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What I've Learnt - Suzy Zail · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

0:07
SPEAKER_00: While Susie Zale has worked as a litigation lawyer specializing in family law, she now writes full-time.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: As writing is her real calling and her real passion.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Among other titles, she's written The Tattooed Flower, a memoir about her father's time as a child survivor of the Holocaust.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Her first novel for young adults, The Wrong Boy, was shortlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards, the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, and a number of others.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Her second novel, Alexander Altman, was a notable book at the CBCA Awards.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: I Am Changed was written after a trip to Uganda and tells the story of a young Ugandan girl struggle to stay in school.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to have Susie join me on the What I've Learned podcast: A Fellow Writer, a Fellow Traveller, and a Fellow Storyteller.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, storytelling takes courage, whether it's your own or sometimes even more so when you're responsible for telling others.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: The honour is a great one.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Something I think we can both relate to.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So, Susie, you and I, as storytellers, have uh embarked on some fascinating journeys.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: And I know that you have had to have a lot of faith and also resilience, particularly one in particular, which I'd like to start with, is uh when you wrote the book that basically shined the light on your father's very tough but very inspiring journey.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Can you start by talking to us a little bit about that?
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Because um I was very moved by how you grappled what was a very difficult task.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks, thanks for having me.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I always absolutely love talking about my father and um his legacy and the writing, you know, that I've been able to do and keep him close that way.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Um so well, my most recent book, Ink Flower, tells a story of a 15-year-old girl who finds out that her father has six months to live and her story is never told her about his time in Auschwitz.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And that girl was me, you know.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Um story that the father tells his daughter in the book about a 13-year-old boy who's, you know, shaved, tattooed, and taken from his parents to the gates of Auschwitz was my father's story.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: I was 30 when my father was diagnosed with MMD and um and finally told us this story that he kept secret for so long.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he'd never talked about the war.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: He had covered over his tattoo, his number tattoo with flour, hence the title, Ink Flower.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Ink Flower.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and buried the past as a way of moving forward.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, but now he was dying, and it was, I guess he finally understood that if we wanted to know him and know ourselves, he had to pass on, you know, his history, our story.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: And so we spent 10 nights, um, over 25 hours, talking and just listening to his story.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: And he told us everything about being, you know, growing up in a small village, all the hate that he got at school, the yellow star of David he had to wear, being taken to Auschwitz by cattle train, and his first experiencing death.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: And fast forward when he came to Australia, he basically saw this smiling Australian face, said, no, no, people are good and people are kind, and the war was an aberration, and he put it behind him and basically never told us this massive.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Which is quite extraordinary.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, two things that come to mind.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: One is how young you were, you're only 30 when this came to light.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: But also, that's a long time to not know the story, and that in some ways, you know, the that that's interesting to me that that he kept that um so closed for so long, and I understand many do, but also the other thing I'd like you to touch on is also the use of fiction as a powerful tool to reveal what is often hard to see.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: I I think that was a choice, a very um conscious choice not to pass on his trauma as our inheritance.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: He wanted the inheritance to be compassion and love and gratitude and pride in who we were and all of those things.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think that he believed to be a good father, to be a good man, he had to sort of gift us this um belief in the world, in the good in people.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to sort of, it was protecting us, it was also protecting him from going back to that dark place.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, he kept it hidden.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: But once he told us that story, of course, I felt very much like I had to get this down.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, because, you know, it scared me and it it made me angry.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: And I I think, what do you do with all that fear and anger?
4:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, revenge is good, but change is better, and who better to target than teenagers?
