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What I've Learnt - Nigel Featherstone · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: The day after I tried to kill my mother, I tossed some clothes, a pair of hiking boots, a baseball cap and a few toiletries into my backpack and left at dawn.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick has always considered himself a good son, willing to live his life to please his parents, his sense of duty paramount to his own desires and dreams.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: But as his mother's health continued to deteriorate and his siblings remain absent, he finds the ties that bind him to his mother begin to chafe.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: After an argument leads to a violent act, he travels to a familiar country retreat to reflect on what his life could be and through a chance encounter with a rare animal and an intriguing stranger, starts to wonder if perhaps it is not too late to let his heart run wild.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: A story about family love and the cost of freedom, My Heart is a Little Wild thing, serves as a reminder that we all deserve to pursue our dreams.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I first saw author Nigel Featherstone engaging us all on a Byron panel at the Writers Festival.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: He had us all in the palm of his hand, enthralled by the veracity, intensity, and authenticity of an author who is an articulate force of nature.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, Nigel, welcome to the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much for having me, Dave.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the highlights of the panel that you're on was when you told the story of how you met your husband, partner.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Partner, yeah.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, partner.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was so beautifully told.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm hoping you'll retell it to my listeners: the story of the club, the bike, the parting smoke, the because I think it goes to your character and it really helps inform our audience uh really about what a storyteller you are, but also it gives context.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sure.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank thanks.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: And um yeah, it was a wonderful opportunity up at Byron and um for the for the writers festival and to be on stage with Trent Dalton and Hannah Kent and um because we we hadn't met each other before.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so um it was it was wonderful.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: And this is you know, obviously not what you know the story you're going to tell, and I will tell the other story, but it was amazing to be in the green room and meet Hannah and then meet Trent, you know, who is such a rock star, and and and uh Hannah is too, and and is completely delightful.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: So when the artist liaison person walked us from the green room into the tent, I think, well, certainly I had a bit of a holy shit moment to see so many people.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: It was such a massive crowd in those two.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was, yeah, it was packed.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we loved it.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was so packed, and because I I'd actually been um a part of the Riders on the Road extravaganza as part of Byron um for the five days before the festival.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a whole group of there were four of us, and we'd been driven around doing school stuff, you know, workshops and things, and then um doing things in the um community that night.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: So we sort of and we're going to these tiny little halls and little libraries, all completely delightful.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then it was building up to the festival itself.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I had done a gig the day before at the festival, and then for me it was culminating in this in this big thing um with Trent and Hannah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then so to end on that massive note, and and I remember like you know, 10 minutes before, I was just getting changed in in my in my little cabin on the resort, and and um I thought I don't know what's I don't know what's just gonna happen.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: So, and I guess that's part of life, isn't it?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I don't know what what what to say.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: The topic was love and other stories, and we just we just ended up on stage and wonderful Alex Abset, the incredible liberty agent, just asked some really basic, open, wonderful, warm questions.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: And and then of course I just started telling stories as Trent did and Hannah did.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: And um yeah, and the the one that came out of my mouth was how I actually live in Golburn now in regional New South Wales, but um back then I lived in Canberra and uh I grew up in a very conservative part of Sydney, and um, you know, there was no language about being gay.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: I've got two two old older brothers and you know, conservative parents.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: My mother's died two years ago, and um it was just uh yeah, which it was just ever a gay culture was underground, and I was born in 1968, so 1978 was the first of the Mardi Gras.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: So that was, you know, I can remember sort of thinking, oh, that's kind of interesting.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: And and then in 1983, which is when I was 15, New South Wales Parliament was debating to get rid of its anti-gay laws, which are actually anti-Sodomy laws, but they were translated as anti-gay laws.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember looking at the front pages of City Morning Herald and reading these articles, you know, these headlines of you know, what will happen, you know, with the um parliament, you know, making its up making up its mind about this stuff.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I was thinking, I think they're debating about me.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: And then, of course, what else happened in 1983?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: AIDS came to Australia's shore.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: So as soon as I was saying, Oh, I think you know, maybe the Australian Parliament, well, New South Wales Parliament is trying to get its act together, then AIDS came to Australian shore.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: So basically for 10 years I did nothing, just just did nothing.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I fell in love with guys.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, I had very intense emotional relationships with guys, but that you know, because of those ads, the Grim Reaper ads.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I remember them well, they were very scary.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: They were, and maybe they saved a lives, but I think they actually destroyed a lot of lives too, because people like me just thought if I touch another guy, I will die.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, so yeah, so I um moved to Canberra to get away from Sydney.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: I left there when I was 18, and I I I went to you know, really discard myself just slowly and fell in love with another guy, and but still couldn't do anything because I just the age stuff was just still so present in my head.