madeleine Cleary: Pretty unexpected as well.
• 16:53
  Irma Gold: Yeah, it was totally unexpected.
• 16:55
  Irma Gold: It still, I think, is one of the best phone calls I've ever received.
• 16:59
  Irma Gold: Aw.
• 16:59
  Irma Gold: It was just, yeah, it was so exciting.
• 17:01
  Irma Gold: And that was my first adult fiction book, so yeah, it was, it was amazing.
• 17:05
  Irma Gold: And that was a beautiful series.
• 17:07
  Irma Gold: They did such a great job with that series.
• 17:09
  Madeleine Cleary: So, before we dive into talking about Shift, I just wanna ask about Sarah Ferguson and the Duchess of York.
• 17:17
  Madeleine Cleary: Can you tell me what, what she has had in your involvement in your career?
• 17:21
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, I don't know
• 17:23
  Irma Gold: how this happened.
• 17:24
  Irma Gold: I.
• 17:24
  Irma Gold: But my book, where the Heart Is, which is the children's book, was read by her on this.
• 17:31
  Irma Gold: I think it might have been during Covid that it started where she has this channel.
• 17:37
  Irma Gold: I don't know if she has it anymore.
• 17:38
  Irma Gold: I don't think she does.
• 17:39
  Irma Gold: But she had a, an enormous following and she would read these children's books and she, you know, it had a whole little set.
• 17:47
  Irma Gold: Like organized for her and the set for where the heart is, which is a story, and it's based on a true story about a penguin who.
• 17:55
  Irma Gold: Every year leaves the man who rescued him from an oil spin to return 6,000 kilometers away.
• 18:01
  Irma Gold: And then he comes all the way back again every year.
• 18:04
  Irma Gold: It's sort of scientifically unheard of.
• 18:06
  Irma Gold: And anyway, so I wrote this story and, but the set was hilarious.
• 18:10
  Irma Gold: It was like all this fruit, it was very pH looking.
• 18:13
  Irma Gold: It was really quite bizarre.
• 18:15
  Irma Gold: And then when she gets on to read, like she's obviously not read the book before and it is.
• 18:20
  Irma Gold: Hilarious.
• 18:21
  Irma Gold: It is the worst reading of that book that has ever been done.
• 18:25
  Irma Gold: But it got, but it was so great.
• 18:26
  Irma Gold: Like, and also because, you know, I was talking before about being that kid on my bedroom floor, writing my stories.
• 18:33
  Irma Gold: Well, I grew up in England and I was obsessed with the royal family, and I wrote a book about the marriage of Sarah Ferguson and the Prince who shall not be named.
• 18:43
  Irma Gold: Um, so to have her reading.
• 18:45
  Irma Gold: My book was extraordinarily like, I was just like my younger self would've been in a meltdown, like absolute meltdown.
• 18:54
  Irma Gold: So it's just the best thing.
• 18:56
  Irma Gold: 'cause it was just hilarious and terrible and wonderful and like, just extraordinary.
• 19:02
  Irma Gold: Like just, it's still so bizarre.
• 19:04
  Irma Gold: Is it on YouTube still?
• 19:05
  Irma Gold: It's still on YouTube.
• 19:06
  Irma Gold: People can, yeah, people can Google it.
• 19:08
  Irma Gold: It is, it's worth watching.
• 19:09
  Irma Gold: Just for the humor.
• 19:11
  Irma Gold: Just, I would say it's not really reflective of the writing.
• 19:14
  Irma Gold: Read it yourself.
• 19:15
  Irma Gold: 'cause you'll read it better than Sarah Ferguson.
• 19:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh my gosh.
• 19:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Amazing.
• 19:20
  Madeleine Cleary: Okay, well let's talk now about your, so you've moved from short fiction picture storybooks to novel writing.
• 19:28
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and you said that you've always been writing for adults.
• 19:32
  Madeleine Cleary: Was a novel always in mind for you?
• 19:35
  Irma Gold: I originally thought that I couldn't write a novel.
• 19:38
  Irma Gold: Like it just seemed an insurmountable thing.
• 19:41
  Irma Gold: How did you even do it?
• 19:42
  Irma Gold: I mean, I remember being at uni studying creative writing, thinking, oh, I just, I dunno that I could ever do that.
• 19:50
  Irma Gold: But I remember also having the same thought as an editor, like, how would I ever edit a novel?
• 19:54
  Irma Gold: And now I just, I'm editing novels constantly.
• 19:58
  Irma Gold: So I suppose over time I began to see that it might be something I could do.
• 20:03
  Irma Gold: I do have a novel zero, which we'll never see the light of day that I worked on for seven years and just could not get it to work.
• 20:11
  Irma Gold: There were just elements of it.
• 20:13
  Irma Gold: I couldn't, there, there are elements in that.
• 20:15
  Irma Gold: Book that are fantastic and there are other elements that are just so bad and I, it didn't hang together, but it was, you know, it was a training novel.
• 20:23
  Irma Gold: And then I think with my next book, the Breaking I, I actually tricked myself into writing that novel because I thought that I was writing a short story.
• 20:32
  Irma Gold: Which ended up being the first chapter.
• 20:34
  Irma Gold: And when I took it to my writing group, they were like, well, we want to know what happens next.
• 20:39
  Irma Gold: And so I thought, oh, maybe I'll write some, you know, um, some, oh, I can't think of the word now.
• 20:44
  Irma Gold: Join short stories.
• 20:45
  Irma Gold: What's the word?
• 20:47
  Irma Gold: You know what I mean?
• 20:48
  Irma Gold: Anyway.
• 20:48
  Irma Gold: Yeah, I know what you mean.
• 20:49
  Irma Gold: This.
• 20:50
  Irma Gold: I'm sorry, but this is menopause.
• 20:51
  Irma Gold: The simplest words go out of your brain.
• 20:54
  Irma Gold: Uh, do not look forward to it.
• 20:55
  Irma Gold: Also being on a, on publicity.
• 20:57
  Irma Gold: No, just menopause.
• 20:59
  Irma Gold: Anyway, so I went away and I wrote.
• 21:01
  Irma Gold: Not linked.
• 21:02
  Irma Gold: That's the word I was looking for.