4:44
SPEAKER_01: They're the ones that are going to be carrying us forward to the next generation.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: They're the ones in which we need to like instill compassion and empathy so that we can build a better world, you know, where everyone feels safe.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: And so for me, fiction um was a great way of doing it because I think often, especially for teenagers, history can be numbing.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: To learn of six million Jews is not the same as to be handed the story of one boy or one girl, you know, to ride through history on their shoulders to see what they saw, to feel what they felt to be inside them.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Because I think once that's the gift of story, you know, you you learn to empathize and become one with this person and realize at the end of the day we all want the same things, suddenly black and white, and you know, Jew and non-Jew, and it all falls away when you're able to write on someone's coattails.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: And so it was also, I think, a safe way of kids to be introduced to the Holocaust rather than perhaps graphic images.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's also very difficult for them to see.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: So I just want to, I guess, spark the curiosity, you know, to learn more.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: And this was a good opening, a foundation for them to get into that history.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: And for you, in terms of your own personal trajectory and pathway, first of all, having to go on this very intimate and quite, I suppose, intense journey because your father was unwell and you knew that this had to be a very, I suppose, um, it would have been limited time and resources.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: You knew that this had to be extracted effectively, but also honor what you're saying is he didn't want his legacy to be trauma.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: He wanted his legacy to be hope.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about this, and I think this is very much what you've done.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And maybe the combination of using fiction to personalize it as opposed to generalize it is very effective.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: But also for you personally, did you find that easier to digest and process doing it this way?
6:41
SPEAKER_01: It's so interesting.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I go into schools and I'll tell kids, you know, think of your deepest, darkest secret, and now give it to someone else and write it down.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: And it's so freeing.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: And I found, you know, being Lisa the 16-year-old, not the 30-year-old that I was, 16-year-old, who I could sort of give all this angst and all this sort of feelings of being uncomfortable around her father's disability, growing disability, you know, he had MMD and uncomfortableness about her history and being Jewish, none of her friends knew she was Jewish.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: And I sort of add in so many layers and lessons that I wanted my reader to take on, lessons that I'd learned.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: But I could amplify everything because, you know, being a teenager, everything is so momentous and huge.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: And I could go into those feelings.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: And I think the other thing that was so great about fiction, apart from being able to direct the action and have the characters grow and learn and stumble and fall, is that you can, like my dad did with me, you can protect the reader.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: So I could, rather than go into too much graphic detail, I could mine their inner feelings and you can get as much depth and as much lessons across in different ways, you know.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: So I was able to kind of protect my reader.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: Also read the story with hope and love and moments of light and good people that did small acts of kindness, and because especially for a YA audience, you have to have hope.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: You can't have an unrelentingly sad story.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: So it's very important.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: So I was able, as my father did when he told his story, is you know, thread these other things um through the book.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's the power of a great writer.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And actually, you protected yourself as well.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Because actually, I mean, that's what's really interesting, is I love the way you talk about protecting the reader, but you also protected yourself.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And I think as writers, and uh it it is a skill, but it's also a wonderful, it's like being an actor because, as you've just outlined beautifully, it allows you to basically be the producer and to take the stage in whichever way you need to and put whoever you need onto it in order to tell the story in a sort of a safe space.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: You can go deep dark and you can come out, and it's a lot easier than if it's your own.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's a great responsibility, but it's something that I think you have definitely mastered in that book, particularly.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes, very moving.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: I was just going to say something that's very interesting about protecting yourself, is with all my books, I have um like a little escape.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, with my father's story, it's told in alternate chapters.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: So you have the my father, the father telling his Holocaust story, then you have Lisa, and she's at school and she's having the usual kind of dramas and joys of a teenager in the 1980s, you know, in her world.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, in other books I've written which are set in the Holocaust, one was about a boy who worked in Auschwitz's um elite horse commando.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: And I had, you know, that he could hide in the stables because he looked after the horses.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: And with another another one of my books was about a girl who played piano for the commandant of Auschwitz, and in that the the readers and I were able to escape into the notes when she had those, you know, the breaks from the camp and were playing music.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: So I always have sort of like a place where I can go when the writing's getting, you know, perhaps too dark.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: I love that, and I think it's so true, and I think it's something I relate to very much.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I think also, you know, you and I were recently part of a live event raising funds for the OCRF as part of the Witchery White Shirt campaign.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And it was very inspiring.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: And we discussed the power of hope and faith in storytelling as part of that.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's what you are talking about, that you can access some of the light and the shade.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes in real life, that's not so easy.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: That's something that I think, you know, that's what the beauty of fiction and being a good writer, which you learn and you hone over time, because you have to know when to nosedive and you have to know when to come out, don't you?
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Because as you say, nobody wants to read a completely bleak story.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: It just they just shut off, particularly teenagers, but with with your other books as well.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: So how has that shaped you and how how have you um found the line?
