Latest / The Book Deal / Debut Crew 26 pre-release feels, fears and excitement about having your debut novel out in the world

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Debut Crew 26 pre-release feels, fears and excitement about having your debut novel out in the world · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  Tina Strachan: This is the Book Deal podcast
• 0:11
  Madeleine Cleary: where you will discover the inspiring stories behind your favorite books.
• 0:15
  Natasha Rai: We interview seasoned and debut authors, as well as publishing industry professionals to bring you the best tips and advice on how to get that elusive book deal.
• 0:25
  Tina Strachan: So no matter what's.
• 0:26
  Tina Strachan: Stage of writing your at.
• 0:28
  Tina Strachan: We've got you covered.
• 0:29
  Tina Strachan: I'm Tina Strachan.
• 0:30
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm Madeleine Cleary.
• 0:32
  Natasha Rai: And I'm Natasha Rai.
• 0:34
  Tina Strachan: And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors
• 0:37
  Madeleine Cleary: one deal at a time.
• 0:43
  Madeleine Cleary: The book Deal podcast acknowledges the traditional owners, the land and waters, which it's recorded on and pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
• 0:57
  Natasha Rai: Hi everyone.
• 0:58
  Natasha Rai: Thanks for joining The Book Deal podcast.
• 1:00
  Natasha Rai: From my first episode of 2026, it's a special one for me, uh, because I interviewed three members of the debut crew 2026 as a panel discussion, and, um, we are going to meet each other again towards the end of the year after their amazing books are out.
• 1:19
  Natasha Rai: So to introduce them to you, Sophie Stern is from Sydney, Australia, Al where she lives with her husband and son.
• 1:27
  Natasha Rai: Her short fiction has been published in magazines and literary zines, including Yen Magazine, ellipse and Ellipsis scene, and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.
• 1:37
  Natasha Rai: The manuscript of her first novel was shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize in 2024.
• 1:44
  Natasha Rai: Our second author on the panel, Leearna Shaw is a contemporary rural romance author who writes about strong women fighting for their futures and falling in love along the way.
• 1:54
  Natasha Rai: Her debut novel won the Romance Writers of Australia's Emerald Award for best unpublished manuscript in 2024.
• 2:01
  Natasha Rai: And when she's not tending to her unhealthy obsession with indoor plants, Leearna can be found either on the yoga mat or chasing runaway lambs and her wayward boys on their farm, northeast of Melbourne.
• 2:14
  Natasha Rai: The third writer on our panel today is Inessa Jackson, who is a CRI Sydney crime writer living on Guay country.
• 2:21
  Natasha Rai: Her debut novel Double Mountain won the Affirm Baruna Mentorship Award and will be published mid 2026.
• 2:30
  Natasha Rai: Her first unpublished mystery thriller was runner up for the 2023 Banjo Prize and shortlisted for the 2022 A SA HQ Commercial Fiction Award before she fell in love with crime writing backpacked around the world.
• 2:46
  Natasha Rai: Worked in consumer PR and they settled into life as a stay at home mom.
• 2:50
  Natasha Rai: When she's not writing, Vanessa spends her time reading, swimming at Manley Beach and walking her loyal assistant, Billy the Caboodle.
• 2:58
  Natasha Rai: She has a passion for cheese, loves all types of Aussie fiction, and is terrified of sheep.
• 3:04
  Natasha Rai: I hope you enjoy this episode and I look forward to seeing you on part two of this one.
• 3:15
  Natasha Rai: So here we all are, 2026, the debut crew, or some of you from the debut crew, 2026.
• 3:21
  Natasha Rai: Um, so as we always do on the book deal, we're gonna throw you in the deep end, um, and you're gonna get very good at this.
• 3:28
  Natasha Rai: So I would like to hear your elevator pitches for your books.
• 3:32
  Natasha Rai: So let's start please with Leearna Shaw.
• 3:36
  Leearna Shaw: Straight into it.
• 3:37
  Leearna Shaw: No problem.
• 3:38
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah.
• 3:39
  Leearna Shaw: So our farming Golden Clouds is a heartfelt rural romance that delves into the question, what if you found the love of your life and then lost them?
• 3:48
  Leearna Shaw: The story follows, struggling farmer, widow, mother, and self-help author Indy Carmichael, who's just trying to keep her head above water.
• 3:57
  Leearna Shaw: She doesn't have the time to fix the endless problems facing Manum Farm, let alone for romance.
• 4:02
  Leearna Shaw: Meanwhile washed up actor Ben Whitham just wants his life to stick to the script.
• 4:06
  Leearna Shaw: But his summer filming on location in the small town of Keal Creek is thrown into chaos by a certain farmer slash author who bursts into his life.
• 4:16
  Leearna Shaw: But with Indy's future on the farm, hanging by a thread and Ben's career on the line, they'll both need to ask themselves if falling in love when life is falling apart is really the best idea.
• 4:27
  Leearna Shaw: So, uh, farm and Golden Clouds, it's out the 31st of March this year.
• 4:32
  Natasha Rai: Oh my God.
• 4:32
  Natasha Rai: What a great pitch.
• 4:33
  Leearna Shaw: Thank you.
• 4:34
  Natasha Rai: Well done.
• 4:34
  Natasha Rai: I can't wait to read it.
• 4:36
  Natasha Rai: Um, so tell me, Leearna, like how did come to that idea?
• 4:41
  Natasha Rai: Was it something you've been working on for a while or how Yeah.
• 4:44
  Natasha Rai: How did it evolved for you?
• 4:46
  Leearna Shaw: So my husband and I, we had a tree change and we moved our family to a small farm on the side of a mountain.
• 4:53
  Leearna Shaw: This was the end of 2019.
• 4:56
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and two weeks after we moved, my husband, as they do, went out and bought this zero turn right on moa and he was flying up and down our steep paddocks and I was watching from the back deck.
• 5:10
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and he had a very, uh, terrifying close call, uh, um, where the mower almost flipped.
• 5:18
  Leearna Shaw: And in that moment I thought to myself.
• 5:23
  Leearna Shaw: I'm gonna be left alone here with 30 acres.
• 5:25
  Leearna Shaw: I have no idea how to look after seven sheep.
• 5:29
  Leearna Shaw: I have no clue what to do with and two children.
• 5:32
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and my second thought was, that's actually not a bad premise for a rural romance.
• 5:38
  Leearna Shaw: So, um, once I made sure, um, my husband was okay, no husbands were harmed in the development of this story, um, I ran inside and jotted down that idea and that was the start of it.
• 5:51
  Natasha Rai: I love it.
• 5:51
  Natasha Rai: I like how you mentioned that, you know, once you checked, he was okay.
• 5:55
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah.
• 5:57
  Natasha Rai: So how, how long ago was that?
• 5:59
  Leearna Shaw: So that was, that was at the end of 2019.
• 6:02
  Leearna Shaw: So I actually wrote the first draft during the first COVID lockdown in Melbourne.
• 6:07
  Natasha Rai: Oh, okay.
• 6:08
  Natasha Rai: Do you still have the fund?
• 6:10
  Leearna Shaw: Yes.
• 6:10
  Leearna Shaw: Yep.
• 6:10
  Leearna Shaw: We still live here, so I know, I know what to do now.
• 6:13
  Leearna Shaw: I'm my sheer.
• 6:14
  Leearna Shaw: We are, we're friends now, so.
• 6:16
  Natasha Rai: Excellent.
• 6:17
  Natasha Rai: Um, so I'll come back'cause I really wanna know what happened after that, after you wrote your draft, but let's, um, go to the second person off our debut crew 2026 panel, um, in Inessa Jackson.
• 6:28
  Natasha Rai: Can we have your pitch please?
• 6:30
  Sophie Stern: Yes, I'd love to.
• 6:31
  Sophie Stern: Thanks.
• 6:32
  Sophie Stern: So, devil Mountain is due out in late May, 2026, and it's a story about a broken-hearted and humiliated police detective Sergeant Anastasia Brown, who's sent to a small mountain village to investigate the grizzly murder of a popular gp.
• 6:48
  Sophie Stern: His body's being found in the state forest burned and chained with creepy symbols carved into the soles of his feet.
• 6:55
  Sophie Stern: Anna quickly realizes she has a huge problem on, on huge problem on her hands when her investigation hits a dead end and strange things start happening to her and.
• 7:04
  Sophie Stern: She's forced to ask herself, could the secret coven of witches who worship on the mountain be involved?
• 7:09
  Sophie Stern: Or is this the work of a clever killer with a taste for the macab?
• 7:13
  Sophie Stern: Either way, she knows she has to solve the mystery before the clock ticks down and the devil strikes again.
• 7:20
  Natasha Rai: Wow, that's so creepy.
• 7:23
  Inessa Jackson: I feel like it needs a,
• 7:25
  Natasha Rai: I know, uh, I'm not very good at sound effects.
• 7:28
  Natasha Rai: I would've added that in, but maybe I'll just, you just did it, so that's great.
• 7:31
  Natasha Rai: Um, how on earth do you come up with an idea like that?
• 7:34
  Natasha Rai: How do you,
• 7:34
  Inessa Jackson: um.
• 7:36
  Inessa Jackson: Well, I was, I was really thinking about this today.
• 7:38
  Inessa Jackson: And, um, my kids went to the local public school that backs onto the bush and there was 400 kids built, um, in a school for 200 with massive overcrowding.
• 7:47
  Inessa Jackson: So the school based, um, a decision on, um, environmental versus education and the education one, and they went out into the bush.
• 7:55
  Inessa Jackson: Lot of green opposition, as you know, you would expect.
• 7:58
  Inessa Jackson: Um, and that's understandable.
• 8:00
  Inessa Jackson: But at one PNC meeting, um, a lady came and she was very upset with us, and she had long white hair, and she was kind of in the elder sort of age group.
• 8:11
  Inessa Jackson: Anyway, she was very upset and she told us that, which we're all gonna regret this decision, and walked out.
• 8:16
  Inessa Jackson: And one of the other moms turned to me and said, could she be a member of the WCAN community?
• 8:21
  Inessa Jackson: And we all sort of looked at each other and went, no, no.
• 8:24
  Inessa Jackson: But I went, oh, that's a great idea for the book.
• 8:28
  Inessa Jackson: Um, the wcan protecting the environment and all the conflict, um, that, that would, that would cause in a small community.
• 8:34
  Inessa Jackson: Hmm.
• 8:36
  Natasha Rai: That's, and when did you start writing that?
• 8:38
  Inessa Jackson: Um, that was, oh, well in my head probably about six or seven years ago, but on paper.
• 8:45
  Inessa Jackson: Two years ago?
• 8:46
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 8:46
  Inessa Jackson: Two or three now, hard to remember.
• 8:48
  Natasha Rai: I'm gonna make a note of that in your, in your head.
• 8:50
  Natasha Rai: 'cause I like the idea of that.
• 8:53
  Natasha Rai: Uh,'cause I do something similar, but you just have ideas in
• 8:56
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 8:56
  Natasha Rai: In your head.
• 8:57
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 8:57
  Natasha Rai: Um, okay.
• 8:58
  Natasha Rai: I'll come back to you.
• 8:59
  Inessa Jackson: Okay.
• 9:00
  Natasha Rai: Alright.
• 9:00
  Natasha Rai: And lucky last Sophie Stern.
• 9:03
  Natasha Rai: Can we have your elevator pitch please?
• 9:05
  Sophie Stern: No pressure.
• 9:06
  Sophie Stern: After those two.
• 9:08
  Sophie Stern: What is left for us is a modern family drama about two sisters from Bondi, the secrets that tore them apart, and the crumbling Clifftop house that forces them back together.
• 9:20
  Sophie Stern: The novel alternates between the two sisters' perspectives, weaving between past and present as it unravels the secrets and mysteries that spun the sister's lives in different directions.
• 9:32
  Sophie Stern: It's for readers who loved Lonely Mouth by Jacqueline Mayley, everyone and everything by Nadine j Cohen, and Expectation by Anna Hope it's out with Penguin on 10th of March, 2026.