• 21:03
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 21:03
  Irma Gold: See, not a hard word.
• 21:05
  Irma Gold: I went away and I wrote another short story and I brought that to my writing group and they again said, we wanna know what happens next.
• 21:12
  Irma Gold: And the wonderful John Clanchy, who is uh, my self-appointed mentor, uh, said to me, I think you might be writing a novel.
• 21:20
  Irma Gold: And so by that point, I think I had about 20,000 words.
• 21:23
  Irma Gold: So I'd kind of tricked myself into starting to write a novel and then it just happened.
• 21:27
  Irma Gold: Really easily from there, actually the breaking, yeah.
• 21:30
  Irma Gold: I don't know if I'll ever have a, a writing experience like that.
• 21:33
  Irma Gold: It just kind of flowed out of me.
• 21:35
  Madeleine Cleary: What a great way as well to sort of, you know, get people invested in you.
• 21:40
  Madeleine Cleary: Like they want to see the next part of the story, they wanna see the next chapter.
• 21:44
  Madeleine Cleary: I love that way of doing that and having that writing community around you can often be so important to keep.
• 21:49
  Madeleine Cleary: It's like, you know, when you sign up to go to a gym class, you, you and you go with a friend, your friend's gonna wait on you if you don't turn up, then.
• 21:57
  Madeleine Cleary: Your friend's gonna be on their own.
• 21:58
  Madeleine Cleary: So it's almost like doing things together.
• 22:00
  Irma Gold: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that if I hadn't have taken that work to that writing group, I would've just thought, oh yeah, I've written a short story.
• 22:07
  Irma Gold: Great.
• 22:08
  Madeleine Cleary: Exactly.
• 22:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Community.
• 22:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Very, very important.
• 22:10
  Madeleine Cleary: Very important.
• 22:11
  Madeleine Cleary: Okay.
• 22:11
  Madeleine Cleary: Let's talk about your second novel now.
• 22:13
  Madeleine Cleary: So Shift, which came out we, so on the 10th of March, so that's about a month.
• 22:17
  Madeleine Cleary: From recording.
• 22:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and this is, the setting is just an incredible place.
• 22:21
  Madeleine Cleary: Soweto in Johannesburg in South Africa, um, a place that I knew absolutely nothing about and ashamedly, I think it's, um, an incredible setting for a novel.
• 22:31
  Madeleine Cleary: So can you Irma Gold give us the, the, your elevator pitch for shift?
• 22:36
  Irma Gold: Oh my God, I, I'm so bad at doing an elevator pitch for this novel.
• 22:41
  Irma Gold: Okay.
• 22:44
  Irma Gold: I should be good at that.
• 22:46
  Irma Gold: But every time I see someone describe the book in a review, I think, wow, you've nailed that in a way that I have.
• 22:52
  Irma Gold: Not often the hardest thing, isn't it?
• 22:55
  Irma Gold: As an author, I feel like it's so, I actually find it really, really hard, and I think it's partly because there is so many things going on in this.
• 23:03
  Irma Gold: Book.
• 23:03
  Irma Gold: And you've got the complexity of all of that in your head, don't you?
• 23:06
  Irma Gold: And so it's just, I find distilling it into one sentence, I feel like I got it with the breaking, but with this book, I still don't have a good elevator pitch.
• 23:14
  Irma Gold: But anyway.
• 23:15
  Irma Gold: Has it
• 23:15
  Madeleine Cleary: changed?
• 23:15
  Madeleine Cleary: Have you found it's changed as well, like your pitch?
• 23:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Uh, yeah.
• 23:19
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm just not doing very well at it, Matt.
• 23:21
  Madeleine Cleary: Okay.
• 23:21
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm, I'm sure it'll be good.
• 23:22
  Madeleine Cleary: I actually, um, I understand'cause I had to pitch the Butterfly Women for the first time last week, um, at.
• 23:28
  Madeleine Cleary: My own, like I was being interviewed for a podcast and I was like doing it like five minutes before the interview, like just still tweaking things and I'm like, oh, I just, it's hard to distill and I think often it's a third person getting a third person to do it for you.
• 23:42
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 23:43
  Irma Gold: It really is.
• 23:43
  Irma Gold: I wish I could remember what the reviewers had said and then I could just quote that back.
• 23:47
  Irma Gold: I should be more onto this.
• 23:48
  Irma Gold: Um, the book is about Arlie, who is an Australian photographer.
• 23:53
  Irma Gold: He is in his thirties and he's just kind of failing at life, you know, really.
• 23:56
  Irma Gold: He's moderately successful, he's good at what he does, but you know, like many people in the arts, he's at that kind of mid-career stage where he is not kind of making it and he's.
• 24:07
  Irma Gold: Not got much money.
• 24:08
  Irma Gold: And he's also had a series of failed relationships.
• 24:11
  Irma Gold: And when he has another breakup, he decides that he needs something, he needs to do something different.
• 24:18
  Irma Gold: And he goes to South Africa where his mother was born and grew up because there's Myster mystery surrounding her growing up there.
• 24:26
  Irma Gold: And he's intrigued by the place and by her silence around the place.
• 24:31
  Irma Gold: And, uh, when he gets there, he ends up in Clip Town, which is a place where I've spent.
• 24:36
  Irma Gold: A lot of time and meets all these wonderful people and things kind of unfold from there.
• 24:42
  Irma Gold: This is the bit I find hard talking about without spoilers.
• 24:45
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 24:45
  Madeleine Cleary: Well leave that.
• 24:46
  Madeleine Cleary: I think that's a great cliffhanger to end it on and um, yeah, it's such a interesting, fascinating book and that pitch was wonderful.
• 24:52
  Madeleine Cleary: Yammer, you.
• 24:53
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, thank you.
• 24:54
  Madeleine Cleary: You did a great job.
• 24:55
  Madeleine Cleary: So don't beat yourself up.
• 24:56
  Madeleine Cleary: That was great.
• 24:57
  Madeleine Cleary: So much.
• 24:58
  Madeleine Cleary: Probably better than I can do.
• 25:04
  Emily Paull: Hi, my name is Emily Paul and I am the author of the Historical novel, the Distance Between Dreams, which is out now from FrIrmantle Press.