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so I got to got to, I was actually 27, and I thought, you know, I've got to act on this stuff.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And and I I thought, you know, I was hanging out with most of these straight people, as a lot of gay people do.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I'd I'd hang out with my mates on a Friday night drinking beers in pubs and bars and whatever, and I'd go back to my little flat and I'd go, I remember saying to my very good friend, female friend, this is the year that I'm just gonna I'm gonna go exploring.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm you know, I'm gonna throw cords in the wind.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: I know AIDS is still the thing, HIV is still a thing, but I'm just gonna have to, I can't keep on falling in love with you guys and not doing anything about it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so yeah, I'd get get back to my little flat, get changed into my little nightclub outfit, and ride my bike about five kilometers from where I lived into the city.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I did it, you know, under the cover of darkness.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: There's a little pushback and you know, had a little literally a little uh torch strapped on with masking tape onto the front, you know, that was that was my light.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd be because I'd be quite drunk, and that was the only time I could get into this nightclub and and just do stuff because I'm very shy, a real shy introvert.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: And if I was drunk enough, I'd be able to get on the dance floor and you know, dance away and try to chat with guys, and it was a complete disaster to it.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was just terrible.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: But I'd go back home at five in the morning and try to do it all again the next night.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I did this week in, week out.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: No one had any idea.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I think um it got to about eight weeks of this, and I just thought, look, I'm having fun, but I've met no one, nothing's happened.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe, maybe this is not my thing.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then one Friday night, I I was again very drunk and I got dressed into my little nightclubbing outfit and rode my bike in.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I had to actually go through this park and I had an S bend, but being a little bit pissed, I kind of forgot about this S bend which had this fence.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then next me there was this massive crash, and then I just skidded across just the bike path, and just you know, I had gravel on my hands and and and I just I just thought, oh fuck, what am I doing?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember rolling over on the on the bike path and rolling over onto my back and just looking just so clear, you know, even though I was very drunk, I remember this.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I went to an Anglican school in Sydney.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: I just not that was a particularly religious thing, it was just the reaching out thing.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: I just went, God, if you're gonna, if this is the right thing to do, you're gonna have to give me some sign.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: And the ironically, the the nightclub was called heaven, no longer, no longer exists.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: But perfect for this story.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you couldn't buy the story, it's real, yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: And and it was it was very gritty nightclub.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of art school people went there, a lot of young women went there because they felt safe.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: There were art shows as well as drag shows.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: So it was it was really it was really good.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: And because it was the only nightclub in Canberra, like it did have a diverse sort of thing.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't like an Oxford Street nightclub, which might have a certain clientele.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: This had a very diverse clientele.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just closer to to heaven than home.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just thought, well, just wheel your friggin' bike because it's closer, and then maybe I'll just get a taxi back to my flat.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so I walked my little bike and the wheels were buggered, and I got to the nightclub and and walked up the stairs and still with gravel all over my hands.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I just remember dancing away on the dance floor, and the the I know it all does sound so cliche, but I'm just all it though.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really sticking to the details of the truth because this uh the smokes mission or the smoke just parted, and this guy who's a bit younger than me, maybe five years younger than me, just you know, slim and tall, and and he had massive Doc Martin boots, tight black jeans, this little tight top with these sort of straps, so his sides were bare, it's kind of looked like something a Depeche Mode singer would wear, you know, and and he had this sort of like arm bracelet thing and blonde hair, and he had moves, and and I just went, Whoa, what's going on here?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: This is good.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, we ended up on a couch, you know, at talking at you know, at the back of the nightclub.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: And and actually, I I didn't tell this bit up in Byron because it's just so cliched, but um, he said, Look, you know, I've got to go, my friends want to go, but are you gonna be here tomorrow night?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Well, yeah, sure, let's meet up tomorrow night.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sort of, we're just going to the steps of the nightclub.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, I think I'm gonna hang around, not to see anyone else, but I just thought I'm having a good time now, I've met someone, and then and then he gave me a kiss on the lips, and I just remember thinking, Whoa, this is and that was the first gay kiss that I'd ever had.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: And um, then he sort of smiled and left with his friends, and I remember the next day, next morning, ringing my two female friends, and I said, I've I I've I've had I've had a gay kiss, and she goes, What was it like?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Oh, now I know how Romeo and Juliet felt.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I love it, I love it, I love it.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: That story is so beautiful, and I like it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's like when I it's just so poetic.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was just ridiculous.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: She actually said, Oh, come on, Nigel, it's just a kiss.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, No, no, no, like it's more than that.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: So, anyway, I spent the whole day looking forward to seeing this guy again.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: I thought, will he turn up?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: Will he not turn up?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: And did the whole thing again.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think I probably got a little bit drunk by myself or with friends, and then went in and and waited.