• 9:45
  Natasha Rai: Wow.
• 9:45
  Natasha Rai: That is so professional.
• 9:47
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 9:48
  Sophie Stern: It's a lot of pressure to get it right.
• 9:50
  Natasha Rai: Oh my gosh.
• 9:52
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, I, I still can't do comp titles when I have to pitch, when I have to do, like, intro, intro my book.
• 9:57
  Natasha Rai: So you are doing amazingly well.
• 9:59
  Natasha Rai: They're all great pitches.
• 10:00
  Natasha Rai: Um, I really love the sound of all of them.
• 10:02
  Natasha Rai: Um, Sophie, when did you start writing yours?
• 10:06
  Sophie Stern: I started writing it in 2022, but like Nessa, I had something in my head for a long time before that.
• 10:15
  Sophie Stern: Um, particularly the house that's at the center of the story that has been sort of haunting me for a number of years and when I actually started putting pen to paper is when I found the story of what had happened in the house.
• 10:31
  Natasha Rai: So is it an actual house that you'd heard about or know about?
• 10:34
  Sophie Stern: No, it's a fictional house on a fictional street in Bondi, but it's, it's this idea of a house on the Clifftop that was in my head.
• 10:43
  Sophie Stern: Mm-hmm.
• 10:44
  Natasha Rai: There's a lot of mountainous themes.
• 10:45
  Natasha Rai: And on all three of your books, which I just realized.
• 10:50
  Natasha Rai: Hmm.
• 10:51
  Natasha Rai: Um, so have you always been a writer, Sophie?
• 10:56
  Sophie Stern: I've always written, which I guess means I've always been a writer, but I'm probably only admitting that now.
• 11:02
  Sophie Stern: Um, yeah, I've always written, but mainly for myself.
• 11:07
  Natasha Rai: So when did you feel, or when did you think that this could be something you might wanna try to get published or even have that kind of dream or vision for the work?
• 11:19
  Sophie Stern: I think like a lot of people after COVID is really when I started thinking about how I was spending my time and what my priorities were.
• 11:29
  Sophie Stern: And I'd always wanted to write a novel, and I think it was at the end of 2021, I read this amazing book called 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Berkman, which is essentially.
• 11:42
  Sophie Stern: About how life is finite.
• 11:44
  Sophie Stern: There's a limited amount of things you can do.
• 11:46
  Sophie Stern: No productivity hack is gonna let you do everything.
• 11:49
  Sophie Stern: So pick the thing that means the most to you and just go at it.
• 11:53
  Sophie Stern: And so that's when I really started to take writing a novel seriously and committed to it.
• 12:00
  Sophie Stern: And I signed up to the Curtis Brown Creative Writing your novel course, which was great because that gave me structure, it gave me deadlines, it gave me a writing community.
• 12:10
  Sophie Stern: And that's when I started, I guess, putting the writing first and putting myself first as a writer.
• 12:17
  Natasha Rai: I like that.
• 12:18
  Natasha Rai: Um, how about you nsr?
• 12:21
  Natasha Rai: When did you, or how did you decide your provider?
• 12:24
  Natasha Rai: Have you always been one?
• 12:25
  Natasha Rai: I
• 12:26
  Inessa Jackson: haven't actually, I'm gonna admit something very embarrassing.
• 12:28
  Inessa Jackson: Okay.
• 12:30
  Inessa Jackson: In high school, I never got over 60% in English.
• 12:33
  Inessa Jackson: I mean, and that's, that's good for some people and for me, um, it wasn't, I wanted to do a lot better and it took till I was about 45 before I actually improved.
• 12:43
  Inessa Jackson: Um, so I came to writing in my early forties when the kids went to primary school, and I found myself, um, at a loose end and it was great.
• 12:51
  Inessa Jackson: Filled my days and, um, kept me sane.
• 12:54
  Inessa Jackson: So, so
• 12:56
  Natasha Rai: yeah.
• 12:56
  Natasha Rai: So I'm just really curious about that.
• 12:58
  Natasha Rai: So how, what drew you to the actual, like to writing if you know, as you say, at school, English wasn't something that your strong suit or you didn't feel like you did that well?
• 13:08
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I saw an ad actually for the Australian Writers Center.
• 13:12
  Inessa Jackson: Oh yeah.
• 13:12
  Inessa Jackson: And they were offering a, um, a creative introduction to creative writing.
• 13:16
  Inessa Jackson: And I just thought, you know what, this might be, this might be me.
• 13:19
  Inessa Jackson: I'll give this a go.
• 13:20
  Inessa Jackson: I'd also worked in PR for, you know, decades.
• 13:22
  Inessa Jackson: So I sort of had that.
• 13:24
  Inessa Jackson: Writing skills from there.
• 13:26
  Inessa Jackson: But I wanted to go into a creative sort of mindset.
• 13:28
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I think also with little kids and you're reading stories all the time and they're imagining things and you're just in this wonderful creative space.
• 13:35
  Inessa Jackson: I felt it was my time to see what I could do.
• 13:38
  Natasha Rai: And when you, uh, when you signed up for the course, did you already have ideas or were you kind of just seeing what, what was, what
• 13:44
  Inessa Jackson: I was just seeing, I had no idea.
• 13:46
  Inessa Jackson: And, um, it's really funny.
• 13:47
  Inessa Jackson: I've actually got the first little 250 word, um, assignment, and it's a man standing on the beach and he doesn't do anything.
• 13:55
  Inessa Jackson: He doesn't say anything, and no one approaches him.
• 13:56
  Inessa Jackson: There's not even a dog.
• 13:57
  Inessa Jackson: He just looks at the horizon.
• 13:59
  Inessa Jackson: That's, oh, wow, that's boring.
• 14:03
  Inessa Jackson: So I've improved a lot, I think, since then.
• 14:06
  Natasha Rai: Well, it sounds very descriptive.
• 14:08
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 14:08
  Inessa Jackson: Oh,
• 14:08
  Natasha Rai: thank
• 14:08
  Inessa Jackson: you.
• 14:08
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 14:09
  Inessa Jackson: It could be a moody piece, you know?
• 14:10
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 14:11
  Natasha Rai: I could just do that as an opening shot.
• 14:13
  Natasha Rai: Like, you know, the camera pans into this man.
• 14:15
  Natasha Rai: What's he doing there?
• 14:16
  Natasha Rai: Well,
• 14:16
  Inessa Jackson: what anyway.
• 14:19
  Natasha Rai: And how about you, Leana?
• 14:21
  Natasha Rai: How did, how did you decide, or how did, do you, do you know, have you always been a writer?
• 14:26
  Leearna Shaw: Always been a writer?
• 14:27
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I was obsessed with books and writing, even as a kid.
• 14:31
  Leearna Shaw: I think I wrote my first story, I think it was grade five, about a mean frog who lost all his friends and had to win them back.
• 14:37
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I just never stopped.
• 14:39
  Leearna Shaw: I wrote all the way through primary school, high school.
• 14:42
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I ended up getting into journalism and on the very first day I just said, this is not what I wanna do.
• 14:49
  Leearna Shaw: I wanna write books.
• 14:50
  Leearna Shaw: And I ended up dropping out and going to do professional writing and editing at RMIT, which, um, was just, yeah, the, the best time.
• 14:59
  Leearna Shaw: It was just wonderful.
• 15:00
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and from then I just kept writing.
• 15:02
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but as you know, life happens and I had two young kids, um, so it was about 10 years ago and I, I'd been writing the whole way through.
• 15:10
  Leearna Shaw: I think if you added up all the books I've written, I'd.
• 15:14
  Leearna Shaw: It'd be about 15, 90% of them will never see the light of day.
• 15:19
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but about 10 years ago I decided, no, I really want this to happen.
• 15:23
  Leearna Shaw: I want this to be my life.
• 15:25
  Leearna Shaw: Um, so I really dug in and, um, yeah, started to really push towards publication.
• 15:32
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and then after we did our, we made our tree change, I discovered rural romance and I just haven't looked back.
• 15:40
  Natasha Rai: It's, um, it's interesting, isn't it?
• 15:43
  Natasha Rai: How so much of life can influence or impact the way we view art or the way we, we view creativity.
• 15:50
  Natasha Rai: Um, I know that a lot of people struggle with that kind of time thing and also the imposter syndrome.
• 15:56
  Natasha Rai: So when did you finish your, a draft of the novel that you were happy to show someone?
• 16:05
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I think it was probably the second draft.
• 16:08
  Leearna Shaw: My mom is always my first reader.
• 16:10
  Leearna Shaw: Um, she has a, she's a, she loves reading.
• 16:15
  Leearna Shaw: Um, she's so lovely, but she has the worst poker face, so she's the perfect first reader because she'll read it and she'll give me all these beautiful compliments.
• 16:25
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but her face will tell me exactly what she's thinking.
• 16:28
  Leearna Shaw: So can I
• 16:29
  Natasha Rai: just ask something?
• 16:30
  Natasha Rai: Are you sitting there watching her read?
• 16:32
  Leearna Shaw: No, but when I ask her questions afterwards so I can, you know, tell, tell whether she's just, um, what, what she really thinks.
• 16:40
  Leearna Shaw: Mm-hmm.
• 16:40
  Leearna Shaw: So, um, but yeah, so it's usually usually second draft and it's usually family members just to ease me into it.
• 16:47
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but that first, uh, that that first book, which became a farm, which is gonna become a farm in golden Clouds, um.
• 16:55
  Leearna Shaw: I think I wrote about 20 drafts of this one.
• 16:57
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and it's, it's gone through quite a, it's been rejected more times than I can count.
• 17:01
  Leearna Shaw: So it's, it's gone through quite a, a few versions.
• 17:05
  Natasha Rai: So, so what did she say when she read that draft?
• 17:07
  Natasha Rai: Did she, was she, yeah,
• 17:09
  Leearna Shaw: absolutely loved it.
• 17:10
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but I think it was far too long.
• 17:14
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I probably waffled on a bit too much and, you know, you always have too many characters that end up getting cut in later drafts.
• 17:22
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but I think she still says to this day, it's still her favorite book of mine that she's read.
• 17:27
  Natasha Rai: That's beautiful.
• 17:28
  Natasha Rai: And so once she, she she'd given you the feedback and you sort of working on it.
• 17:33
  Natasha Rai: Did your, like the training that you'd done at RMIT, was that what helped you kind of figure out how to edit and how to kind of.
• 17:40
  Natasha Rai: Do make changes.
• 17:41
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 17:41
  Leearna Shaw: So I'd also done a professional proofreading course, so editing was one of my strong suits.
• 17:47
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I love editing.
• 17:48
  Leearna Shaw: I, I really like, I, I love writing a sentence, but I just absolutely adore making it better.
• 17:54
  Leearna Shaw: Um, so yeah, no, um, she was really helpful with that.
• 17:59
  Leearna Shaw: So.
• 18:01
  Natasha Rai: Awesome.
• 18:01
  Natasha Rai: And then.
• 18:03
  Natasha Rai: Quite a few drafts were the sounds of things.
• 18:05
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 18:06
  Leearna Shaw: Many, many drafts.
• 18:07
  Leearna Shaw: And I think it was, um, probably 2023.
• 18:10
  Leearna Shaw: So two years after I had written that first draft, I had moved on and written a couple more, but something about that manuscript just wouldn't let me go.
• 18:19
  Leearna Shaw: It just that story just wanted to be told.
• 18:21
  Leearna Shaw: So I ended up enrolling in an Australian writer center course called Romance Writing, which really just gave me those last few, um, that last few ingredients to really make that manuscript the best that it could be.
• 18:35
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and it was after that that I decided to give that manuscript one last go and I decided to submit it to a whole heap of competitions in the hope to get feedback that I could then apply before sending it out to publishers and, um, or publishers and agents.
• 18:51
  Natasha Rai: Smart.
• 18:52
  Natasha Rai: And did you get the feedback you were looking for?
• 18:54
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah, the, yeah, the, the, um, the romance writers Australia's competitions are wonderful, um, for feedback.