• 25:11
  Emily Paull: The novel is the story of Winston Keller, a young man from the working class who can't afford the luxury of a dream, and Sarah Willis, the daughter of an ambitious businessman who dreams of freeing herself from his expectations.
• 25:22
  Emily Paull: The two meet at a party, 1 19, 19 39, and fall for each other hard, but a long held secret that links their two families and the growing world.
• 25:30
  Emily Paull: Conflict of the Second World War pulls the two lovers apart.
• 25:34
  Emily Paull: Will they be able to find their way back to one another?
• 25:36
  Emily Paull: And if not, will they ever be able to move on?
• 25:39
  Emily Paull: This book has a little something for everyone, including music, dancing, Shakespeare, Australian Rules, football, Hollywood movies, punch up, and a dashingly, handsome American submariner and brings to life the West Australian port town of Fremantle, which was the second largest active port during World War ii after Pearl Harbor.
• 25:57
  Emily Paull: It's out now, just in time for Mother's Day or just for anyone who loves being transported back in time when they read.
• 26:06
  Madeleine Cleary: Tell us about your own family connection to South Africa.
• 26:10
  Irma Gold: Yeah, so my dad was born in Johannesburg in the year that apartheid officially began, and he's not South African, so his dad is French and his mom was English.
• 26:21
  Irma Gold: And, um, but he grew up there and then they left when he was about 15 or so.
• 26:26
  Irma Gold: So I was always fascinated with South Africa.
• 26:30
  Irma Gold: And when I was about 14, I read a book called Biko, which is by the journalist Donald Woods, who uncovered the, uh, well, basically how Steve Biko, who was one of the freedom fighters, was murdered under the apartheid regime.
• 26:45
  Irma Gold: And that book just totally fired me up.
• 26:48
  Irma Gold: I, you know.
• 26:50
  Irma Gold: I, I already had this fascination with South Africa, and from that point I just went and read everything I could get my hands on about the Freedom Fighters and, you know, then I went into fiction, you know, Doris Lessing, Andre Brink, and I was just reading everything I could and I.
• 27:06
  Irma Gold: Soweto was the heart of that resistance movement, and I just always wanted to go there.
• 27:13
  Irma Gold: And it's, it's kind of, it's not really the place most people would have on their bucket list.
• 27:17
  Irma Gold: It's not a holiday, typical holiday.
• 27:18
  Irma Gold: It's not a holiday destination.
• 27:20
  Irma Gold: But, uh, I, I had wanted to go there my whole life and in fact, two of my brothers made it there 10 years before I got there.
• 27:29
  Irma Gold: And both of them separately came on, you know, trips with me to Soweto and it just.
• 27:35
  Irma Gold: It.
• 27:35
  Irma Gold: You know, I'd been so obsessed with the place my whole life.
• 27:38
  Irma Gold: And then to get there, I just became more obsessed with it.
• 27:41
  Irma Gold: And on this one time that I was there in Soweto, my brother and I, my brother is an architect, so I drew on him for the character of Harris Arlie's dad and I, I chose to have him as an architect because actually, you know, when I was.
• 27:57
  Irma Gold: When I was there with my brother Albert, you realize what a fascinating perspective that is on a place like Clip Town, uh, which is, you know, it's mostly Tin shacks.
• 28:07
  Irma Gold: There are some brick buildings that were built during apartheid, but they're tiny and they're very basic.
• 28:14
  Irma Gold: Uh, but on that, on that last day in Soweto, we didn't really know what to do and we went to, uh, clip Town to look at this memorial to the Freedom Charter.
• 28:23
  Irma Gold: Where the Freedom Charter was signed.
• 28:25
  Irma Gold: It's actually the 70th anniversary of the charter this year, which is kind of amazing timing for my, my book.
• 28:31
  Irma Gold: And we met this guy called Bonani who said to us, you know, would you like me to show you around Clip Town?
• 28:37
  Irma Gold: And we just ended up spending the whole day with him and his cousin Jacob.
• 28:41
  Irma Gold: And it was just amazing.
• 28:42
  Irma Gold: And I was like, oh my God, I wanna come back here.
• 28:45
  Irma Gold: So the next time I went back with, uh, my other brother Roland, and we worked.
• 28:51
  Irma Gold: Sky, which is the Soweto Clickdown youth and organization that basically looks after kids after school and gives them a place to come that's safe and you know, plays games with them.
• 29:02
  Irma Gold: You know,'cause their parents might be in job at work, so they're actually unsupervised.
• 29:07
  Irma Gold: You know, sometimes the kids as young as three are unsupervised and so it gives them a place to come.
• 29:12
  Irma Gold: It gives them someone who can help them with their homework.
• 29:15
  Irma Gold: And sometimes there's food, which is important.
• 29:19
  Irma Gold: Yeah, I mean, I just was welcomed into, I like unbelievably welcomed into this community.
• 29:24
  Irma Gold: Like it makes me quite emotional talking about it.
• 29:26
  Irma Gold: And Bob Nameng, who's the founder of Sky, just, you know, he said to me when I was there, Immer, you have to write about Soweto.
• 29:35
  Irma Gold: And I was already thinking about it, so I was like, okay, Bob's given me the green light.
• 29:40
  Irma Gold: Uh, but you know, his support, just like, you know, we were talking before about the reviews.
• 29:47
  Irma Gold: And the reviews are amazing.
• 29:48
  Irma Gold: And you know, like when you get, uh, you know, I've just got a couple of five star reviews and like, it's just unbelievably amazing.
• 29:56
  Irma Gold: But to me, Bob's support means more than anything.
• 30:00
  Irma Gold: And also Niq Mhlongo, who's, you know, an international author, but a sweat, an author who's published like 10 books and.
• 30:07
  Irma Gold: You know, I asked him to come on my podcast, which he agreed to, which blew me away.
• 30:11
  Irma Gold: And then I asked him if he might consider reading my manuscript, which he did.
• 30:15
  Irma Gold: And I know like endorsements in the industry are often just like, oh yeah, they're friends with that person.
• 30:20
  Irma Gold: But Niq had no reason to endorse my book at all.
• 30:23
  Irma Gold: And so I.