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, look, it's very interesting.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: I think I we're all basically um a function of our upbringing and the way we were raised.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: And my father very much raised us um to see the glass half full and in a way put up walls and get on with things, you know.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: And I very much, I suppose, do that in everyday life.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: And in my books, I tend to, I mean, there's so much joy also in any process of writing a book.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: A lot of my books, all my books really are very heavily researched.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, with my father's story, there were just so many more moments of joy from in the research finding a transcript um that he'd given to the Holocaust Museum, which I'd never, well, none of us ever knew he'd given, and being able to see my father after 18 years, see him up there breathing and laughing and crying.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it was just beautiful.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: And then um, my dad had always told us about his brother Willie, um, who had saved him many times during the war, who'd carried him through the death march in the snow, who'd fed him stolen food, he saved my life many times, and then he died.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: But of course, when you write fiction, you have to create scene and dialogue and relationships.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I spent much of that two years creating this beautiful brotherly relationship and watching them.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I feel like almost on as I'm writing, I'm watching them there in their in their house, you know, play fighting and laughing and crying.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the two years, I felt like I had been introduced to my uncle and become friends with him, like a man I'd never met.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: And that's common with all of my books.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: There were always these incredible um learnings that I took away.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: And things that, for example, you asked what the lessons learned were in my father's case, all the things I learned in the five years watching him die, things like, you know, celebrate today.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: My father used to always look for the positive and and really live in the moment.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: So he had a uh a tracheostomy, so he could no longer talk after some time, and that prolonged his life.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, he slowly lost the ability to walk, talk, feed himself.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: And I remember once um he could no longer lift the spoon to his mouth.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Dad, what's that like?
13:03
SPEAKER_01: What does that feel like not being able to feed yourself?
13:05
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, I can still swallow, I can still taste the food, you know.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: And when he could no longer taste the food, he would find another reason, another reason um to live.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: And you know, that quality of life kept shifting.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it eventually became when he couldn't move or talk or communicate, he can still watch his children, his grandchildren come up the stairs from kinda, you know, stand at the top of the stairs and watch them come in.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: So that lesson was a huge one.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were lessons like sharing your fears shrinks them.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd grown up like my father, not to really share about you know any dark feelings or insecurities.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: We just didn't do that in our house.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: We weren't taught to mine our feelings and talk about them.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: And I learned over the process of all watching my father through his illness become someone who had to ask for help.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: He had never done that.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: He'd been a strong, loud-mouthed, confident man.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: But here he was having to ask for help.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: And I saw how that brought people close to him.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: I saw that how that opened him up and um made him a stronger man, even though he was weaker in his body, he had this incredible strength.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: And I learned that, you know, being vulnerable takes a lot of guts.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there were many lessons like that that I suppose changed me, watching him live whilst dying.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: And then in writing the book, you have kind of two years just to overthink things.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: Thought about those lessons and tried, try to live with them.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And so, really, the catharsis for you was being able to, as you say, lessons learned, but also really see the authentic part of your dad that you may not have had revealed to you unless you'd done this and gone on this with him and gone on this journey.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Do you think had you not had this illness, you may not have had the same?
14:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we always look at what is the, I suppose, inverted, commas, the bright side, but in some, in some ways, that that access and that authenticity and that engagement may not have occurred without that.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Do you think it would have revealed itself in the same way?
15:04
SPEAKER_01: No, it absolutely wouldn't.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Have my dad acknowledged that.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: And when people said to him, I feel so sorry for you, you know, maybe a quick death would have been faster than this slow progression.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: He said, Don't feel sorry for me.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: I've been gifted five years in which to tell my family how much I love them, to have my friends around, to share my story.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: And we all, you know, he and we always looked for that.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: He there's no way he would have spent the time recounting his story or answering that questions.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, I got to ask him once I decided to write the story, um, his story down in the early days, I got to ask him uncomfortable questions that a daughter never gets to ask her father, like, you know, what do you dream about at night?
15:43
SPEAKER_01: What frightens you?
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Where did you first make love?