• 19:01
  Leearna Shaw: It does.
• 19:01
  Leearna Shaw: It's a very safe place to submit your writing if you haven't, um, put it out there before.
• 19:07
  Leearna Shaw: But the feedback is, um, yeah, it's, it's really wonderful because it's from readers, it's from other writers, so you're getting a few different perspectives.
• 19:14
  Natasha Rai: Hmm.
• 19:15
  Natasha Rai: Beautiful.
• 19:15
  Natasha Rai: I like that.
• 19:16
  Natasha Rai: Um, so I wanna come back and ask a few more things about what happened after that.
• 19:20
  Natasha Rai: Um, but I just wanna ask Sophie about her process.
• 19:24
  Natasha Rai: So Sophie, um, when you, after you wrote that first draft, what happened?
• 19:29
  Natasha Rai: Did you show it to someone?
• 19:30
  Natasha Rai: Who do you typically show your work to?
• 19:32
  Sophie Stern: Oh, I did not show anyone That first draft.
• 19:35
  Sophie Stern: That first draft was a nightmare.
• 19:38
  Sophie Stern: It was a mess.
• 19:39
  Sophie Stern: It was a complete splatter of word vomit.
• 19:44
  Sophie Stern: I'm a, an underwriter, so I have a lot of trouble hitting word counts, so.
• 19:50
  Sophie Stern: All I wanted to do was hit 80,000 words.
• 19:52
  Sophie Stern: Mm-hmm.
• 19:53
  Sophie Stern: As my first draft.
• 19:54
  Sophie Stern: And literally as I saw Scrivener tick over to 80,000 words, I was like, yep.
• 19:59
  Sophie Stern: The end.
• 20:00
  Sophie Stern: And then I put that draft to the side and I knew I wasn't gonna tinker with it.
• 20:05
  Sophie Stern: I wasn't gonna edit that, that was the draft I needed to work out what the story was.
• 20:11
  Sophie Stern: And so it took probably about another year after that to break it down and build it back up again.
• 20:20
  Natasha Rai: And you were working on it through that throughout that year?
• 20:23
  Sophie Stern: Yes.
• 20:23
  Sophie Stern: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:25
  Sophie Stern: Um, yeah, so I didn't really have any f first readers until after I signed a deal, to be honest.
• 20:35
  Sophie Stern: That was the first time I let my husband read it.
• 20:38
  Sophie Stern: Um, I also let my mom read it.
• 20:41
  Sophie Stern: My mom, uh.
• 20:43
  Sophie Stern: Gave me some very good feedback.
• 20:45
  Sophie Stern: She said there were way too many references of pencil skirts.
• 20:48
  Sophie Stern: Everyone was wearing a pencil skirt.
• 20:51
  Sophie Stern: So now there are no pencil skirts in the book.
• 20:55
  Natasha Rai: They were all killed off.
• 20:56
  Natasha Rai: Not even one survived.
• 20:57
  Sophie Stern: Exactly, exactly.
• 20:59
  Sophie Stern: Um, so yeah, there probably the two people who have, who read it most closely.
• 21:06
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, it's, it's a weird thing, isn't it, that'cause I don't really show my early drafts to anyone in my family.
• 21:13
  Natasha Rai: I'm just like, no.
• 21:16
  Natasha Rai: I think I, I would prefer, like, I prefer now to show it to other writers.
• 21:19
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 21:20
  Natasha Rai: Do you have like writer friends that you would consider showing future drafts to?
• 21:25
  Sophie Stern: I do now.
• 21:26
  Sophie Stern: And as part of the Curtis Brown course, as part of the drafting process.
• 21:32
  Sophie Stern: We had to submit little chunks of what we were working on.
• 21:36
  Sophie Stern: Mm-hmm.
• 21:36
  Sophie Stern: But I, I found that good and bad because like I said, when I'm in that first drafting process, it's not good.
• 21:44
  Sophie Stern: It's about finding the story.
• 21:45
  Sophie Stern: So getting the feedback at that point sometimes knocked my confidence a little bit, whereas I think now I know it's probably later in the process, the sort of structural stage where it is really helpful to get Rita feedback.
• 22:00
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 22:00
  Natasha Rai: And I think the problem with feedback as well, sometimes if you get more than one, um, writer looking or reader looking at it, if, especially if it's contradicting each other Yeah.
• 22:09
  Natasha Rai: Or, um, picking up things that you don't.
• 22:12
  Natasha Rai: You didn't know there was a problem there.
• 22:14
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 22:15
  Natasha Rai: It's like, oh, okay, how do I change that?
• 22:17
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 22:17
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 22:18
  Sophie Stern: Exactly.
• 22:18
  Sophie Stern: And not every reader is your reader.
• 22:21
  Sophie Stern: So I think also knowing Yeah, exactly.
• 22:23
  Sophie Stern: Um, the, the, the people that you value the feedback from is important too.
• 22:27
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 22:28
  Natasha Rai: Um, and so Vanessa, do you show anyone your work at any stage, like when you feel comfortable, and if so, which stage?
• 22:36
  Inessa Jackson: Um, it's a later stage and it's no one related to me at all.
• 22:41
  Inessa Jackson: I'm like you, I can't even, oh, I just can't fathom the thought of my parents or anyone reading it.
• 22:46
  Inessa Jackson: Um, so yeah, I met a great group of writers through the Australian Writers Center.
• 22:50
  Inessa Jackson: We did the write a novel course, which goes for six months, and that was absolutely fantastic.
• 22:54
  Inessa Jackson: So, like Sophie said, we swapped, um, chunks of writing every week and we got to know each other.
• 22:59
  Inessa Jackson: Um, quite a few were sort of in a similar genre, so we were really, we could understand each other's work from a structural point of view and what was expected from the reader.
• 23:07
  Inessa Jackson: Which was great.
• 23:08
  Inessa Jackson: And then we would give really, really positive but constructive, um, feedback to each other.
• 23:13
  Inessa Jackson: And that was years ago, like seven years ago.
• 23:15
  Inessa Jackson: We're still together as a group, which is just so good.
• 23:18
  Inessa Jackson: We're close mates now.
• 23:19
  Inessa Jackson: It's
• 23:19
  Natasha Rai: really, yeah.
• 23:20
  Natasha Rai: And it's amazing, isn't it?
• 23:21
  Natasha Rai: How when you read other people's writing as well, how much of an impact that has on your own work.
• 23:25
  Natasha Rai: 'cause you can see, especially when you see things that they do really well and you're like, oh, how did you do that?
• 23:29
  Natasha Rai: I really wanna know how to do that.
• 23:30
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah, it's,
• 23:32
  Natasha Rai: it's good.
• 23:32
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 23:32
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 23:33
  Natasha Rai: So, um, you are all three of, you're part of the debut crew 2026.
• 23:37
  Natasha Rai: And um, for listeners who may not know what that is, it's a group of writers whose debuts are coming out that year.
• 23:44
  Natasha Rai: I think it started in 2023.
• 23:46
  Natasha Rai: Um,'cause it's been going on a few years consecutively now.
• 23:50
  Natasha Rai: So, um, Sophie, you started the group, didn't you?
• 23:54
  Sophie Stern: I did.
• 23:55
  Sophie Stern: With the help and encouragement of Madeline Cleary, which has been amazing.
• 24:01
  Natasha Rai: And so how did Vanessa and Leearna, how did you make your way into the crew?
• 24:08
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I think I was one of the first ones because I signed my contract quite early.
• 24:13
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I think I saw Sophie put the call out for anyone else who had their debut coming out in 2026.
• 24:20
  Leearna Shaw: Um, so I just DMed her and yeah, we jumped straight into the group and haven't looked back.
• 24:27
  Leearna Shaw: It's just been such a wonderful, supportive community.
• 24:31
  Inessa Jackson: Awesome.
• 24:31
  Inessa Jackson: It's, it's wonderful.
• 24:32
  Inessa Jackson: I've got the same story.
• 24:33
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 24:34
  Inessa Jackson: I saw Sophie's, um, post and contacted her.
• 24:37
  Natasha Rai: And how many of you now in the group?
• 24:40
  Sophie Stern: There's over 50.
• 24:42
  Natasha Rai: Wow.
• 24:42
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 24:43
  Sophie Stern: It's in
• 24:43
  Natasha Rai: January.
• 24:43
  Natasha Rai: Amazing.
• 24:44
  Sophie Stern: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 24:45
  Sophie Stern: It's, yeah, it's such a joy.
• 24:47
  Sophie Stern: It's, and something that was really unexpected, I think, to come out of this process to connect with everyone.
• 24:52
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 24:53
  Natasha Rai: It's the best.
• 24:53
  Natasha Rai: I can only imagine your chats.
• 24:57
  Natasha Rai: Um, so Leearna, you mentioned that you'd signed your contract a while ago.
• 25:00
  Natasha Rai: When, when did you sign?
• 25:02
  Leearna Shaw: So from the time I signed to the day my book comes out will be over 18 months, which to some people it sounds like a long time and to others, you know, they might be two years and it doesn't sound, um, quite so long.
• 25:15
  Leearna Shaw: But for someone who's been working towards that goal for quite a while, um, I was very eager to get going.
• 25:23
  Leearna Shaw: So it, um, it has been a long way for me.
• 25:27
  Natasha Rai: So, so tell me what happened.
• 25:28
  Natasha Rai: So after you entered those competitions, when, or like Yeah.
• 25:33
  Natasha Rai: Was that give, did that give you enough confidence to feel like you could submit to an agent or a publisher after that?
• 25:39
  Leearna Shaw: So one of the competitions I entered was the Romance Writers of Australia's Emerald Award, um, which is just as I said, such a wonderful competition.
• 25:48
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I was lucky enough to be shortlisted, which for me was just such a win at the time in itself because I'd never been shortlisted for my writing before.
• 25:59
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I was at a time in my, uh, journey where I was quite low and I felt like I was just banging my head against a brick wall and not getting any further.
• 26:09
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and that really gave me the confidence, um, uh, to just to keep going.
• 26:15
  Leearna Shaw: And I ended up flying over to Glenelg for the conference and incredibly discovered that my manuscript had actually won the Emerald Award, which was, oh my
• 26:25
  Natasha Rai: God, that must have been huge.
• 26:28
  Leearna Shaw: Huge.
• 26:28
  Leearna Shaw: It was such a thrill.
• 26:30
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I don't think I slept that night.
• 26:32
  Leearna Shaw: I was just on such a high and.
• 26:36
  Leearna Shaw: Things moved very, very quickly from there.
• 26:38
  Leearna Shaw: So I was actually approached by publishers.
• 26:41
  Leearna Shaw: Um, at that conference the next day, I had a couple reach out to me, um, through my website, and I even had a publisher slide into my dms on Instagram asking if they could see that manuscript.
• 26:54
  Leearna Shaw: And I ended up going back to each and every one of them and said, oh yes, of course I'd be happy to send that through.
• 27:01
  Leearna Shaw: But I've also successfully pitched my second manuscript at that same conference and had a few requests for that one.
• 27:08
  Leearna Shaw: And they all said, please send through both manuscripts.
• 27:12
  Leearna Shaw: Nice.
• 27:12
  Leearna Shaw: So that was, there wasn't much sleep for the next few weeks as I tried to get two manuscripts ready.
• 27:21
  Leearna Shaw: Well, they, they were ready.
• 27:22
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but just to sort of.
• 27:24
  Leearna Shaw: Them up.
• 27:24
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah.
• 27:25
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and send them off to it.
• 27:27
  Leearna Shaw: I think it was about six or seven publishers and I knew a couple of them wouldn't be interested because Rural Romance is quite a niche genre and not every publisher, you know, has space for that on their list.
• 27:38
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but I sent it all out and then it wasn't even five days later, I got an email from Annette Barlow at Alan and Unwin asking if we could have a chat.
• 27:48
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and for me as a rural fiction writer, Annette Barlow, she's just such a champion for rural fiction.
• 27:54
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I've always, a couple of her authors have been my favorite authors.