• 30:24
  Irma Gold: For him to do.
• 30:25
  Irma Gold: That means more than anything, you know, with, with the fact that he's written these 10 novels set in Soweto.
• 30:30
  Irma Gold: So I've gone, I've forgotten your question and I've gone off on a total 10.
• 30:34
  Madeleine Cleary: No, no.
• 30:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, I was just absorbed in your answer then.
• 30:36
  Madeleine Cleary: It's, I think it's a amazing, and it, it, did you, did you experience, I guess some trepidation, um, about writing a novel set in Soweto given where, you know, you are writing about a culture that's very different to your own in a country that's not your own.
• 30:52
  Madeleine Cleary: How do you approach.
• 30:53
  Madeleine Cleary: Making sure you, you get that story right?
• 30:55
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 30:56
  Irma Gold: I mean, it's something I thought about constantly during the writing of this book and you know, what the ethical implications were from my creative choices.
• 31:05
  Irma Gold: Sometimes I actually found, thinking about it, almost paralyzing.
• 31:08
  Irma Gold: There were points during the writing of the book where, where it actually stopped me from writing because.
• 31:14
  Irma Gold: I'm a huge supporter of own voices writing, you know, stories by, um, marginalized peoples from their own experience.
• 31:22
  Irma Gold: And I work as an editor with a lot of First Nations authors and illustrators.
• 31:27
  Irma Gold: I've, I've kind of become a bit of a go-to editor for First Nations work and I love doing that, and it's really important to me to be a part of getting that diversity of work out to Australian readers.
• 31:40
  Irma Gold: So, but I also do think that it's possible to Irmaginatively understand people with different lived experiences to your own.
• 31:48
  Irma Gold: But obviously it has to be done really respectfully, really carefully.
• 31:53
  Irma Gold: And you know, I very deliberately, I.
• 31:57
  Irma Gold: Tell shift through the eyes of Arlie, who is an Australian, uh, and who is an outsider.
• 32:02
  Irma Gold: So he's also able to reflect on, you know, the own, his own ethical dilIrmas that he's facing because he's creating this exhibition of work to really show what, so what he's, so, he's, he's a photographer of people and he, he.
• 32:19
  Irma Gold: Gets people to sort of see inside people.
• 32:21
  Irma Gold: So he's putting together this exhibition, and in doing that, he's also reflecting on, you know, his own privilege and his own role as, you know, an outsider in a community that he will never fully be, you know, a, a part of, in a sense.
• 32:36
  Irma Gold: He will always be slightly a part so.
• 32:40
  Irma Gold: I thought about that a lot.
• 32:42
  Irma Gold: I also asked my dear friend Ama Kalani to read the manuscript and just make sure that I hadn't got anything wrong culturally and was really heartened that there were only a couple of very tiny things that she picked up.
• 32:58
  Irma Gold: And also she was able to pick up where I got the Kasi language wrong.
• 33:01
  Irma Gold: So Kasi is like the, and slang, so I, that was so helpful to me that she, um.
• 33:08
  Irma Gold: Picked up all of you know, the things that I hadn't got quite right and sometimes gave me a different suggestion.
• 33:14
  Irma Gold: But I will say for your listeners, if they're using sensitivity readers, this is something that I think is so important.
• 33:21
  Irma Gold: Even though Ama Kalani was my friend, I made sure that I paid her appropriately for her work.
• 33:26
  Irma Gold: And I would say, do not ask a sensitivity reader to read your manuscript unless you can pay them appropriately.
• 33:33
  Irma Gold: I think that's really, really important.
• 33:35
  Irma Gold: I.
• 33:35
  Madeleine Cleary: Yep.
• 33:36
  Madeleine Cleary: And completely fair, I think absolutely.
• 33:38
  Madeleine Cleary: Talking about Arlie then, and he feels this sense of belonging to the community almost, even though he is an outsider, he feels almost more at home in clip down than he does in back in, um, in Melbourne.
• 33:51
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, talk a little bit about expat and that.
• 33:55
  Madeleine Cleary: Discomfort that sometimes though you feel, even though you do feel that sense of belonging sometimes to a community, you also are very aware of your own sense of privilege, which I think Arlie talks about in the book perhaps, and explores that.
• 34:07
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, do you, why you, you seem to be drawn, I suppose, to the expat experience.
• 34:12
  Madeleine Cleary: What, why do you think that is?
• 34:13
  Madeleine Cleary: What's so interesting about the expat life?
• 34:17
  Irma Gold: Yeah, that's, that's an interesting question and it's also an interesting observation that Arlie feels more at home in Soweto than he does in Melbourne.
• 34:29
  Irma Gold: You know, the book is also set partly in Brunswick.
• 34:32
  Irma Gold: Uh, and he, and I think part of that is because it's such a welcoming community and like I've experienced that myself.
• 34:40
  Irma Gold: There's this word tu, where you don't walk past somebody without acknowledging them and saying hello.
• 34:46
  Irma Gold: So you walk down the street and it's just the most joyful thing.
• 34:49
  Irma Gold: Everyone's high fiving you and like, you know, it's just like so gorgeous and, you know, people are so open and so welcoming and.
• 34:59
  Irma Gold: One of the things that I love about the Swaran people is that they are like, they speak their mind.
• 35:04
  Irma Gold: They're very open.
• 35:05
  Irma Gold: They tell you exactly what they're thinking.
• 35:07
  Irma Gold: I'm a very open person to my detriment sometimes, so we're on the same wavelength.
• 35:13
  Irma Gold: Uh, but you know, Arlie, he is, he is aware of that sense of privilege and, you know.
• 35:21
  Irma Gold: There's that discrepancy between, I think so for example, in Australia right now we're going through an economic crisis, as is the world.
• 35:29
  Irma Gold: And a lot of people feel that they're struggling and a lot of people are struggling.
• 35:33
  Irma Gold: But if we look at a place like Soweto, we are so fortunate.
• 35:38
  Irma Gold: Like even as writers, you know, the average income of a writer is so low, but you know, like.
• 35:45
  Irma Gold: You go to Soweto and people are maybe eating one meal a day and they're struggling to get one meal a day.
• 35:51
  Irma Gold: In Clip Town where I've spent the most time, there's 80% unemployment.