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, he did turn up.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: And and we went back, you know, to the the um couches and we were snogging this time and talking and introducing ourselves.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and then he said, Yeah, embarrassing question time, um, your place online.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I just got this massive amount of fear, and I just went, I think I'm just gonna go home.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, and he sort of said, Okay, at least give you a lift.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I must have walked in because the bike was buggered.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Yeah, okay, maybe you can give me a lift.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I fully intended for him just to drop me off.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: But up Northbourne Avenue, which is the main drag out of Canberra, I remember saying to myself, for God's sake, Nigel, this is this is a nice guy, a really lovely guy, handsome guy.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: I think you're in fine hands here.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: And um, yeah, I got to the bottom of the steps and I got out of the bottom of the steps up to my flat.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, Okay, we'll see you.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I just thought, come on, this is it, this is your time.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I turned around and said, You can come up, you know.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: And he goes, You sure?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I just said, Yes.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, you can use your imaginary imagination of what happened then.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, the the coder of that story is that's that's my partner Tim, and we've been together 25 years.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is actually the best story.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the I must say, when you told it as you know, you you told a rendition at the um the pan at on the panel at the Byron Writers Festival, everyone just loved it.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: There was this sort of heaving response, like people were breathless to hear how it ended.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was just but I think what it did, it also showcases your capacity to articulate and to be an amazing storyteller, which is why you are so successful and why people love your books.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that story really, I suppose, is a reflection of that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you talk about your books being revelatory and often they can reflect things you can't, you know, you're trying to process in the real world through your fiction.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us also, you know, this recent book, there's a fascinating sort of lens that you put on this story.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And also I want you to talk about your relationship with your mother too, which you do also refer to and you did reflect on in the, you know, when you were speaking um on the panel.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about that, because I find that quite interesting, the way that fiction and reality and how things, osmosis and the way that certain relationships come out in different ways in fiction.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's um, yeah, where do I where do I start?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think, you know, being a novelist and primarily primarily a fiction writer, I've written a lot of short stories and novellas and I write for the theater as well.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I guess we're all trying to explore, we're trying to document, we're trying to communicate.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, a lot of things that I write about of actually not my experience, the novel before This Bodies of Men, uh, is a is a Second World War story, you know, about two Sydney guys that were friends when they were at school and then they disappeared, and then they um met each other when they were serving in Egypt.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: And um uh, you know, that's that's not my story, but um I wanted to explore Australia's, you know, obsession and nefarious obsession with uh military history.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so I'd written, you know, a lot of stuff that really wasn't anything to do with me, you know, my libretto, which was for a song cycle that was professionally produced in Canberra at the Street Theatre, that's actually an Afghanistan war story.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd been doing a lot of war stuff because I was a writer in residence at the Australian Defense Force Academy in 2013.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so um I had been trying to work on this novel for my My Hot is Little White thing for uh about 15 years.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I kid you not, Deb, when I finished the novel and it and I was with my agent and then it was acquired by my publisher, um, I was tired, I have this little little routine of is I I tidy up my writing studio once I've finished a project.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: And once I know it's acquired, I got the that manuscript is done.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so I have to tidy everything up and I clear everything out because the next project I need the my studio to be a blank slate.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just tidying stuff up and putting it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: I've got a little library next door to my writing room, and I went in there and I was tidying up and I was putting it um some stuff away, and one of my old journals fell out.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: It literally fell out of the bookshelf and it opened onto the floorboards, and I just picked it up and I went, Oh, I wonder what you know, I wonder what it opened at.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it just said lonely, kind of buckled middle-aged man goes to a property down on the Monero, um, sees an animal that changes his life, and it was dated um 2015.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: No, 2007, July 2007.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, have I had this idea for that long?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: And it and it's just true.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: I tried different versions of it and they failed.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I did another version of it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: I thought, I think it's much better.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I sent it to my agent, Gabby Neyer, in Sydney, and she said, no, Nigel, that's not a goer.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: That one does not work.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then I did another version, and then just between the drought breaking and the bushfires and the pandemic, I was able to spend um a week down on a property on the Monero.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually did find her through Instagram.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: I did message her, and I can see you smiling because you know there's a little letter here.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I do she is a she is a um the farmer is a wonderful garden writer that my mother did know of.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I've got, you know, there's some of my mother's books there, and I I thought, I know this person.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I messaged her and I said, Can I stay?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: And she said, Yeah, you can stay in the steading, which is an old barn.