• 27:59
  Leearna Shaw: So that was a huge thrill and we ended up having this wonderful chat about my manuscripts and my writing process and what my hopes and plans were going forward.
• 28:09
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and at the end of that conversation, I just expected her to say, no worries, I'll be in touch.
• 28:14
  Leearna Shaw: And instead she offered me a two book deal with.
• 28:18
  Natasha Rai: The dream.
• 28:19
  Natasha Rai: Um, and did you like, play it cool and be like, I'll go think about it?
• 28:23
  Natasha Rai: Or were you like Yes.
• 28:25
  Leearna Shaw: I actually can't tell you because I don't remember anything after she, she, I'm gonna have to ask her one day what I said, because I do not remember anything after she made that deal.
• 28:35
  Leearna Shaw: I think it was just internal screaming and white noise.
• 28:39
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but it was just, it was, yeah, it was just all those emotions.
• 28:43
  Leearna Shaw: There was joy, there was relief, there was shock.
• 28:46
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and then I, yeah, I, as soon as we hung up, I did, just started crying.
• 28:51
  Leearna Shaw: Those happy tears called my husband, called my family.
• 28:53
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and then we just went out and celebrated that night.
• 28:56
  Leearna Shaw: So
• 28:57
  Natasha Rai: that's the best fire, isn't it?
• 28:59
  Natasha Rai: Amazing.
• 28:59
  Natasha Rai: There's nothing like that moment.
• 29:01
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 29:01
  Leearna Shaw: Nothing like it.
• 29:02
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 29:03
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 29:04
  Natasha Rai: Um, how about you, Vanessa?
• 29:05
  Natasha Rai: When did you sign yours, your, your deal?
• 29:07
  Natasha Rai: Um,
• 29:07
  Inessa Jackson: pretty much 12 months ago, so.
• 29:10
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 29:11
  Inessa Jackson: January was that 2000?
• 29:13
  Natasha Rai: 20 and 25.
• 29:14
  Inessa Jackson: 2 25.
• 29:14
  Inessa Jackson: Thank you.
• 29:16
  Inessa Jackson: Um, yeah.
• 29:17
  Inessa Jackson: And
• 29:18
  Natasha Rai: how was, and how was that like, what led you, how did you get there?
• 29:22
  Natasha Rai: What did you do?
• 29:22
  Inessa Jackson: Okay, so I had a previous manuscript, a Murder mystery, um, which was the first one I'd written to previously, and that this was my third one.
• 29:31
  Inessa Jackson: And I thought, I actually feel reasonably good about this.
• 29:33
  Inessa Jackson: So I entered it in the, um, Australian, sorry, the a SA, um, HQ Commercial Fiction Prize.
• 29:41
  Inessa Jackson: Oh, yes.
• 29:41
  Inessa Jackson: And it got, uh, shortlisted for that.
• 29:44
  Inessa Jackson: Congratulations.
• 29:45
  Inessa Jackson: Thank you.
• 29:46
  Inessa Jackson: Thank you.
• 29:47
  Inessa Jackson: And then I put it into the Banjo Prize and it got runner up for that.
• 29:50
  Inessa Jackson: So I sat down after I found out, went, okay, I think I've got confidence now I can do this.
• 29:57
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I did the ASAs literary speed dating online.
• 30:01
  Inessa Jackson: Oh yes.
• 30:01
  Inessa Jackson: And I recommend that so highly.
• 30:03
  Inessa Jackson: I don't know if you guys have done it, but it's wonderful.
• 30:05
  Natasha Rai: I've always been too scared to do that.
• 30:07
  Inessa Jackson: Always.
• 30:07
  Inessa Jackson: It's terrifying.
• 30:08
  Inessa Jackson: It's, yeah.
• 30:10
  Inessa Jackson: But it's worth it.
• 30:11
  Inessa Jackson: It's so worth it.
• 30:12
  Inessa Jackson: So I met Martin, hug the ex CEO of the firm press.
• 30:16
  Inessa Jackson: He requested my manuscript and he got back to me really quickly and said, look, we can't publish it, but I loved it.
• 30:22
  Inessa Jackson: It's just gonna take too much work to develop.
• 30:25
  Inessa Jackson: But he's about two or three pages of feedback and I just, I couldn't thank him enough.
• 30:30
  Inessa Jackson: Wow.
• 30:30
  Inessa Jackson: It was just, I know.
• 30:31
  Inessa Jackson: So generous.
• 30:31
  Inessa Jackson: It was just wonderful.
• 30:33
  Inessa Jackson: So I sat down and decided I would rewrite it and I got about, I don't know, two days in and just thought, oh wow, I, I'm not sure I can do this.
• 30:41
  Inessa Jackson: I'm not sure I, I'm at the level yet.
• 30:42
  Inessa Jackson: I can do this, I'm gonna park it.
• 30:44
  Inessa Jackson: And I went back to the Devil Mountain idea and I wrote that really quickly, maybe six or nine months.
• 30:51
  Natasha Rai: So what, sorry, what year are we talking now?
• 30:54
  Inessa Jackson: Um, look, that's a good question.
• 30:55
  Inessa Jackson: What are we in now?
• 30:57
  Natasha Rai: We're in 2026.
• 30:58
  Natasha Rai: Your debut year?
• 31:00
  Inessa Jackson: 2024.
• 31:00
  Inessa Jackson: 20 20 24.
• 31:01
  Natasha Rai: Okay, cool.
• 31:02
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 31:02
  Natasha Rai: Alright.
• 31:02
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah, so, and I submitted it to the Varuna Affirm Mentorship Award.
• 31:08
  Inessa Jackson: Oh, and I won a spot on that and oh my God, I was just over the moon.
• 31:13
  Inessa Jackson: So I had a week at Purina with the Affirm editorial team.
• 31:17
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 31:17
  Inessa Jackson: And three other amazing writers.
• 31:19
  Inessa Jackson: And it was just like, it's corny thing to say it was a dream come true.
• 31:23
  Inessa Jackson: We had feedback sessions.
• 31:24
  Inessa Jackson: I took that feedback really seriously and I went away and rewrote that.
• 31:29
  Inessa Jackson: And that took another sort of six months and I resubmitted it.
• 31:34
  Inessa Jackson: And a firm within two, two and a half months got back to me and said, yes, let's do it.
• 31:40
  Inessa Jackson: So, so cool.
• 31:41
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah, it, I was in Japan at the time when I got the email.
• 31:44
  Inessa Jackson: Um.
• 31:45
  Inessa Jackson: And I'm nearly through my sushi, obviously eating lunch, and I'm like, oh my God.
• 31:50
  Inessa Jackson: Big yells.
• 31:52
  Inessa Jackson: A little bit of food went flying.
• 31:53
  Inessa Jackson: But everyone was happy for me in the restaurant.
• 31:55
  Inessa Jackson: Everyone knew me.
• 31:55
  Inessa Jackson: It was great.
• 31:56
  Natasha Rai: Oh, what, and did you, do they offer you like a one book or a two book deal?
• 32:00
  Inessa Jackson: One book.
• 32:01
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 32:01
  Inessa Jackson: One
• 32:01
  Natasha Rai: book.
• 32:01
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 32:01
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 32:02
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 32:02
  Inessa Jackson: They're interested.
• 32:02
  Inessa Jackson: We had a chat about where I see my career going and I said, I would love to make this a series.
• 32:06
  Inessa Jackson: I love the main character.
• 32:08
  Inessa Jackson: Hopefully you do too.
• 32:09
  Inessa Jackson: Um, you know, but yeah, it's one, it's one book contract.
• 32:12
  Natasha Rai: So far.
• 32:12
  Natasha Rai: So far.
• 32:13
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 32:13
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 32:13
  Inessa Jackson: So far.
• 32:14
  Inessa Jackson: Thank you.
• 32:15
  Natasha Rai: And Sophie, how did you go?
• 32:17
  Natasha Rai: What happened?
• 32:18
  Sophie Stern: It's funny listening to In Esa and Leearna,'cause I think there's a lot of similarities about the impact of competitions in particular.
• 32:26
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 32:26
  Sophie Stern: Um, so I started writing what is left for us on the Curtis Brown course.
• 32:32
  Sophie Stern: And as part of that course, your work or a sample of your work is sent around to the Curtis Brown agents and one of the agents expressed interest in saying the manuscript when it was finished.
• 32:46
  Sophie Stern: And at the time I was like, no problem.
• 32:47
  Sophie Stern: I'll, I'll be done in a few months.
• 32:49
  Sophie Stern: And of course, you know, one year later,
• 32:52
  Leearna Shaw: yeah,
• 32:52
  Sophie Stern: I was still plugging away at it.
• 32:55
  Sophie Stern: And like Leona, I was starting to get really frustrated and feeling a bit down and wondering, you know, is this the novel that sits in my drawer before I start writing another one?
• 33:07
  Sophie Stern: And then on a total whim, I entered it into the Penguin literary Prize on the last day that it was open, and then sort of forgot about it.
• 33:19
  Sophie Stern: And then three months later I was sitting in the library working on the manuscript and opened my email and was told I was on the shortlist for the Penguin Literary Prize.
• 33:31
  Sophie Stern: And honestly, I thought it was some elaborate phishing or spam email.
• 33:36
  Sophie Stern: Like I, I could not believe it, but like Leearna and Nessa, it was really when I went, oh.
• 33:44
  Sophie Stern: Maybe I'm okay.
• 33:45
  Sophie Stern: Maybe there's something in here.
• 33:47
  Sophie Stern: So that's when I went back to the agent at Curtis Brown.
• 33:50
  Sophie Stern: Um, and I signed with them and I didn't win the Penguin Literary prize, but I got really amazing, generous feedback from the judges.
• 34:03
  Sophie Stern: And you know, this, these were people who worked in publishing and in, in book selling.
• 34:06
  Sophie Stern: Mm-hmm.
• 34:07
  Sophie Stern: So that was incredible to get that feedback and have that opportunity.
• 34:11
  Sophie Stern: Um, and then went out on submission in September, 2024 and signed back with Penguin in October, 2025.
• 34:21
  Natasha Rai: Oh,
• 34:22
  Sophie Stern: 2024, sorry.
• 34:23
  Sophie Stern: 2024.
• 34:23
  Sophie Stern: I all my years
• 34:24
  Natasha Rai: up there.
• 34:24
  Natasha Rai: That's okay.
• 34:24
  Natasha Rai: Don't worry.
• 34:25
  Natasha Rai: I do it all the time.
• 34:26
  Natasha Rai: Um, so Sophie, are you the only one that has an agent?
• 34:29
  Natasha Rai: 'cause Leearna and in, so you don't have agents, do you?
• 34:31
  Natasha Rai: No.
• 34:32
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 34:33
  Natasha Rai: Um, so I'm really curious about,'cause um, you are all with such different size publishers, you know, penguin Affirm and, um, Alan and Unwin.
• 34:43
  Natasha Rai: What have you learned so far about publishing?
• 34:46
  Natasha Rai: And you can feel free to spill the dirt if you want to, like, I'm sure.
• 34:51
  Natasha Rai: Well, I'm not sure, but I assume that you talk to each other about, you know, different milestones and different, uh, feedback that you get from your editors.
• 34:59
  Natasha Rai: Like what, what have you learned or what have you noticed in terms of how publishing works?
• 35:03
  Natasha Rai: 'cause you know, so much of it is such a mystery and so opaque.
• 35:08
  Sophie Stern: I think I've learned that I was just completely naive about the whole publishing process and how I had absolutely no idea about it.
• 35:17
  Sophie Stern: I think in my head I thought publishing was just an extension of the writing process, that you just sort of seamlessly rolled into it and had your book edited and then it was published.
• 35:27
  Sophie Stern: But, you know, it's, it's hot.
• 35:29
  Sophie Stern: It's an industry in and of itself.
• 35:31
  Sophie Stern: Obviously it's a profession and it's quite opaque I think sometimes.
• 35:37
  Sophie Stern: And it's almost.
• 35:39
  Sophie Stern: You don't know what you don't know.