15:45
SPEAKER_01: There was no question I didn't and couldn't ask because we both realized our time was limited.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, yes, we absolutely looked for that rainbow because that's how my father sort of brought us up to be, but it it was a gift in some ways, you know, if for him, it was a reason to get up every morning was to continue to answering my questions.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: And I think the fact that not only was he able to share his experience with us and try and teach us something about tolerance and love and equality and the dangers of unchecked hate, I um found some solace in the fact that I was able to then pass that on to readers and hopefully do something with that story and hopefully make some change.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: I have no doubt you have.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: You have definitely done that, and I, you know, I know that people resonate a lot of your stories, and you've had very good feedback because, in a way, of the courage of the way that you've told the stories.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I certainly um I mean, we can move to also your your other book, which I love, which is the story when you went to Uganda.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: And that in itself is a is a completely different, but not a dissimilar, act of courage and faith.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about how the story and your journey to Uganda came to be.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: Wait till you hear the stories that these girls told me.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: That is, I'm not brave.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: They're bright, you know, they're brave.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: So it happened.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Um I had just written, I think, another Holocaust novel for teens.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: And it was around the time that Malala um used of side, a 15-year-old Pakistani girl was shot in the head for daring to go to school.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: Around the time 400 Nigerian schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram, which were a terrorist organization opposed to girls' education.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: And I just, it just really haunted me.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And I started thinking, you know, what can I do?
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Not just for the 200 girls, but for the millions of girls I later, as I was reading, found out were being denied an education.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: And my issue was, you know, I'm a white middle class Australian.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: How do I possibly tell that story?
17:49
SPEAKER_01: And just by chance, a friend introduced me to a young Ugandan woman that was in Australia on a um a charity mission.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: And I spent the afternoon with her.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, as soon as I heard her story about being a poor African girl, um, living in a small village who was kept home to clean and cook until she was going to be married off as a teen.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: And all she wanted to do was go to school and learn to read and write.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: I I knew I had my story.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: But of course, Lillian, that was her name, she was only one story.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I had no idea what it felt like to be a poor girl without shoes or school books.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: I had to speak to the girls who actually lived that story.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: And so I I flew to Uganda and interviewed 30 kids.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, went to their schools, went to their um mud huts, went to the wells where they gathered water and just spent time with them listening to their lives, really.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: And the outcome.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Such a moving book, and also sort of like very different, obviously, to the story that you told with your father.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: But to be honest, there are so many uh connections and similarities.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: It's about struggle and faith and finding hope when you're in a situation where it seems hopeless and that there's no one on your on your side.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And so tell me what was the what were the lessons you learned from these girls who, I mean, it's hard for, I mean, I work, as we've discussed, I work with the World Literacy Foundation, and I'm constantly astounded when I interview people all over the world that there are so many people, and women in particular, girls, who can't read and write and who haven't had access to education.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: It's so unfathomable.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: And every time I meet somebody similar to you, I just I'm just in awe of their strength trying to navigate life without reading and writing.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: So, what did these girls show you and what did you learn from them?
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh, look, they were incredible.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, this was another story that couldn't have gone, you know, to a very dark place.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I just focus on the grit and the fierceness and their absolute striving for education.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, I remember one of the first girls I interviewed, and then many after, they had their heads shaved.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: And I thought perhaps it was a traditional cultural practice.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: And I asked one of them, you know, um, where does that come from?
20:01
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Well, why would we want to worry about our hair when we have, you know, study to do?
20:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, they are just so focused because they completely understand that if you can read and write, you can get a job and you'll never be hungry.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: And then you can educate your sisters and you can pay for your, you know, your mother's medication.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: And so they really understand that education is their only hope and their way out into having a life of their own choosing.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: So I basically I learned that you don't need much to be happy.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: These people, honestly, they had no water, no electricity, no running water, they didn't have cupboards, they kept their clothes in a like a safe way bag, they, you know, had outdoor toilets and snakes and all sorts of things.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, they had really tough lives.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: They were hungry and they were so joyous.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were so many moments where they, you know, they had their culture, they had their clan, they had their friendships, they had, they valued the right things and so much brought them joy.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: I used to ask them because I really didn't want to define them in terms of their struggle, because there was so much more than that.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: I used to ask, what makes you happy?