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's a heritage listing property.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: And the Monero, for those who don't know, is between Kosyosko um and the Snowy Mountains and the far southeast coasts of New South Wales.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: And this is barren, it's barren, barren, but naturally barren.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, so I stayed down there and um I just I just thought I was working on another version of the manuscript, and I thought, I just don't think this is working either.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I just sat down there on the steps of this old barn and it was just looking out on these bare paddocks.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: And there were a couple of trees that had obviously been planted.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, if there was a guy planting trees right now, I would go up to him and say, just I'm here for a week and I'm meant to be working on this manuscript and it's buggered, it's not gonna work.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: So can I just spend, can I help you plant trees?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because that would be a better use of my time.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, I had this imagination that he said, Oh yeah, sure.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and um then I had this imagination, imagine if he was like a like a rock star, but he was just he was like a bit broken too, and was a bit exhausted.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, I'm here kind of like trying to rehabilitate my own life by planting trees and by rehabilitating this land.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: And and then I then I thought, oh, there's something interesting here going on in my creative head.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then I thought, hang on, I can't just in the story, I can't just go up to a guy and say, plant trees.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: I have to, and then I went, ah, yeah, this little animal, there's this little animal that needs to happen.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: So what if I see this animal who leads me to meet this man who's planting trees to rehabilitate himself?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And the next morning I shit, you know, I got in my car and I drove three and a half hours back to Goldwyn and parked the car, fed the chooks, walked into my house, dumped my backpack, had to wear the same clothes, which is ug boots, tracksuit pants, and I live in a very old house and um so two layers of thermals, top and bottom, and then uh then um beanie and then a very old jumper, which is actually which my mother knitted me when I was 15.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I've I've kept it all that time.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: So I put all that on, went straight into my writing room, sat down at the desk and write everything by pen on paper.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: And 14 days later, I had the novel.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: I wrote the whole thing by hand.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I just that is such a beautiful story because I love the the way the kernel is bubbling for so long, and you you don't you're trying to access it and the way you tell the story, which is what you know is so fascinating from a what I've learned perspective, you've learned to just allow it to rise up, even if it took 15 years a long time.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I because I'm a natural, I'm not a politically conservative person by any means, quite the opposite, but I'm a naturally cautious person.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I've been learning to, you know, if I feel uncomfortable about making a creative decision, if I've got option A and option B, if option A is safe and option B scares me shitless, I'll go with option B.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what I learned through writing this.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that was one of the things I wrote um on my top of my pad.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: I wrote fearless.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I just thought go go there, go into those really if it if if my body says, Oh, don't do this, then you're gonna have to do it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: And that was my guiding principle to to writing the thing.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: And and the other thing that goes to the other part of your question is that my mother had died um about six months before she was 85 and spent the last couple of years of life severely demented, and her mother, my grandmother, was also had Alzheimer's.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: And even though Patrick in the novel is not is not me, perhaps there's a little bit of overlap, but not much, ironically.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, or surprisingly, perhaps, um, he too is processing the demise of his mother, uh losing his mother into dementia.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that through Patrick, I was exploring the loss of my mother.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: And she and I had a very complex relationship.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: We loved each other dearly, but we drove each other up the wall to the point that we're actually semi-estranged until she went into a nursing home.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then um I put a lot of effort into reconnecting with her, and I saw her 48 hours before she died.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so a lot of it was through the sort of prism of fiction was to explore um yeah, the the loss of my mother.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so a few things there.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: You you obviously can see, I love the the notion of exploring pains through the prism of fiction, even though, you know, clearly Patrick's not you.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I think it's a really, it's such a wonderful creative tool that writers have, you know, because it is, do you think that's something that is enculturated, or do you think it's something we're born with, or do you think it's something that you're born with, and then you can hone and massage until it becomes a useful tool?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think, or do you think you were just born to be a writer and a storyteller in this form?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you obviously you write theatre, you write lots of things because you're an endlessly creative person.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm curious to see if you think that's um that's nature and nurture, or a bit of both.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: I you know, it's a fascinating question.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: I you know, I often I don't I don't have kids, but I've got uh nieces and nephews.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's really amazing that when you know, you know, a kid will come home and go, Oh, you know, mom, mom, mom, like this thing happened.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: At school today, uh at the end of school, and mom go, okay, what happened?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: And you go, I really, you know, I really wanted to sit with my uh best friend Sally.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: I hadn't seen her for a few days and had this amazing thing that I wanted to tell her, and also I really needed her to tell me something, these incredible things, and really needed to chat with her.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: And then so I was walking down to the bus, but then I actually saw the bus stop, but I actually saw you know the bus actually leaving.