• 35:40
  Sophie Stern: You don't even know what questions to ask.
• 35:42
  Sophie Stern: And so I think that's where the debut crew and podcasts like this one, to be honest, have been really helpful to, to break that down a little bit and not necessarily know the answers, but at least know what you can ask for.
• 35:55
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 35:56
  Sophie Stern: Um, but you know, I, I didn't even have any idea that there was a difference between structurals and copy editing and proofreading and all these different phases.
• 36:05
  Sophie Stern: Um, which sounds really naive now that I think about it.
• 36:09
  Natasha Rai: Well, it's, it's not because no one talks about it.
• 36:11
  Natasha Rai: Literally the only times you hear these words when you talk to other writers, right?
• 36:14
  Sophie Stern: True.
• 36:15
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 36:15
  Natasha Rai: You are going through a process, so Yeah, it is, it is weird.
• 36:19
  Natasha Rai: Um, so for you, Sophie, then, what you've learned the mo like what you've learned or what you've realized is that kind of editing, kind of processing milestones, right?
• 36:28
  Sophie Stern: Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:29
  Sophie Stern: And I got a, a lot out of that whole process at each.
• 36:33
  Sophie Stern: Stage.
• 36:33
  Sophie Stern: I found that really valuable and I think having the initial feedback through the prize meant that I've had this quite long relationship with Penguin as well, which has been really nice.
• 36:44
  Sophie Stern: And I felt like they've really understood the book and I've understood what they see in the book as well for a long time.
• 36:49
  Natasha Rai: And have you had the same editor the whole way through?
• 36:51
  Sophie Stern: Yes.
• 36:52
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 36:52
  Natasha Rai: Oh, nice.
• 36:53
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 36:53
  Natasha Rai: That's great.
• 36:53
  Natasha Rai: That's really good.
• 36:55
  Natasha Rai: Um, and what about you, JuLeearna and Nessa?
• 36:57
  Natasha Rai: Like, are there things that you've learned that you had no idea about or that you'd heard about that you're like, what, what, what is that?
• 37:03
  Leearna Shaw: I think I was a bit the same as Sophie.
• 37:05
  Leearna Shaw: I think that the book deal is that horizon for so long.
• 37:09
  Leearna Shaw: It's the goal that you are aiming for that I didn't really spend too much time looking.
• 37:15
  Leearna Shaw: A little, you know, a bit further past it.
• 37:17
  Leearna Shaw: So, um, once I got there, I, I think I just expected that I signed the contract two weeks later we'd started it.
• 37:24
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and we'd go from there.
• 37:26
  Leearna Shaw: And I think, I just didn't realize that it is a business.
• 37:30
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I think I was just lucky that, you know, my publisher and my publishing team were quite happy to answer all my questions, which to me felt like I was just endlessly asking, okay, so what happens next?
• 37:46
  Leearna Shaw: And they, they were like, just, just settle.
• 37:48
  Leearna Shaw: We'll be right.
• 37:48
  Leearna Shaw: We'll, we'll let you know when things happen.
• 37:50
  Leearna Shaw: You know, they, and they know what they're doing.
• 37:53
  Leearna Shaw: Um, so yeah.
• 37:55
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah, I was quite happy in the end to take a step back and trust them to take me through this process.
• 38:02
  Leearna Shaw: But I think, yeah, the main thing I learned is that I didn't know as much as I thought I knew about the whole process.
• 38:09
  Natasha Rai: How did you deal?
• 38:10
  Natasha Rai: You know,'cause like, especially with long lead times, um, signing a contract so much in advance of publication, there's so much, there's so many, there's so many periods where, not where it seems like nothing's happening or rather you don't have to do anything or you don't have to deliver anything.
• 38:24
  Natasha Rai: Were you okay with that?
• 38:25
  Natasha Rai: How are you with like, kind of waiting and chilling and just
• 38:29
  Leearna Shaw: those seven months before I started edits were excruciating.
• 38:33
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and then once we started and I was on deadline and then I was like, oh no, wait, go back to the waiting period because I live, I've got quite a busy life.
• 38:43
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and life doesn't stop when you are on deadlines.
• 38:46
  Leearna Shaw: So, um.
• 38:48
  Leearna Shaw: And, you know, after all these years, I really wanted to give it everything that I had.
• 38:52
  Leearna Shaw: So, um, yeah, I really just had to push through, um, and get that done.
• 38:57
  Leearna Shaw: And then you send it off and then you are back to wake again.
• 39:00
  Leearna Shaw: So I, I think, you know, all that patience and that, um, persistence and that grit that you develop when you are, um, you know, writing a first draft and working through endless edits and, you know, waiting to hear back from competition and publishers, it, it really does come back into play once you've signed that book deal.
• 39:18
  Leearna Shaw: So, um, yeah, no, that's, um, that's been a, a, a steep learning curve.
• 39:25
  Natasha Rai: How about you Esa?
• 39:26
  Natasha Rai: Were there things that you figured out or realized that you didn't know before?
• 39:29
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah, I found the, um, acquisition process fascinating.
• 39:34
  Inessa Jackson: Mm.
• 39:34
  Inessa Jackson: So I didn't know anything about that before.
• 39:36
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I thought that once.
• 39:38
  Inessa Jackson: I'd had a chat with the editors there, um, Laura and Ruby, that was great.
• 39:43
  Inessa Jackson: And then they said, okay, now we're gonna take it to the team.
• 39:45
  Inessa Jackson: And I was like, oh, okay.
• 39:46
  Inessa Jackson: Alright, we'll take it to the team.
• 39:47
  Inessa Jackson: Let's do that.
• 39:48
  Inessa Jackson: And they explained the acquisition meeting to me.
• 39:51
  Inessa Jackson: And basically the, not the whole company, but all the key players, a lot of key players in the company come together in the meeting room and they look at manuscripts and they assess them.
• 40:00
  Inessa Jackson: And the marketing guys have a really big say in what's gonna happen and whether or not they're gonna go through.
• 40:06
  Inessa Jackson: Um, so I found that, yeah, really interesting.
• 40:08
  Inessa Jackson: And the, the accountants are there and they're all yeah, swapping theories on whether or not it's gonna fly.
• 40:13
  Inessa Jackson: So you could have the best written manuscript in the world with a wonderful story, but if the whole team doesn't think it's gonna get up and they can't sell it, then you're not gonna get a contract.
• 40:22
  Inessa Jackson: So I found that equally terrifying and reassuring that I'd managed to slip into the market in a, you know, they, they saw a gap for it.
• 40:30
  Inessa Jackson: Um.
• 40:31
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 40:31
  Inessa Jackson: So I, yeah, that was great finding, all, finding out about that.
• 40:34
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 40:35
  Natasha Rai: It's, it's, it's so interesting like when you are on this side submitting, submitting and submitting, and then even the acquisitions, it's like, oh my God, this is yet another hurdle.
• 40:45
  Natasha Rai: Like, yeah.
• 40:46
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 40:46
  Natasha Rai: It's not just because they love it, it's not a yes.
• 40:48
  Natasha Rai: Like,
• 40:49
  Inessa Jackson: yeah, it's, that's exactly right.
• 40:50
  Inessa Jackson: This
• 40:50
  Natasha Rai: is, yeah.
• 40:51
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 40:51
  Natasha Rai: Um, so do you all have your arcs?
• 40:54
  Natasha Rai: No, not yet.
• 40:55
  Sophie Stern: Oh.
• 40:56
  Natasha Rai: Oh, Sophie, you
• 40:57
  Sophie Stern: do?
• 40:57
  Sophie Stern: I do, yes.
• 40:58
  Sophie Stern: I got my arc quite early.
• 41:00
  Sophie Stern: I got the ARC before it went to proofreading, so my main character's name I misspelled a couple of times in that.
• 41:07
  Sophie Stern: Um, but yeah, I think the, the final copies will drop any day now.
• 41:14
  Natasha Rai: So exciting.
• 41:15
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Natasha Rai: So, uh, the arcs when they arrive, it's very special.
• 41:18
  Natasha Rai: Um, so for people who are not sure what an arc is, is an advanced reading copy that, um, you get Yeah, usually before you proofread or just after
• 41:25
  Leearna Shaw: they, they don't usually do arcs for rural romance, so I will be waiting for my, for my real copies to arrive.
• 41:33
  Natasha Rai: Oh, oh.
• 41:34
  Natasha Rai: I mean, that's just as exciting.
• 41:35
  Natasha Rai: Probably it be even more.
• 41:37
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, do that.
• 41:38
  Natasha Rai: You, you'll get asked.
• 41:39
  Natasha Rai: Right, Vanessa?
• 41:40
  Inessa Jackson: You know what?
• 41:41
  Inessa Jackson: I actually don't know.
• 41:42
  Inessa Jackson: I've forgotten to ask that.
• 41:43
  Inessa Jackson: It's all been so exciting.
• 41:45
  Inessa Jackson: Course, of course.
• 41:45
  Inessa Jackson: Copy edits and preread and I, I will find out.
• 41:49
  Inessa Jackson: I'll report back.
• 41:50
  Natasha Rai: Oh, it's the best feeling.
• 41:52
  Natasha Rai: Um, so you've all mentioned, you know, family commitments, um, work.
• 41:56
  Natasha Rai: So what, how do you write, like, I know you've got your book deal now, but what's your practice look like?
• 42:03
  Natasha Rai: Like how do you find the time?
• 42:04
  Natasha Rai: How do you, how do you do it?
• 42:07
  Natasha Rai: Being parents and having life commitments, et cetera, Vanessa,
• 42:12
  Inessa Jackson: um.
• 42:13
  Inessa Jackson: Look, I didn't ever go back to the workforce.
• 42:16
  Inessa Jackson: We have, um, a beautiful son.
• 42:17
  Inessa Jackson: So I've been parenting, um, him and as he's gotten older and more independent, I've got more and more time.
• 42:24
  Inessa Jackson: So I just carve out as much as I can until my brain starts hurting.
• 42:28
  Inessa Jackson: And not every day, but I try and do something every day.
• 42:31
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 42:32
  Inessa Jackson: Working on book two and fixing up book one.
• 42:35
  Inessa Jackson: Um, yeah, so I'm very fortunate in that way that I can, I can sort of pick and choose a bit when I write.
• 42:41
  Natasha Rai: And what do you do if, you know, you decide that, oh, I need to sit down today and, and get something done, and you sit down and it's just not happening.
• 42:49
  Natasha Rai: Do you just make yourself sit there or do you try something?
• 42:52
  Natasha Rai: What, what do you do?
• 42:53
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I usually wings to a friend online, a writing friend, and she always gives me really good advice.
• 43:01
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I usually, if I'm stuck with a scene, I just start a new scene and I usually start it with an argument or a fight or just someone telling the other person to get lost and it's like, oh, okay.
• 43:10
  Inessa Jackson: Why?
• 43:10
  Inessa Jackson: Why?
• 43:11
  Inessa Jackson: Why are you doing that?
• 43:12
  Inessa Jackson: There's a lot of swearing in my books.
• 43:14
  Inessa Jackson: That's lot.
• 43:15
  Inessa Jackson: I
• 43:15
  Natasha Rai: have never heard that.
• 43:16
  Natasha Rai: I heard that before.
• 43:17
  Natasha Rai: I really like that idea.
• 43:19
  Natasha Rai: Start writing a new scene with two people arguing.
• 43:21
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 43:22
  Inessa Jackson: And, and usually it comes out, you know, I edit it out, but something always comes from that.
• 43:26
  Inessa Jackson: Someone's always pissed off with someone else.
• 43:28
  Inessa Jackson: Excuse my language.
• 43:29
  Natasha Rai: No, that's
• 43:29
  Inessa Jackson: fine.
• 43:29
  Inessa Jackson: Um, yeah, so that's, I don't do that every time.
• 43:32
  Inessa Jackson: It doesn't work every time, but that's one of the things I try.
• 43:35
  Natasha Rai: That's a really great tip.
• 43:37
  Natasha Rai: I'm just gonna already name it.