• 35:55
  Irma Gold: Mm.
• 35:56
  Irma Gold: You know, there's no electricity unless you illegally patch into the um system.
• 36:01
  Irma Gold: There's no sewage system.
• 36:03
  Irma Gold: There's no school for the kids, so they have to walk, you know, every day.
• 36:07
  Irma Gold: So.
• 36:08
  Irma Gold: You know, Arlie, he doesn't have much money.
• 36:10
  Irma Gold: And in fact he, you know, he's very aware though that he can call on his brother Griff.
• 36:15
  Irma Gold: Yes.
• 36:15
  Irma Gold: Who is a lawyer.
• 36:16
  Irma Gold: Exactly.
• 36:17
  Irma Gold: Who, and he, he doesn't want to call on him.
• 36:19
  Irma Gold: He's his younger brother.
• 36:20
  Irma Gold: And you know, Griff, I.
• 36:23
  Irma Gold: Is sort of regarded by his father as the successful one.
• 36:26
  Irma Gold: You know, he's got a great job and he's got this gorgeous fiance and he seems to also be even good at, you know, every hobby he tries.
• 36:34
  Irma Gold: And so in comparison, Arlie feels like he's a bit of a failure in his fathIrma's eyes, but you know, Arlie has that option.
• 36:40
  Irma Gold: Mm-hmm.
• 36:40
  Irma Gold: Arlie can, you know, it might bruise his ego, but he can phone up.
• 36:46
  Irma Gold: You know his brother and say, Hey, I need some money.
• 36:49
  Irma Gold: Mm-hmm.
• 36:50
  Irma Gold: And Gloria, who is the woman who he falls for, you know, points out in many ways Arlie's privilege.
• 36:57
  Irma Gold: Mm-hmm.
• 36:57
  Irma Gold: And I love Glory.
• 36:59
  Irma Gold: She's one of my, oh, she's the best.
• 37:00
  Irma Gold: She's one of my favorite characters.
• 37:03
  Madeleine Cleary: She is a wonderful character.
• 37:04
  Madeleine Cleary: She was beautiful.
• 37:06
  Madeleine Cleary: I
• 37:06
  Irma Gold: will say that she came from this.
• 37:09
  Irma Gold: One thing that happened, so my brother and I, this one time were invited to go to the rehearsal of the local gospel choir, which is all like kind of young, you know, they're all sort of 18, 20, 25, and it was in the choir Masters Shack.
• 37:25
  Irma Gold: So these are very small, like the whole house is smaller than.
• 37:30
  Irma Gold: You know, most people's dining room, for example.
• 37:32
  Irma Gold: And so all the furniture was shoved up against the wall, like the couch was up on one side and the whole choir was jammed in there.
• 37:39
  Irma Gold: And so we were jammed in with them and it was the most powerful musical experience I've had in my whole life because we are there and you just got the music coursing through your body and it's just, it's incredible.
• 37:52
  Irma Gold: And there was this one, there was this one young girl who was so gorgeous.
• 37:58
  Irma Gold: And had it such a phenomenal voice.
• 38:02
  Irma Gold: And I just remember coming away.
• 38:04
  Irma Gold: She just made, I didn't talk to her'cause we just came in for the rehearsal and we went out before they all broke up.
• 38:09
  Irma Gold: So some of the people I knew from other, you know, being around Clip Town, but I didn't know her and I didn't see her again.
• 38:15
  Irma Gold: But she sparked the character of Glory.
• 38:17
  Irma Gold: 'cause I started thinking about, you know.
• 38:20
  Irma Gold: What would it be like for somebody who's got this incredible voice but they're in a place like Clip Town, you know, what would that actually be like and this kind of desperation to find something better.
• 38:33
  Irma Gold: And yeah, so she was, even though, I dunno who she was and I dunno anything about her, she was the, the spark for that character of glory.
• 38:41
  Madeleine Cleary: Gloria I think represents to me this novel and how it's not trying to be simplistic in its message.
• 38:48
  Madeleine Cleary: Obviously Apartheid has left a terrible legacy.
• 38:51
  Madeleine Cleary: There's hardship, poverty in Clip Town from the outside.
• 38:55
  Madeleine Cleary: I think I remember Arlie's parents.
• 38:57
  Madeleine Cleary: I.
• 38:57
  Madeleine Cleary: Googling the crime stats in Soweto.
• 39:00
  Madeleine Cleary: So concerned that he's living there and not really comprehending the reason why, but when you dig under the surface, like you have done with your brothers, that there's so many amazing moments of joy and light and art and um, and, and that sense of hope, which I think is really interesting.
• 39:18
  Madeleine Cleary: So it's, it's, it's.
• 39:19
  Madeleine Cleary: A novel that, um, to me wasn't trying to preach a particular type of message.
• 39:24
  Madeleine Cleary: It was just trying to show that beautiful community.
• 39:27
  Madeleine Cleary: Like you said, people when you walk down the street would give you a high five and say hello and unlikely probably in Brunswick to do, to do that.
• 39:35
  Madeleine Cleary: No happening to be in Brunswick, that's for sure.
• 39:38
  Madeleine Cleary: But you know, you've got the passion of people who are.
• 39:42
  Madeleine Cleary: Falling out what those, those types of hardships.
• 39:45
  Madeleine Cleary: But then at the same time, you've got others like the choir master in your novel who, um, are championing those, those messages of hope for, for a better future.
• 39:54
  Irma Gold: Yeah, and I think, I mean, I think the novel asks the reader to consider a series of questions, but there's no answers because That's right.
• 40:03
  Irma Gold: It's such a complex situation there and.
• 40:07
  Irma Gold: You know, there, there are no answers.
• 40:09
  Irma Gold: But the other thing is as well, you know, life is, life is complex.
• 40:13
  Irma Gold: So at the Melbourne launch, Catherine Collette asked me, so she was interviewing me and, and she asked, you know, is there any point really, I can't remember what the exact question was, but basically is there any point to art in a world where we just have so much going on and, you know, all of these terrible things happening?
• 40:30
  Irma Gold: But in the context of shift, I think it's actually a really pertinent question because without.
• 40:37
  Irma Gold: How could you survive?