21:05
SPEAKER_01: And they'd say, a light bulb or a second pair of underwear.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: But the most common answer was books.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: And I saw some of those girls hold a book and give them a book and then hold it like it was gold.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, just their determination and you know, they're just incredible.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think also it's something that we can't possibly process, but we try to when we need to, is particularly girls like I interviewed somebody in Afghanistan, this girl who literally the library was in the cafe at the back of, you know, a hut where they weren't allowed to access.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: And of course, when the Taliban came in, they removed every book.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: And this girl is in hiding now.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it's hard to even comprehend that she is banned from reading or accessing a book.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: But the consequences of that is it's an act of power and disempowerment for them.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: And even things like, you know, we were discussing.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And you referred to this when you were just talking about medication.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: If you get if you know some of these people who can't read and write, if you get given a script or you go to the doctor and they need paperwork filled out, it they literally can't do it.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: They actually find themselves struggling to read the script, fill out paperwork, and deal with a doctor.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: The most basic needs are something that we don't even, we can't comprehend.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that you would have seen a lot of that when you were there.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: These girls, that's why they're so determined because it doesn't just impact, oh, I can't read.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't think people understand.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: It's not, oh, I can't read a book and go on a fantasy journey.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: It's I can't function in the world without these tools.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: And it goes even further than that because there uh there's such long-held beliefs about girls' education being a waste of time.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: Girls aren't as smart as boys.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, um women are entitled to be beaten if they they're late with the dinner or they've burnt the dinner.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, men have multiple wives.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: This is in the smaller villages.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: So it goes, one of the women told me that if I can get an education and get a job, my husband won't beat me because he doesn't want to um risk my bringing in money, you know, interrupt my employment.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: So it goes so many protects, absolutely, you know, and then these women, if they have a source of income, then they're not bound to stay with a man of beats because they have the ability to move out and support themselves and support their children.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: So it's absolutely huge.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And that education also, there's uh a big thing now in some of these villages is empowerment clubs.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: So these girls go to empowerment clubs where they're taught.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to sleep with a guy uh a boy who who tells you to.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to get out of your seat.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: If a boy comes and wants to sit in class and get out of the seat and sit on the floor, you know, you're entitled to finish school.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: You can say no to being married at 13.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: And so they're educating them with the tools and then the understanding that they have rights as well.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: So it's yeah, and I think you know, your book is definitely a contribution to that.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the literacy revolution, as I call it, I'm part of, and which I know that you feel strongly about as well, is something we need to put front and center.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And I think uh there's some there's some big players on board trying to do that.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, even Shaq in the US, and you know, the the whole notion of trying to shine the light on, and also literacy issues are a big issue in the US and places you don't think they are.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Ugandas you would expect to some degree, and Afghanistan, yes, we know, because they're being repressed.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: But I think what your book has done is shine a light on that issue in that country, but also it's there's a universality about it.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think also what's really important to know, and I try and stress this, is that I'm not trying to give a voice to the girls I've interviewed.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to help them dismantle the structures that are silencing them.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: So it's their story, and I was very careful to first of all collaborate with them, but then I paid one of uh the first girl that I met on the first day who was had a scholarship and actually finished U 12.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: She was my editor.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: And I said to her, I'm not sending this book to my publisher until you tell me that you know everything I've got there is right, from how they pull the cassava from the ground to the leggings they use to clean themselves, you know, and she went through every line and I fixed anything that she told me you told me was right.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: And you collaborate, you collaborated, you ensured that it wasn't, yeah, because otherwise you feel like you're taking yes, which is critical.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: It has to be.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: And also I think because so much of what is read is taken as truth.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: So you have to get that truth right.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: What would you tell your younger self about?
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Like I know I was a writer from a very young age, and I think you were similar.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, what would you tell your younger self about pursuing writing as an art form?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Because it's more than just an art form, isn't it?
25:46
SPEAKER_00: I always say everybody has their backpack, right?
25:49
SPEAKER_00: So if you're a lawyer, potentially you have that.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: When when trauma, tragedy, or crisis hits, what is in your backpack that you can use to help yourself and others?
26:00
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's writing and storytelling.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: For you, it's similar.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: When did you know that this was your passion and your path?
26:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, not as early as you.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: I um I had no clue what I wanted to do when I finished school.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: And um being a good girl, my father told me, Well, you might as well do law arts, not just arts.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: So I did law, and then I you might as well try and get a job.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: So I did that.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: And then he said, You might as well try and get articles, so I did that.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: Um and then he was diagnosed in 1998 with motor neuron disease, and suddenly life was too short, you know, to be doing something that I wasn't passionate about.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: And I knew that at that time all I wanted to do was get to know my dad.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: I quit.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then spending those five years, I just realized apart from loving the process of getting to know him, I just actually loved the minutiae of people's lives and having to reconstruct those lives on paper.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just curious and I just wanted to keep doing that and learning and growing myself because I always um learn as much in the process as my readers.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: So um I just, you know, it's just such a gift to be able to talk to people and get their most intimate, you know, parts of their lives and be able to help them tell those stories.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: It's a privilege, yeah.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: And it is a privilege, as I was, you know, as we started out, it's a privilege to tell your own story, but it's a huge privilege to tell other stories.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And and it is an honour.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: But also um, it sounds to me as if, while I'm sure you may have been a great lawyer, law's a different type of storytelling and it fosters a different, but you know, it has different constructs.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Did you did you find having legal experience in any form was an asset, or did you find you had to sort of put that to one side because that's quite rigid in its own way, as we know?
27:46
SPEAKER_00: So whereas you have to, you need structure with writing, but you also need free free thinking and free form capacity to write.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: My husband's a lawyer, so we often laugh because we're wordsmiths, and I'm a particular wordsmith, and he'll say, You do this sort of writing because you do it really well.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Can you fix this?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And when I need him, I say, Can you help me with this?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Because you're a legal writer and you have a different.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: And we talk about the different wordsmith skills.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: How did that reflect at all in your journey?
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was quite conscious to step away from that sort of formulaic and very didactic type of writing and to really, it took a while to let myself go because I think you're talking about a backpack.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: I think the most important thing a writer can have in their pencil case is honesty.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: And I just had to also be honest about how I felt.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: Anything you write is you, you're on that page whether you dress that character up in different ways.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that was something I really had to learn about being open to putting myself into those characters and into that story.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, and to let myself go and have that freedom, as you say, to be able to write creatively as opposed to just, you know, bang, bang, bang.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very different.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: We have very funny from wordsmith battles.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: It's because they're very different.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: But both have very important roles.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: But I do think people underestimate how much, as you say, there's a lot of trust in what you do as a writer.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: You have to let go and you have to trust yourself and the journey, but also others have to trust you and trust that you will take them onto the page in the way that you know, with the whether it's the Ugandan girls that you interviewed or whether it's your father.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: I think yeah, I don't people ask me, regret doing law and I don't think regret is a waste of time, really, but I don't because I think it did teach me one thing that is to sit on my own bum and get the job done.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Because you know, when you write a book, it's it's for me anyway, I'm quite slow.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: It's about a two-year process, and you have to, you know, kind of be a bit planned about it and a bit, you know, you've got to be a bit serious about getting to your desk every single day.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: And so I think discipline, yeah.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: It so it taught you that discipline of sitting on your butt and and it is a discipline, and it's it's hard because the deliverable is different.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not, it's not like you have a client saying, I need that document at the end of the day.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: So, how have you found that um self-discipline?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Has it been challenging at times?
30:13
SPEAKER_00: And also it's emotional too.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: So it's different because you're emotionally, you might not be in that headspace on that day for that chapter.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: That's quite I've never had a problem with that.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: I tend to be when I get a contract to write a book and I know when it's due, I write this massive timetable, it could be over two years.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: I know exactly like so I can get it done.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: And I pretty much sit at my desk nine to five, five days a week.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: But I think is I think it's because I absolutely love it.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: Like I just want to get back to that world, get back in the page and get back to those characters and help them get over whatever troubles they're having and help them grow and fall and learn all these things.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: I just I love it.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: So I actually want to be there.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: And often, you know, it's five o'clock at night.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to leave.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to leave because I cannot see you, Susie, sitting in a law firm till seven o'clock at night.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: No, this is this is your your this is just your your um your path.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: There's no question, and and what you've delivered is just so beautiful and so extraordinary.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, tell me a little bit just finally about what your hope is for the next generation.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: What would you say to future writers?