• 43:39
  Natasha Rai: Um, yeah.
• 43:40
  Natasha Rai: For writer's block or if you're feeling a bit stuck.
• 43:42
  Natasha Rai: I like that.
• 43:43
  Natasha Rai: Thank you.
• 43:44
  Natasha Rai: Um, how about you Leearna?
• 43:45
  Natasha Rai: What, how, what's your writing practice look like?
• 43:48
  Leearna Shaw: So I have to be quite strict because I, my life is chaos.
• 43:52
  Leearna Shaw: Um, we obviously live on 30 acres.
• 43:56
  Leearna Shaw: Um.
• 43:57
  Leearna Shaw: I work part-time.
• 43:58
  Leearna Shaw: I also do the books for my husband's business.
• 44:01
  Leearna Shaw: Um, my children do sports seven days a week, and I'm often in the car for over two hours a day.
• 44:08
  Leearna Shaw: So what I did was I actually used my advance to drop a day at work.
• 44:14
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and now I spend two days just writing.
• 44:19
  Leearna Shaw: I'm pretty strict with it.
• 44:20
  Leearna Shaw: I mean, these couple of weeks kids are going back to school.
• 44:24
  Leearna Shaw: Um, they're still on holidays and that's been a bit hard.
• 44:26
  Leearna Shaw: But, um, I'm, I try to be pretty strict in those two days and I will not get up from my desk for the whole time I'm there.
• 44:35
  Natasha Rai: Okay.
• 44:35
  Natasha Rai: And when you're there for you, it's very much a time thing.
• 44:38
  Natasha Rai: Like, are you sitting there going, I need to hit this word count, or you're like, Nope, this is my time.
• 44:42
  Natasha Rai: I'm just gonna do as much as possible.
• 44:44
  Leearna Shaw: I used to do a lot of word count.
• 44:46
  Leearna Shaw: Um, so have a quite a big word count for the day, and I just found that pressure was getting to me.
• 44:52
  Leearna Shaw: So I now break it down and I will, I've gotta get to 250 words.
• 44:58
  Leearna Shaw: 250 words is very, man.
• 45:00
  Leearna Shaw: I write quite fast and I can write a lot in a short time of, um, uh, period.
• 45:05
  Leearna Shaw: So, um, I just gotta hit that 250 words and often by the time I, you know, I, I stop, I've gone past it.
• 45:15
  Leearna Shaw: And then, so I'll go, I'll just gotta hit another 250.
• 45:18
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and I'll just do that for the rest of the day.
• 45:20
  Leearna Shaw: And, um, just having those smaller goals.
• 45:23
  Leearna Shaw: Also, I, I love ticking off a list, so just being able to tick off all those goals just, um, you know, gives me that little boost, um, but also keeps me accountable.
• 45:34
  Natasha Rai: And also that, you know, that I, that's really important for anyone who's struggling with time or doesn't have, you know, a lot of time that it's possible you can carve out a day or two days or whatever it is and you can get quite a lot done.
• 45:48
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:49
  Leearna Shaw: But I'm, I've also, I take my laptop with me everywhere.
• 45:52
  Leearna Shaw: I, as I said, my kids do sport every day of the week, so I'm often in the car park at a basketball stadium or a footy oval just typing out whenever I can.
• 46:00
  Leearna Shaw: So, um, you know, when, when they, when times do get busy, that happens less and less.
• 46:06
  Leearna Shaw: But, you know, it's something I love doing.
• 46:09
  Leearna Shaw: So if I've got an hour, the opportunity, I will grab the opportunity.
• 46:12
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 46:12
  Natasha Rai: Nice.
• 46:13
  Natasha Rai: How about you, Sophie?
• 46:14
  Natasha Rai: What's your PR writing practice look like?
• 46:17
  Sophie Stern: Similar to Leearna, I am someone who writes in big chunks of time rather than regularly over the week.
• 46:24
  Sophie Stern: So.
• 46:25
  Sophie Stern: When I started writing, my son was younger and he was still taking naps.
• 46:30
  Sophie Stern: So nap time, beautiful little riding, power hour.
• 46:35
  Sophie Stern: Um, otherwise it's just been really through the support of my parents and in-laws and husband sort of taking my child on the weekend for a few hours.
• 46:44
  Sophie Stern: And I take myself to the library.
• 46:46
  Sophie Stern: I work, I worked at the time, full time.
• 46:48
  Sophie Stern: Now I'm four days a week, and now my son is at school.
• 46:52
  Sophie Stern: So Friday is my writing day between nine and three.
• 46:56
  Sophie Stern: It's just my writing time and I just go at it.
• 46:59
  Sophie Stern: It is so precious.
• 47:01
  Sophie Stern: I do not waste a minute.
• 47:02
  Sophie Stern: And I think, um, that's actually really helpful that it's quite compressed and I don't take it for granted at all.
• 47:10
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 47:12
  Natasha Rai: Mm.
• 47:12
  Natasha Rai: And what do you do if you're feeling stuck or you're, it's not flowing as you hope?
• 47:17
  Sophie Stern: Um.
• 47:19
  Sophie Stern: I mean, I, I really like free writing and sort of stream of consciousness style writing, so I'll often just force myself to do that.
• 47:27
  Sophie Stern: Mm-hmm.
• 47:28
  Sophie Stern: Um, I also love making playlists for the book that I'm working on, so a playlist, you know, for a particular character or a particular scene.
• 47:35
  Sophie Stern: So I'll often take myself for a walk while listening to a track over and over.
• 47:40
  Sophie Stern: And that often sparks some ideas and then I'll get out the notes app and I'm that annoying person on the street sort of typing, madly looking down at my phone.
• 47:48
  Sophie Stern: So I find that pretty helpful.
• 47:51
  Sophie Stern: Um, and sometimes you just have to walk away as well and have a break and do something else.
• 47:55
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 47:56
  Natasha Rai: And that actually segues really beautifully into the next part of my question.
• 47:59
  Natasha Rai: Um, so I wanted to come back to what Inessa said earlier.
• 48:01
  Natasha Rai: She made a, a comment about, it was in my head for a while.
• 48:05
  Natasha Rai: How do you, like, how do ideas come to you?
• 48:07
  Natasha Rai: Like, is it something that you feel like you actively do or you just get inspired?
• 48:12
  Natasha Rai: Or how does that work for you?
• 48:13
  Natasha Rai: Sophie?
• 48:16
  Sophie Stern: I don't know if it sounds a bit woowoo, but No,
• 48:18
  Natasha Rai: no,
• 48:18
  Sophie Stern: no, no.
• 48:18
  Sophie Stern: It comes, I love woowoo.
• 48:19
  Sophie Stern: It just comes.
• 48:20
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 48:20
  Sophie Stern: It, I can't force it that I, something just comes to me and I can't forget about it.
• 48:28
  Sophie Stern: And I actually tried, when I was starting to write my second book, I thought, you know, now I've done this.
• 48:35
  Sophie Stern: I'm all over it.
• 48:36
  Sophie Stern: Easy peasy.
• 48:37
  Sophie Stern: And I tried to sort of be more deliberate about plotting and planning, and that was an absolute disaster.
• 48:43
  Sophie Stern: Um, so I put that away and then an idea, a completely different idea came to me and that was organic.
• 48:51
  Sophie Stern: So that's what works for me.
• 48:54
  Sophie Stern: Mm-hmm.
• 48:54
  Sophie Stern: Um, at the moment, the ideas are still coming, but I, I guess it's scary when they stop coming.
• 48:59
  Natasha Rai: And do you like write them down or note them down somewhere when they do come?
• 49:04
  Sophie Stern: Yeah, I've got a lot of garbled voice memos to myself, um, which is slightly frightening to listen back to.
• 49:12
  Natasha Rai: I find little bits of paper all over the, all over the house.
• 49:14
  Natasha Rai: Like one day I picked it up and I'm like, it was like two sentences.
• 49:18
  Natasha Rai: It made no sense.
• 49:19
  Natasha Rai: And I'm like, did I, did I even write this?
• 49:21
  Natasha Rai: I don't even remember writing this.
• 49:23
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah.
• 49:23
  Natasha Rai: Um, what about you in esa?
• 49:26
  Natasha Rai: Because you mentioned earlier about that story was in your head.
• 49:28
  Natasha Rai: When your ideas come to you, how did they come?
• 49:31
  Natasha Rai: Are they images or people or plots or how does it work for you?
• 49:36
  Inessa Jackson: It's very much people, so I've got this filter as you guys would imagine, as well.
• 49:41
  Inessa Jackson: So you're talking to someone and then they say something interesting or a bit strange and you go, Ooh, hang on, quick backtrack to that.
• 49:48
  Inessa Jackson: Um, yeah, over you're overhearing people.
• 49:51
  Inessa Jackson: I'm a terrible age dropper.
• 49:52
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I, yeah, I write on little bits of paper.
• 49:54
  Inessa Jackson: I actually counted the other day.
• 49:55
  Inessa Jackson: I've got eight notebooks, but most of my aunties are on little scraps.
• 49:58
  Inessa Jackson: It's just awful.
• 49:59
  Inessa Jackson: I can't remember to take the notebook anyway.
• 50:01
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 50:01
  Inessa Jackson: And I send myself a lot.
• 50:02
  Inessa Jackson: I send myself a lot of emails.
• 50:04
  Inessa Jackson: Um, but yeah, it's just generally being out in the general population and talking to people.
• 50:10
  Inessa Jackson: I find that that's really valuable.
• 50:13
  Inessa Jackson: Real people saying interesting things.
• 50:15
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 50:15
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 50:15
  Natasha Rai: So, so when you have like, you know, little sparks everywhere, how do you decide or how do you know which one you're gonna follow?
• 50:23
  Natasha Rai: Like to expand out or work on a bit more?
• 50:26
  Inessa Jackson: Um, it's a really good question.
• 50:28
  Inessa Jackson: I think if they last longer than 12 hours.
• 50:31
  Inessa Jackson: So a lot of them come and go very quickly.
• 50:33
  Inessa Jackson: They're like, what was that?
• 50:34
  Inessa Jackson: That was crap.
• 50:35
  Inessa Jackson: Um, but if they linger, you know, days turn into weeks and then a couple of weeks and I think I'm still thinking about this and I've built on it, then I know, well it doesn't happen.
• 50:44
  Inessa Jackson: It's only happened a couple of times.
• 50:45
  Inessa Jackson: I wanna winner it.
• 50:45
  Inessa Jackson: I think I'm wanna winner and I'm really excited about it and I can't stop thinking about it and I wanna tell other people about it, which is really boring'cause it's so poorly formed at this stage.
• 50:54
  Inessa Jackson: It doesn't make sense.
• 50:55
  Inessa Jackson: Um, but yeah, I'm excited about it and I think about it a lot.
• 50:59
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 50:59
  Inessa Jackson: And it's not going anywhere.
• 51:01
  Natasha Rai: I know what you mean.
• 51:01
  Natasha Rai: I get so excited when an idea starts to sprout and I'm like, oh my God, I think this is something.
• 51:06
  Inessa Jackson: It's great tingles.
• 51:09
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 51:10
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 51:10
  Natasha Rai: And Leearna, how about you?
• 51:12
  Natasha Rai: This excitement for you too, or,
• 51:14
  Leearna Shaw: um, yeah.
• 51:15
  Leearna Shaw: Most of my ideas have literally just come from like, well, not small things, but you know, my husband's close call on a mower, or one day I was walking through the forest and I thought I saw, um, a leg and a man hide behind a tree, and it just ended up being this giant deer.
• 51:32
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and it's just little things like that.
• 51:34
  Leearna Shaw: But, um, you know, we, since we've moved to this small town, uh, people who say that small towns and country towns are boring, they are definitely not boring.
• 51:43
  Leearna Shaw: There's always some gossip, some story that, um, you know, you overhear and it just, just sparks that idea.
• 51:50
  Leearna Shaw: Um, plus there's also the, something about, you know, big blue skies and open paddocks and eucalyptus forest that just sparked the imagination.