• 40:39
  Irma Gold: Know, it in Soweto there is so much music and so much dance and you know, the arts are just even more vital and important in a place like that because without that, there's no joy and.
• 40:53
  Irma Gold: I don't want people to have the idea that this novel is really hard going because there is so much joy in it.
• 40:58
  Irma Gold: That's right.
• 40:58
  Irma Gold: It it is a reflection of life.
• 41:00
  Irma Gold: And also the other thing is sometimes I always want to talk about Soweto'cause I'm obsessed with it.
• 41:05
  Irma Gold: But the thing is, the book is really about people and about relationships.
• 41:09
  Irma Gold: And that's really what is at the heart of all of my writing, I think is, is those relationships between people.
• 41:16
  Irma Gold: I.
• 41:16
  Madeleine Cleary: And finding that connection.
• 41:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 41:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Even if it's in a place very different to your own.
• 41:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah,
• 41:22
  Irma Gold: absolutely.
• 41:23
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 41:24
  Madeleine Cleary: Before we finish up, I wanna talk about your editing experience because I feel like you've got some great advice to give to emerging writers.
• 41:34
  Madeleine Cleary: You, um, have over two decades experience as, um, in-house and freelance editor.
• 41:40
  Madeleine Cleary: You also help out writers individually as well, preparing for submissions to, um, publishers.
• 41:47
  Madeleine Cleary: What do you think, is there anything that stands out with those manuscripts that you review that goes, oh yes, this is going to get published.
• 41:55
  Madeleine Cleary: Is there anything common, or, or, or even if not, what advice would you have to emerging writers when making their submissions?
• 42:03
  Madeleine Cleary: I.
• 42:04
  Irma Gold: I don't think I can ever say this is going to get published because it is so hard to get published and so many amazing books do not get published, and so many terrible books do get published.
• 42:17
  Irma Gold: So just because I have a manuscript that deserves to be published on my desk, it does not mean that it will be published.
• 42:24
  Irma Gold: And so I'm always very.
• 42:26
  Irma Gold: Cautious in in what I say, but there are definitely many books that deserve to be published.
• 42:34
  Irma Gold: That is for sure.
• 42:35
  Irma Gold: The one thing that they all have in common is a spark.
• 42:39
  Irma Gold: It's like the X factor, and this is what any publisher is looking for.
• 42:43
  Irma Gold: It's.
• 42:44
  Irma Gold: Something that's indefinable, which is very unhelpful.
• 42:49
  Irma Gold: But I think it comes from when the writer is writing about something that they're passionate about.
• 42:55
  Irma Gold: So like your novel has come out of something that you were interested in about your own family and that's driven you wanting to find more and, and, you know.
• 43:04
  Irma Gold: Write that book.
• 43:05
  Irma Gold: And it's the same with me with Soweto.
• 43:07
  Irma Gold: Like I was always fascinated with that place.
• 43:10
  Irma Gold: And then there's so many other things in the book, you know, like I've always loved photography and, you know, playing on the different ways of seeing.
• 43:16
  Irma Gold: And you know, the book is also about art making and, you know, some of the things we've been talking about, you know, self-doubt and the, the, the creative process and all of those things.
• 43:26
  Irma Gold: So they're all things that I'm interested in exploring and.
• 43:30
  Irma Gold: I think when you are passionate about something and you genuinely care about something, it carries with it a little spark.
• 43:38
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 43:38
  Irma Gold: And and that is the thing that makes a manuscript alive.
• 43:42
  Irma Gold: I.
• 43:44
  Irma Gold: So Charlotte Wood talks about writing where the heat is.
• 43:47
  Irma Gold: I think that's such a good thing to remember because if you write where the heat is, you'll always have that spark.
• 43:53
  Irma Gold: And then the technical things, you know, you can have an editor help you with those, but the spark has to be there.
• 44:00
  Irma Gold: An editor can't insert a spark into your work if it's not there.
• 44:04
  Irma Gold: It's just not there.
• 44:06
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 44:06
  Madeleine Cleary: So great advice.
• 44:07
  Madeleine Cleary: And actually, I think it was an episode that, uh, on your podcast secret from the Green room, um, that Karen Viggers did with Cate Kennedy.
• 44:14
  Madeleine Cleary: And Kate said, you know, you should.
• 44:16
  Madeleine Cleary: Stands to your desk.
• 44:18
  Madeleine Cleary: I love that concept.
• 44:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 44:19
  Madeleine Cleary: That, that feeling of joy in your writing find.
• 44:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 44:22
  Madeleine Cleary: And that's that again, that heat, that spark that.
• 44:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, that's the reason why we wanna write and explore.
• 44:29
  Madeleine Cleary: Absolutely.
• 44:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Your passion for Soweto has driven this beautiful novel.
• 44:34
  Madeleine Cleary: So I think, yeah, I think that's wonderful advice.
• 44:37
  Madeleine Cleary: And um, yeah, something that.
• 44:40
  Madeleine Cleary: Unless it comes from you, it's, it's not gonna come from anybody else.
• 44:44
  Irma Gold: That's right.
• 44:44
  Irma Gold: And you know, I've seen publishers speak where they say, you know, I didn't know that I was interested in a novel on X until it landed on my desk.
• 44:54
  Irma Gold: Mm-hmm.
• 44:54
  Irma Gold: Because it's.
• 44:54
  Irma Gold: Because it's the way that it's written and if it comes from that, you know, spark of fascination and passion and interest, then it will be alive on the page.
• 45:04
  Irma Gold: And that is, that is the crucial thing.
• 45:06
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 45:07
  Irma Gold: All the other stuff you can work with an editor to improve.
• 45:10
  Irma Gold: I obviously also do love books that are beautifully written.
• 45:14
  Irma Gold: And again, that is something, I mean, when you work with an editor, they ta as you would know, they take your work to the next level.
• 45:21
  Irma Gold: Absolutely.
• 45:21
  Irma Gold: So they can't, they, they can't make it something it's not, but they will help you get it to the next level.
• 45:26
  Irma Gold: And so I love it when a manuscript arrives and I can see the promise in the writing and I can see the sparks there.