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have some really interesting um elements obviously coming into their world from AI to constant influx of information, social media, etc.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: It scrambles the brain.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it can scramble our brains, and we're developed and adult.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: And but for younger writers, I think um there is quite a challenge.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was speaking to Joanna Murray Smith, the playwright, who's just wonderful, and she's an amazing person to speak to.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: I've interviewed her on the podcast.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: And we talk about the clarity of purpose and the sort of the sense that you have to somehow shut out the noise.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think for young writers, that is a challenge.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: What would you say to writers coming up the ranks about how to find the space, the clarity?
32:10
SPEAKER_01: I think it's really interesting.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: You often hear in writing um education, write what you know.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: And I would say the opposite: write what you don't know, write what scares you, write what you want to change in your own.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: I would go, yes, totally.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: I think that if you're gonna spend one year, two years, three years on any one project, you have to be absolutely fascinated, um, disturbed, you know, worried about it.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: You need to care for that.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: And if you feel that kind of passion for that project, you are gonna want to go to your desk every day.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be a problem.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: So I think that you just follow, follow what you're fascinated with and and and see.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: That's that would be my advice.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: And be curious, be curious, ask questions, and then learn to shut up and listen, you know, absorb and listen and just keep reading too.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: I think that that's really absolutely agree with you.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And I like the idea of being once again brave and the new frontier, because really readers take us where we haven't been.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: That's what's the best.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what an amazing gift.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: We, you know, if you think about it, whether it's all the streaming server, you know, the new films, all the movies coming out, look at Khan, all of it started with a piece of paper and an idea, and somebody having a passion to go on that journey.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's the most amazing, honorable gift, as you refer to, to be able to do that.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: And I just hope the writers coming up the ranks know that it's it's just such an important and valuable thing that we must continue to do and not let the technology smash it and decimate it and do it for us because it's not human.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: It's got it, you know.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: And it really it is already, I can see that, you know, there's already already a sort of quite pressure to keep young adult books short, you know.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: And some of these topics that you find back, they need a deep dive.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: They need you to be in, you know, you don't want to leave that character, you want to go through everything with them.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: And I think that it's so important um to keep reading because that reading is like an empathy machine, it's just the best way to get through, especially to teenagers.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: And I always think, you know, I want them to look after reading one of my books, I want them to look up from the page and not just be, you know, not just feel something, but do something.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: It's such a great opportunity to spark action and get people, you know, to move and do things and act in the world.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: Like, like, like reading the book, they read the stories in the book and they care and they want to do the right thing, and then move out into your lives and do the same thing.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's really important to keep listening to stories.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's the activism, and I also think from a mental health perspective, there's also great peace in the privacy of reading a book in your head quietly.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, the noise around everyone, but particularly the younger generation, is really important to quieten.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And you that's one of the only ways you can do that is to sit and have your voice of that reading that book.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Like it's nobody else's.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's funny because you know, when I listen to Audible, I don't know if you find this sometimes, or if I listen to, I was listening to Barbara Streisand recently read her book, and she's so I love her because she's hilarious and she's very barbaro, you know, and so the nuance of her voice is quite appealing.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: But there have been, and so I can I can cope and deal with her reading her story because it has some resonance, right?
35:35
SPEAKER_00: But there are other audible books where when they start reading, I'm like, you're reading not how I want to hear this.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: So reader.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's not yeah.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you want to have that.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: It's both of you working together.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: I think the other really important thing when you mention mental health and things like this is a lot of readers pick up a book because they want to see themselves on the page.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: They want to read hear back their own story by someone who's living it alongside them, and perhaps someone who learns um either to cope or deal or find a way to live this life with whatever it is, mental illness, disability, you know, whatever it is.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really important to have those books out there so they can feel seen.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: Because what do they say?
36:16
SPEAKER_01: You can't beat what you can't see.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: So you need books that also allow people to find themselves on the page.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, certainly with your books, I think many people have found themselves on the page.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: And I I think it's a wonderful journey that you're on, and I'm glad that you gave up the law, let's be honest.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, Susie, thank you so much.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining me on the What I've Learned podcast.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute treat.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Love Deb.