• 51:59
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, it's kind of begging for like inspiration, isn't it?
• 52:03
  Natasha Rai: All that beautiful.
• 52:04
  Natasha Rai: Um,
• 52:04
  Leearna Shaw: absolutely.
• 52:05
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 52:06
  Natasha Rai: Openness, expansiveness.
• 52:08
  Natasha Rai: Um, so tell me, how are you preparing for publication Leearna?
• 52:14
  Natasha Rai: Like, what does the PR side look like?
• 52:18
  Natasha Rai: What does the marketing side look like that you know of?
• 52:20
  Natasha Rai: What are you thinking about, how you're feeling about it?
• 52:25
  Leearna Shaw: So the first word that comes to mind is terrified, but it is quickly chased by excitement.
• 52:32
  Leearna Shaw: Um, the PR side and the self promo, it's, it's not something I've ever had to, um, I've ever come across in my life.
• 52:39
  Leearna Shaw: So that was a little bit scary at, at first, but I've got a great publicist and.
• 52:46
  Leearna Shaw: The closer we are getting to the book coming out.
• 52:48
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and the more you know, we are, we are talking to podcasts and writers, festivals and libraries about, um, to do book events.
• 52:56
  Leearna Shaw: And I, I'm actually getting quite excited and eager to get out there and meet people and talk about this book that, you know, I, I've lived with for six years of my life.
• 53:06
  Leearna Shaw: So I'm just really excited to, um, you know, get it out there.
• 53:11
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but I'm really trying not to put too much expectation and pressure on myself, you know?
• 53:18
  Leearna Shaw: Um, all three of us we're, we're all debut authors.
• 53:21
  Leearna Shaw: We've never done this before.
• 53:23
  Leearna Shaw: Everything is new and, you know, I'm not gonna get everything right the first time.
• 53:27
  Leearna Shaw: Um, but I think the main thing is I'm just, I'm just at that point now where I'm ready to give it a go.
• 53:33
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and just go with the flow.
• 53:35
  Leearna Shaw: And, you know, I've been working towards this moment for.
• 53:38
  Leearna Shaw: You know, technically my whole life, but probably about 10 years.
• 53:43
  Leearna Shaw: So I really just do wanna stay in the moment and enjoy it and yeah, really just, just enjoy this moment.
• 53:50
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 53:51
  Natasha Rai: That is, that is so important because I know that our crew last year, there were so many people who were so anxious and, um, and I get it, and also it was this feeling that I kept coming back to, you have to, we have to enjoy it because no matter how many books we might write, or if we never write another book again, we'll never repeat this.
• 54:08
  Natasha Rai: This is, so this will be it for like, you know, we'll never have this, this specific experience again of
• 54:16
  Leearna Shaw: Yeah.
• 54:17
  Natasha Rai: Getting a book out there in the world
• 54:19
  Leearna Shaw: and out, like those anxieties are definitely there, but I, I think the main thing is just not letting them take over.
• 54:25
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 54:25
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 54:25
  Leearna Shaw: You know, just pushing them aside and trusting that, um, you know, you are, you are here for a reason, your book is coming out for a reason, and your book will find its readers.
• 54:34
  Leearna Shaw: So, yeah.
• 54:35
  Leearna Shaw: Um, just to en enjoy the process and the journey.
• 54:38
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 54:38
  Natasha Rai: And something that helped me as well was like realizing that every time you do an event or every library talk, everything, um, even a book launch, like everyone there is rooting for you.
• 54:47
  Natasha Rai: Like they want you to succeed and they care, care about you in some way or they wanna read this book.
• 54:52
  Natasha Rai: So that helped me'cause I always had this weird image of being quite adversarial.
• 54:57
  Natasha Rai: Like I had to like fight or like had to, to convince someone.
• 55:00
  Natasha Rai: And I'm like, no, that's not what's happening.
• 55:02
  Natasha Rai: So, yeah.
• 55:04
  Natasha Rai: How about you Sophie?
• 55:05
  Natasha Rai: How are you feeling and what are you, are you feeling about speaking and what are you scared about?
• 55:10
  Natasha Rai: What are you excited about?
• 55:11
  Sophie Stern: I think I might need to take a snip of Leearna's advice about just enjoying it and just repeat it over and over, because that was really nice.
• 55:18
  Sophie Stern: I am definitely feeling anxious about it.
• 55:23
  Sophie Stern: Uh, I remember talking to you Natasha last year when we met up and you, you talked about, you know, the importance of being present and enjoying it and taking the time and making space.
• 55:35
  Sophie Stern: For it as well.
• 55:36
  Sophie Stern: So that's what I'm trying to do in the lead up is, you know, how can I create space around the launch time, whether it's, you know, organizing a meal delivery, getting everything organized with childcare, trying to book as many things in as possible now, and taking some time off work so that when the time comes I can just soak it all in.
• 55:55
  Natasha Rai: Exactly.
• 55:56
  Natasha Rai: It kind of is like your wedding day.
• 55:58
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 55:58
  Sophie Stern: I, I'm more excited for this than my wedding,
• 56:03
  Natasha Rai: but it kind of has that feeling like everyone's swarming around you and all the tensions on you.
• 56:07
  Natasha Rai: Absolutely.
• 56:07
  Natasha Rai: You have to organize.
• 56:08
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 56:09
  Sophie Stern: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:10
  Sophie Stern: Um, so yeah, I think, I think that's what I've been focusing on, I guess is the internal preparation for the book coming out, because I noticed particularly in the last maybe six weeks.
• 56:25
  Sophie Stern: I'd been hoping that people would be read my book and that my book would do well, and now suddenly it's switched to, oh, people are gonna read my book.
• 56:33
  Sophie Stern: And so just sort of, you know, making friends with that anxiety and staring into it a little bit.
• 56:40
  Sophie Stern: It was interesting listening to the episode you did Natasha about journaling and using that as a practice as well to sort of untangle your thoughts.
• 56:49
  Sophie Stern: So yeah, that's, that's a lot of my focus at the moment and I blocked good reads preemptively.
• 56:54
  Natasha Rai: Excellent, excellent.
• 56:57
  Natasha Rai: Do all of you should block good reads.
• 56:58
  Natasha Rai: Do not read any reviews of your own books.
• 57:00
  Natasha Rai: Even if everyone says to you, oh my God, they're glowing reviews, don't do it.
• 57:04
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 57:04
  Sophie Stern: Because
• 57:04
  Natasha Rai: I'll be, I know
• 57:05
  Sophie Stern: myself, I'll spiral.
• 57:07
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 57:07
  Natasha Rai: Yep.
• 57:08
  Natasha Rai: There'll be one or two.
• 57:09
  Natasha Rai: That's what I did.
• 57:10
  Natasha Rai: And I spiral.
• 57:10
  Natasha Rai: I was like, oh my God, I've written a pile of trash.
• 57:13
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 57:13
  Natasha Rai: Don't do it.
• 57:14
  Natasha Rai: Um, so is the anxiety, like, how, how do you feel about.
• 57:18
  Natasha Rai: Speaking about your book,'cause I know that can feel really difficult at first'cause you don't really know how, well, I don't know.
• 57:24
  Natasha Rai: I, I'm talking about myself really.
• 57:25
  Natasha Rai: I don't, I don't really know how to talk about the book initially.
• 57:28
  Natasha Rai: Mm.
• 57:28
  Natasha Rai: Do you have any of that worry or is it just generalized anxiety?
• 57:32
  Sophie Stern: I think it's just a generalized big ball of anxiety at the moment, to be honest.
• 57:37
  Sophie Stern: Um, I'm a pretty private person as well, so it feels odd to suddenly talk about myself a lot.
• 57:44
  Sophie Stern: Um, but I think also just listening to other people on podcasts is really helpful to hear how they speak about their books and, you know, getting used to the rhythm of those conversations is really helpful.
• 57:57
  Sophie Stern: So.
• 57:58
  Sophie Stern: Yeah.
• 57:59
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 57:59
  Sophie Stern: Hopefully I get better.
• 58:01
  Natasha Rai: Well, someone gave me some really good advice.
• 58:02
  Natasha Rai: They were like, it's your book.
• 58:04
  Natasha Rai: You can say whatever you want about it, and no one's gonna know.
• 58:06
  Natasha Rai: I'm like, oh yeah, you could literally say anything.
• 58:09
  Natasha Rai: And I'm like, oh, you did.
• 58:10
  Natasha Rai: They're like, you don't have to go on some truth telling mission.
• 58:13
  Natasha Rai: Just say whatever you want.
• 58:14
  Natasha Rai: I'm like, oh, I like that.
• 58:16
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 58:18
  Natasha Rai: How about you, Vanessa?
• 58:19
  Natasha Rai: How are you feeling, um, leading up to publication day and your work being out in the world?
• 58:25
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I'm swinging between really excited and really nervous and then really terrified.
• 58:31
  Inessa Jackson: Can you swing in 3D directions?
• 58:33
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 58:33
  Natasha Rai: Yes you can.
• 58:34
  Inessa Jackson: Okay.
• 58:34
  Inessa Jackson: You can.
• 58:34
  Inessa Jackson: Okay, cool.
• 58:35
  Inessa Jackson: You
• 58:35
  Natasha Rai: can,
• 58:35
  Inessa Jackson: um, I don't know if you notice yet, but I say a lot of really stupid things and you can't get them back in live events, so I was like, oh,
• 58:41
  Natasha Rai: oh.
• 58:41
  Natasha Rai: Well I have definitely have not noticed you saying anything
• 58:44
  Inessa Jackson: stupid.
• 58:45
  Natasha Rai: I think that's a very harsh inner critic in
• 58:47
  Inessa Jackson: it anyway.
• 58:47
  Natasha Rai: Yes.
• 58:48
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 58:48
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 58:48
  Inessa Jackson: I know the inner critic is just Yeah.
• 58:50
  Inessa Jackson: Alive and well.
• 58:51
  Inessa Jackson: But look, I'm gonna do some practice, um, just talking to friends and family and just bore them silly, just doing some question and answer.
• 58:57
  Inessa Jackson: And I've done a couple of short courses online about how to prepare, do PR more so working with a wonderful publicity manager at Affirm.
• 59:05
  Inessa Jackson: And she's really experienced and she's really excited about reading the book and getting to know me and working together.
• 59:11
  Inessa Jackson: I, um, I accidentally dropped the fact that I used to work in PR for a couple of decades.
• 59:17
  Inessa Jackson: Mm-hmm.
• 59:17
  Inessa Jackson: But I haven't done the PR for about 15 years and I'm not sure if the internet was even invented back when I was doing it.
• 59:23
  Inessa Jackson: So I'm really trying to get my head around Insta and I've found that wonderful community, uh, you guys would know this.
• 59:30
  Inessa Jackson: It's just so wonderful being on there with the Australian authors and readers.
• 59:34
  Inessa Jackson: So I've networked and met wonderful people, um, supporting the community there.
• 59:39
  Inessa Jackson: And I feel as though that's a big sort of, um, step forward.
• 59:42
  Inessa Jackson: Everyone supports each other.
• 59:43
  Leearna Shaw: Mm-hmm.
• 59:44
  Inessa Jackson: Um, yeah.
• 59:45
  Inessa Jackson: And I think I'm getting better at reels, although I'm using my cat too much, so I've gotta get back to the dog.
• 59:51
  Inessa Jackson: Dog's getting jealous.
• 59:52
  Inessa Jackson: Um, so I might have to evolve those posts into something a bit more sophisticated.
• 59:56
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 59:56
  Inessa Jackson: But overall, yeah, kind of terrified, but looking forward to it.
• 1:00:00
  Natasha Rai: How are you at public speaking
• 1:00:02
  Inessa Jackson: rubbish.
• 1:00:03
  Inessa Jackson: Don't you tell
• 1:00:05
  Natasha Rai: I honestly can't, I don't, you keep saying all these things and that seems silly things and being terrible.
• 1:00:10
  Natasha Rai: I'm like, no, I haven't seen that at all.