• 45:32
  Irma Gold: And you know, it's a good thing for people to know when they're submitting that you can tell that from reading a paragraph.
• 45:37
  Irma Gold: You know, I, I, I work for publishers as an editor and I also work for individual authors, and I'm very selective about the individual authors who I take on, uh, because I wanna enjoy the work and if I enjoy it, I'm also gonna be able to give, you know, really useful feedback.
• 45:56
  Irma Gold: And I can tell immediately within that first paragraph if I want to edit a book or not.
• 46:01
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 46:03
  Madeleine Cleary: How do you approach the editing of your own work?
• 46:05
  Madeleine Cleary: Uh, well,
• 46:06
  Irma Gold: everybody needs an editor, me included.
• 46:08
  Irma Gold: I, I feel like you just, there's certain, I do think working as an editor, I'm thinking about structure and plot and pacing and characterization every day, working on people's books, and I know that has made me a better writer.
• 46:24
  Irma Gold: I can't quantify it.
• 46:25
  Irma Gold: I can't, you know, make direct links, but I know that.
• 46:29
  Irma Gold: I'm thinking about those things every day.
• 46:31
  Irma Gold: So it has definitely, I think, made me a better writer, but I still need an editor.
• 46:37
  Irma Gold: And in fact, you know, I've worked with John, the brilliant John Clanchy, who should be better known than he is'cause he is, uh, just an unbelievable writer.
• 46:47
  Irma Gold: Uh, I've worked with him on both the breaking and shift and he.
• 46:51
  Irma Gold: Has helped me take both of those books absolutely.
• 46:53
  Irma Gold: To the next level.
• 46:54
  Irma Gold: He's also made really hard calls, like with Shift.
• 46:58
  Irma Gold: There was in, and I'd forgotten this, this is how much the book has moved on.
• 47:02
  Irma Gold: I opened up this old Irmail from him where I was like, oh, that's right.
• 47:05
  Irma Gold: There was this whole other character in the book who was a major character who he said she has got to go.
• 47:11
  Irma Gold: Mm-hmm.
• 47:11
  Irma Gold: And I remember it was really hard at the time.
• 47:14
  Irma Gold: I was like, ah, I know he is right, but it's just really hard to do.
• 47:18
  Irma Gold: And I cut her out and as soon as I cut her out the book.
• 47:21
  Irma Gold: Just took flight.
• 47:22
  Irma Gold: Mm-hmm.
• 47:23
  Madeleine Cleary: So he
• 47:23
  Irma Gold: was absolutely right.
• 47:24
  Irma Gold: And I, I mean, I always know, you know, when the editor tells you something That's right.
• 47:28
  Irma Gold: Even when it's hard and you think, oh God, damnit, yeah.
• 47:31
  Irma Gold: Yep.
• 47:32
  Irma Gold: I knew
• 47:32
  Madeleine Cleary: that,
• 47:33
  Irma Gold: but I didn't wanna have to do it.
• 47:35
  Irma Gold: Uh, and with the breaking, like the book is in three parts and originally, so the whole book is set in Thailand, but originally the third part, I brought the characters back to Australia and I feel like I did that against their will.
• 47:49
  Irma Gold: You know, when you feel like characters actually want you to take them in a certain direction, and if you don't let them go where they wanna go, the book becomes a dead thing.
• 47:57
  Irma Gold: It doesn't work.
• 47:57
  Irma Gold: And so that last part, it just lost pacing.
• 48:01
  Irma Gold: It lost energy, it lost its spark.
• 48:04
  Irma Gold: Mm-hmm.
• 48:04
  Irma Gold: And when I gave it to John, he said, you know what?
• 48:07
  Irma Gold: How about you try just scrapping part three and keeping it in Thailand and as soon as I started writing that it had the same energy.
• 48:16
  Irma Gold: It just flowed in a way, the part three, the original part three had not, and so.
• 48:23
  Irma Gold: You know that that's what happens when you work with a good editor.
• 48:25
  Irma Gold: So I need a good editor just like everybody else.
• 48:28
  Madeleine Cleary: Okay, so you're not superhuman woman?
• 48:30
  Madeleine Cleary: No.
• 48:31
  Madeleine Cleary: Okay.
• 48:31
  Madeleine Cleary: That's good to know.
• 48:32
  Madeleine Cleary: That's good to, I can
• 48:32
  Irma Gold: pick what's wrong with other people's manuscripts immediately, but then with my own, I'm like, oh my God, how did I not see that?
• 48:39
  Irma Gold: Like that's the first thing I would've noticed in someone else's book, but like in my own.
• 48:44
  Irma Gold: I don't necessarily see it.
• 48:46
  Irma Gold: You're so, yeah.
• 48:47
  Irma Gold: You're so, you're so deep in it.
• 48:49
  Madeleine Cleary: So true.
• 48:50
  Madeleine Cleary: And it's almost feels like, I think you, as you go along, do you feel like you get better at spotting when it is not following the path that it should and you are able to retract?
• 49:00
  Madeleine Cleary: Or do you feel like it's something that you see with, with hindsight?
• 49:04
  Irma Gold: I don't know.
• 49:06
  Irma Gold: I feel like I'm not necessarily getting better at that.
• 49:10
  Irma Gold: I mean, I didn't have any major wrong turns in shift, but I wrote it quite differently to the breaking, the breaking I wrote from start to end.
• 49:18
  Irma Gold: And the shift I shift, I wrote, I.
• 49:20
  Irma Gold: In different pieces.
• 49:22
  Irma Gold: I shifted around as I was writing
• 49:24
  Madeleine Cleary: it,
• 49:24
  Irma Gold: so I, I don't, but I did.
• 49:26
  Irma Gold: So I didn't have anything major like that with Shift, but I had different problIrma's I feel like every book is its own thing, and you have a different set of problems with every book, and I'm sure, maybe it's Charlotte Wood, I can't remember who said this, but it's like you learn how to write that book, so you go, oh, I know how to write that book now.
• 49:44
  Irma Gold: It doesn't mean you know how to write the next one.
• 49:48
  Madeleine Cleary: Okay.
• 49:48
  Madeleine Cleary: Well this is really reassuring to me as I'm trying struggling slash struggling to write book two.
• 49:54
  Madeleine Cleary: So I am just like, should I be able to do this?
• 49:57
  Madeleine Cleary: I've done one, but it's, it's,
• 49:58
  Irma Gold: no, it's different every time and I'm writing my.
• 50:02
  Irma Gold: Third novel, well, technically my fourth, if you count my novel Zero, but my third novel, and it's a different structure to the other two.
• 50:10
  Irma Gold: I mean, they both had a different structure to each other, but this is even, even more vastly different.
• 50:15
  Irma Gold: And yeah, I don't know how to, I don't know how to write that one either.
• 50:19
  Irma Gold: I mean, I've got a complete first draft, so I feel like I've, you know, oh, good luck.
• 50:22
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Irma Gold: I, I've kind of.
• 50:24
  Irma Gold: Yeah, I've kind of, I've got it.
• 50:25
  Irma Gold: But I feel like there's a point in every book where you're like, I have no idea what I'm doing.
• 50:30
  Irma Gold: I don't know if this is gonna work.
• 50:32
  Irma Gold: Like who knows?
• 50:35
  Irma Gold: Constant crises of confidence.
• 50:38
  Madeleine Cleary: But we're dancing to our desk, can't we?
• 50:40
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 50:40
  Irma Gold: Oh, look, I love write.
• 50:41
  Irma Gold: I love writing more than I can say.
• 50:43
  Irma Gold: It is such a joy.
• 50:44
  Irma Gold: I, I know some people say it's painful to write, but it's more painful not to write.
• 50:49
  Irma Gold: But I just love it.
• 50:50
  Irma Gold: And maybe that's because I'm not a full-time writer.
• 50:53
  Irma Gold: I have, I have to write around my editing work, so I have very limited time right now because I'm in promo mode for shift.
• 50:59
  Irma Gold: I have no time to write and I haven't for months.
• 51:01
  Irma Gold: Uh, but you know, I, so I usually only have two hours, maybe twice a week or three times a week if I'm lucky.
• 51:08
  Irma Gold: And so I just sit down, I'm like, bang, that's it.
• 51:11
  Irma Gold: Capitalize on that
• 51:12
  Madeleine Cleary: time.
• 51:12
  Irma Gold: Yeah, absolutely.
• 51:13
  Irma Gold: And it's so great and I've got my coffee and I'm firing and I love it.
• 51:17
  Irma Gold: And it's just, even when I'm running scenes that are really, there's a.
• 51:19
  Irma Gold: Seen in shift, which is so emotional, and I still feel emotional about it.
• 51:24
  Madeleine Cleary: But
• 51:24
  Irma Gold: even writing those scenes that are so emotional, there's still, uh, this bittersweet joy in the wr in the actual writing, in the ideas and the expression and the words.
• 51:34
  Irma Gold: I love, I love words on a page.
• 51:36
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 51:37
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, I think we can all tell, Irma you've got such an amazing experience now.
• 51:42
  Madeleine Cleary: You've given us so many, so many top tips already, but um, as you know, we always finish on one.
• 51:48
  Madeleine Cleary: So Irma Gold, what is your number one top tip for emerging writers?
• 51:53
  Madeleine Cleary: I.
• 51:54
  Irma Gold: Oh look, it's gonna be one that other people have said, but I, I, and I could have picked something else, but I am going to say read.
• 52:01
  Irma Gold: And the reason I'm going to say that is because when I was convener of editing at the University of Canberra, I.
• 52:09
  Irma Gold: I remember having this conversation with the convener of the creative writing degree that I've never forgotten, and that year he had 300 students and he said of those 300, only 20 of them were actually avid readers, and I found that so shocking.
• 52:26
  Irma Gold: As someone who has grown up just.
• 52:29
  Irma Gold: You know, living and breathing books and just reading constantly.
• 52:33
  Irma Gold: I could not understand that.
• 52:36
  Irma Gold: Yeah, it's, isn't it, you
• 52:37
  Madeleine Cleary: think it's a given.
• 52:39
  Irma Gold: Yeah.
• 52:39
  Irma Gold: But you know, when I was talking before about, you know, the fact that I'm working on manuscripts all the time and I'm.
• 52:45
  Irma Gold: Reading, and I'm thinking about structure and all of those things, but when you read books, you are absorbing all of those things too.
• 52:52
  Irma Gold: Like you're learning without even knowing you are learning.
• 52:54
  Irma Gold: So you are, you are absorbing things about structure and characterization and, and pacing and plot and like all of those things, they're just kind of subconsciously going in.
• 53:05
  Irma Gold: So.
• 53:06
  Irma Gold: I do think it is fundamentally the most important thing for writers to do, and I know everyone says it, but I also know that a lot of people want to be writers and they're not doing it.
• 53:17
  Irma Gold: So that's why I'm saying it again.
• 53:20
  Madeleine Cleary: So, okay.
• 53:20
  Madeleine Cleary: That's Natasha lester actually said the exact same thing.
• 53:23
  Madeleine Cleary: That was her top tip too.
• 53:24
  Irma Gold: So Irma, so well,
• 53:25
  Madeleine Cleary: she's a good one to be, to be
• 53:27
  Irma Gold: in sync with.
• 53:28
  Irma Gold: She's amazing.
• 53:29
  Madeleine Cleary: That's right.
• 53:30
  Madeleine Cleary: So we, here we go.
• 53:31
  Madeleine Cleary: We've got Irma Gold, Natasha Lester, two wonderful authors telling everyone to read, and I would highly recommend everyone go read Shift.
• 53:39
  Madeleine Cleary: What an amazing segue.
• 53:42
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm holding it up, even though our listeners can't see it.
• 53:45
  Madeleine Cleary: I, yes.
• 53:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Go and grab your self a copy and it's a masterclass, so read it quickly like I did, and then go through and take your time.
• 53:52
  Madeleine Cleary: It's a beautifully crafted book.
• 53:54
  Madeleine Cleary: So Irma, thank you so much for joining us in the Book Deal podcast.
• 53:58
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you.
• 53:58
  Irma Gold: It has been an absolute joy.
• 54:00
  Irma Gold: I've loved it.
• 54:01
  Irma Gold: Thank you.
• 54:06
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• 54:09
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• 54:17
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