• 1:00:13
  Inessa Jackson: Um, look, I do, you know, back, yeah, back in the day I did a lot of public speaking.
• 1:00:18
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I did some live television.
• 1:00:19
  Inessa Jackson: God, that's funny.
• 1:00:21
  Inessa Jackson: And, um, I, yeah, I was spokesperson for eBay for a while, so I did a lot of it, but I don't know where it's gone.
• 1:00:27
  Inessa Jackson: And I think it's still in there, but I just need to get comfortable with doing it again.
• 1:00:31
  Inessa Jackson: And I think that'll just come through practice.
• 1:00:32
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 1:00:34
  Inessa Jackson: Yeah.
• 1:00:35
  Natasha Rai: Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  Natasha Rai: And it's always helpful.
• 1:00:37
  Natasha Rai: I mean, well the events that I've done so far, it's always helpful.
• 1:00:40
  Natasha Rai: Actually, you know what?
• 1:00:41
  Natasha Rai: It was so weird.
• 1:00:42
  Natasha Rai: I always thought it was gonna be really helpful to have people I really knew Well in the, in like in the crowd.
• 1:00:47
  Natasha Rai: And sometimes it isn't.
• 1:00:48
  Natasha Rai: Other times it's actually way better to have like some stranger with kind eyes kind of smiling and nodding and you're like, yes, you get it.
• 1:00:55
  Natasha Rai: I'm gonna keep looking at you.
• 1:00:56
  Natasha Rai: Probably they're freaked out.
• 1:00:57
  Natasha Rai: They were like, why should she keep looking at me?
• 1:00:59
  Natasha Rai: But that helped too, like just kind of finding a nice space in the, in the crowd to look at.
• 1:01:05
  Inessa Jackson: I'll look out for them.
• 1:01:07
  Inessa Jackson: Thank you.
• 1:01:07
  Natasha Rai: You are welcome.
• 1:01:09
  Natasha Rai: Um, so you, you mentioned community.
• 1:01:12
  Natasha Rai: How have you all gone about creating community?
• 1:01:15
  Natasha Rai: Obviously you've got the debut crew 2026.
• 1:01:19
  Natasha Rai: Did you know writers before you joined the crew?
• 1:01:21
  Natasha Rai: Did you know writers before you got public?
• 1:01:23
  Natasha Rai: I know, um, you've got writing groups as well, but Yeah.
• 1:01:26
  Natasha Rai: How do you find that?
• 1:01:27
  Natasha Rai: How do you build on that and esa.
• 1:01:31
  Inessa Jackson: No, I didn't know many writers at all.
• 1:01:33
  Inessa Jackson: And I, um, you know, everyone starts small and Insta, but I found, I went straight for the authors I love.
• 1:01:39
  Inessa Jackson: So, um, I don't wanna say I stalked them.
• 1:01:42
  Inessa Jackson: Maybe I did.
• 1:01:43
  Inessa Jackson: I followed all their posts and liked all their posts, and then I saw who they were supporting, and then it just got wi got the net, went wider and wider and wider, um, until I've just got a stream full of just fantastic content.
• 1:01:54
  Inessa Jackson: I mean, again, you guys would see this too.
• 1:01:56
  Inessa Jackson: It's just wonderful.
• 1:01:57
  Inessa Jackson: So yeah, I started very small with the people I love
• 1:02:00
  Natasha Rai: like it.
• 1:02:01
  Natasha Rai: How about you Leearna?
• 1:02:03
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I, I went to a few book launches, um, early on, and I met a couple of people there and went straight home and stalked them and followed them on Instagram and then I, they didn't really have a choice, they just became my writer people.
• 1:02:20
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and from there you meet, they, you know, you meet new people and they introduce you.
• 1:02:24
  Leearna Shaw: Um.
• 1:02:26
  Leearna Shaw: And I, I think the writing groups are really important.
• 1:02:29
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I'm part of the Right Club, which is an online group and the right squad, which is a fantastic supportive community.
• 1:02:37
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and the, just the people you meet, like we're all at the, the different stages of our journey, but all going through the same thing.
• 1:02:44
  Leearna Shaw: Um, so it is really important, but even the, um, the Bookstagram community have just been, have so wonderful.
• 1:02:52
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and even though my book isn't out, I've just made so many friends because if you're a writer, you're a reader.
• 1:02:58
  Leearna Shaw: Um, yes.
• 1:02:58
  Leearna Shaw: And we all love, you know, we all love stories.
• 1:03:00
  Leearna Shaw: So I've, I, and I've really been trying to, you know, focus on community and, um, on Instagram instead of just spewing out all this content, um, which is why I started up a substack.
• 1:03:15
  Leearna Shaw: Newsletter, a monthly newsletter, which was more for myself, but I found that I've made a, you know, a whole new lot of connections because I'm just going through, uh, month by month and sharing where I am at the journey and how the process works.
• 1:03:30
  Leearna Shaw: And that's been really lovely to meet new people that way.
• 1:03:34
  Natasha Rai: Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:35
  Natasha Rai: I, yeah, I think the writing community is so supportive and so welcoming.
• 1:03:39
  Natasha Rai: Um, and I think because we all have quite a lot of introverted energy, it just helps when someone with a bit more confidence goes, hi.
• 1:03:47
  Natasha Rai: Like, oh, hi.
• 1:03:48
  Natasha Rai: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:03:50
  Natasha Rai: Um, Sophie,
• 1:03:52
  Sophie Stern: yeah, like the others, I've been really pleasantly surprised by how wonderful the community on Instagram is in particular, it's very.
• 1:04:02
  Sophie Stern: Welcoming.
• 1:04:03
  Sophie Stern: Um, very warm.
• 1:04:05
  Sophie Stern: And that's been a really nice way to connect with other writers who are often like very generous in sort of introducing to other people.
• 1:04:12
  Sophie Stern: Like, I feel like, you know, one writer and suddenly they're like, oh, I've gotta introduce you to this person and you should meet this person.
• 1:04:17
  Sophie Stern: So that has been a really nice way to build community.
• 1:04:22
  Sophie Stern: Um, I also, I guess at the physical level, um, introduced myself to the manager at my local bookstore as well in the past couple of weeks.
• 1:04:30
  Sophie Stern: And that's really nice to have that connection as well, um, to, to build that side of things.
• 1:04:37
  Natasha Rai: Love it.
• 1:04:38
  Natasha Rai: So before we wrap up, like we do with all our guests, what is your top tip for writers out there?
• 1:04:49
  Natasha Rai: Anyone can drop it.
• 1:04:51
  Sophie Stern: Well, I think the theme of this conversation has been competitions and how much that has helped all of us.
• 1:04:58
  Sophie Stern: So I would say.
• 1:04:59
  Sophie Stern: Look for the competitions.
• 1:05:01
  Sophie Stern: All of the state writing associations have great email lists that you can sign up to.
• 1:05:06
  Sophie Stern: You don't need to be a member, and they'll put out regular emails with all of the opportunities.
• 1:05:10
  Sophie Stern: So throw your hat in the ring, um, and look for those, those opportunities because they are so helpful.
• 1:05:19
  Natasha Rai: Excellent.
• 1:05:20
  Natasha Rai: Thank you.
• 1:05:22
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I think my tip is, it's based on my own experience in that write the story, finish it, edit as best you can.
• 1:05:31
  Leearna Shaw: Get it out there.
• 1:05:31
  Leearna Shaw: Send it out there to agents and publishers.
• 1:05:34
  Leearna Shaw: But eventually you need to let it go and sit down and write the next thing.
• 1:05:38
  Leearna Shaw: Um.
• 1:05:40
  Leearna Shaw: Do I think I would've been offered a two book deal if I didn't have that back list of manuscripts?
• 1:05:45
  Leearna Shaw: Maybe, but I'm not sure.
• 1:05:47
  Leearna Shaw: But what I do know is having that back list, you know, showed publishers that I had more than one book in me.
• 1:05:55
  Leearna Shaw: Um, I was an author worth investing their time and money into.
• 1:06:00
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and that I was serious about my money, uh, about my writing.
• 1:06:03
  Leearna Shaw: Um, whether I, you know, I, I would love to turn into a career, but even if I couldn't do that, that I was interested in longevity anyway.
• 1:06:12
  Leearna Shaw: Um, and also writing is like any skill.
• 1:06:16
  Leearna Shaw: The more you do it, the better you get.
• 1:06:18
  Leearna Shaw: And moving on and writing those new manuscripts gave me the confidence and more tools in the toolkit that when I went back to that first manuscript, um, I had, I had, yeah, all these skills and tools that I could use to make that manuscript better.
• 1:06:33
  Leearna Shaw: So yeah, write your book, finish it, but then move on.
• 1:06:37
  Leearna Shaw: Just keep going.
• 1:06:38
  Natasha Rai: Love it.
• 1:06:39
  Natasha Rai: Thank you, Vanessa.
• 1:06:41
  Inessa Jackson: Um, I'd say at least you particularly want to, don't, you don't have to do it alone.
• 1:06:45
  Inessa Jackson: I would find kindred spirits and you can find those people, um, maybe at your own level through the regional writing centers and they do courses both, um, in real life and online.
• 1:06:56
  Inessa Jackson: And, um, yeah, you find really cool people to understand what you're going through and they're gonna do feedback with you and you can give feedback on their work and you learn and grow together.
• 1:07:05
  Inessa Jackson: And then in those moments, yeah, where you can't write a scene, you've got someone on Messenger who can just quickly text and go this too, and they can help you back on the path.
• 1:07:15
  Inessa Jackson: So that's what I found.
• 1:07:16
  Inessa Jackson: I wouldn't have been able to do it without my writing friends.
• 1:07:18
  Inessa Jackson: Like, seriously, I'm not being corny.
• 1:07:20
  Inessa Jackson: I wouldn't have been able to do it.
• 1:07:21
  Inessa Jackson: They put me back on the path and we support each other.
• 1:07:24
  Inessa Jackson: So yeah, that would, that's my top tip.
• 1:07:27
  Natasha Rai: Oh, that's such good tips.
• 1:07:29
  Natasha Rai: Thank you all.
• 1:07:29
  Natasha Rai: Thank you all for that.
• 1:07:31
  Natasha Rai: Um, also, it is gonna be a special treat both for me and our listeners because we're gonna have, we're having this chat now, and then we're gonna meet again later in the year, um, after your books are out so that we can do a before and after.
• 1:07:47
  Natasha Rai: I was gonna do a sound effect, but I dunno what sound effect it's I know.
• 1:07:50
  Natasha Rai: And I was like, it's not a bad thing.
• 1:07:51
  Natasha Rai: It's a good thing.
• 1:07:52
  Natasha Rai: Right.
• 1:07:52
  Inessa Jackson: That's wonderful.
• 1:07:53
  Inessa Jackson: Thank you.
• 1:07:54
  Natasha Rai: Um, yeah, so I'll just, yeah.
• 1:07:57
  Natasha Rai: I'm really, really already so keen and interested to listen to this episode again, like after we do our next one and just to compare, but, um, but for now, congratulations, all three of you on your amazing books that are coming out.
• 1:08:12
  Natasha Rai: Um, and just for our listeners, can you just say those titles again, please?
• 1:08:15
  Natasha Rai: Sophie.
• 1:08:17
  Sophie Stern: What is Left For us by Sophie Stern.
• 1:08:19
  Natasha Rai: Excellent, Leearna.
• 1:08:21
  Leearna Shaw: A Farming Golden Clouds by Leearna Shaw out on the 31st of March with Alan and Unwin
• 1:08:26
  Natasha Rai: Beautiful,
• 1:08:28
  Inessa Jackson: and Devil Mountain by Ineesa Jackson out with Affirm on the 26th of May.
• 1:08:34
  Natasha Rai: Yay.
• 1:08:35
  Natasha Rai: Okay, congratulations and, um, have a wonderful publication year and we we'll catch up again later.
• 1:08:42
  Inessa Jackson: Thank you.
• 1:08:43
  Inessa Jackson: Thanks.
• 1:08:49
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