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so I thought, no, that's I could see Sally, she was waving from the back seat.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: I could see her the back seat, and then so you know, and so I ran after the bus, and all these kids were laughing at me when backpack is going all over the place, and then the bus stops, and then the doors open.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: I thought, I can go and chat with Sally, and then I get on the thing, and the bus gives me a bit of shit for being late and blah, blah, blah.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: And now he's late and whatever.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: I just want to hang out with Sally.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, I was walking down the aisle, and then, you know, my nemesis, you know, Billy put out his leg and he tricked me up, and then my iPad opened to this picture that was really embarrassing, and everyone was laughing at me even more.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: But I thought, I don't care, I've just got to actually go and see Sally.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then I pick up my backpack and pick up my iPad, and I'm walking down, and then finally I get to see her, but then I slip on a banana and I face plant, you know, her lap, and then everyone is laughing.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but then Sally told me the best thing I've ever heard.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, when when I think when a kid does that, that they are just going, something's happened, something that is mortifying but wonderful, and they tell the most naturally fantastic story.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: This is something that there's the mission.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: The kid had to meet with Sally, and then there are all these things that got in the way.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: And the kid tells this the most perfect story, the absolute perfect story.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: And probably the parent is going, Oh my god, what's happening next?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, oh, oh, you picked yourself.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed for you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: This is mortifying.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: But then you've got Sally, oh my god, what did Sally tell you?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then what's really interesting is that you know, the mom gets really excited and goes, Oh, that's such a good story.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then dad comes home, and then the mum goes to dad, ah, you know, tell tell that story, tell that amazing story that you just told you told me.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: And the kid goes, nah, because the energy is gone, hasn't it?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: They've they've communicated it, they've shared it, they they've told a most brilliant story.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: They've delivered, yeah, and they can't they've delivered, and I think that you know, what I'm what I was because I've got two older brothers, and I think that I was very quiet.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think I worked out because my it was a very fraught family life.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I learned very quickly in the first couple of years.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's true, that I observed and went, whoa, this is a bit shittier.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I just didn't talk that much, but I was observing a lot.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe every now and again when I had, you know, a bit of free time, free air, I then was able to tell stories.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, I don't I don't know whether I do tell um great stories, but I I do a lot of in terms of paper, um writing on paper, I do a lot of re-rewriting.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: The first draft, like of my Hudson Love thing, was then a whoosh of 14 days, and then there were 12 drafts to get to you know to you're a good self-editor.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're you're prepared.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: Very big, yeah, yeah.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's funny, Deb, that you know, uh when I do do gigs at festivals and you know, it's wonderful when people say, Oh, this is wonderful and this is great, and you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: I I'll go back to my hotel room, whatever, and go, no, no, that would have worked better there.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: I should have said that, I should have stopped there.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm really quite super critical.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I luckily I can do that on paper where I can go, all right, this bit of the story just doesn't work.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm just going to delete it.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: But that's so do you think that that's the essence?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because most of the writers that I do speak to, and to be honest, the artists are all highly critical of themselves and highly, they all self-edit, you know, a lot.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a there is a definite theme that success often comes from being having that capacity to completely hone and trim and edit and make sure that it's the best it can be.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Very few of them are just like, oh yeah, it's just raw, you know, and it just happened and bam.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have to tweak it, but it's more than tweaking.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So is that a skill that you had to master, or is it something that you just naturally found you could do?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think, you know, I've I um I'm actually a naturally impatient person, but um, I think for some odd reason with writing, I just thought I'll start and then I'll just slowly get better.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'm the sort of person that maybe when I'm 80, I'll go, oh, I think I've just worked out how verbs work.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I don't mean that in any sort of deprecating way.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like I actually mean that I think it'll take take me that long to go, ah, now I know what a wonderful verb does here.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I've just sort of been slowly sort of honing things.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I maybe all artists talk about it, but you know, when you've written, say, a short story or you know, a chapter or even something for a newspaper, you know when it's just not very good.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and Peter Carey, the wonderful Australian novelist who lives in New York, but he talks about having a very finely tuned bullshit meter and detector rather.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think that you you start to you do look at it, maybe you know, uh the first draft of a short story, and you go, that just is not very good.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: But sometimes you go, there is something there though.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: I can't stop thinking about those characters.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll rewrite and rewrite, and maybe I'll get rid of the first three um uh paragraphs, or then I think, oh no, I'm telling the story from the wrong perspective, I'll tell it from her perspective, and then I'll do that.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, oh, that's interesting.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then I'll think, I think it needs to be in first person.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna make it the first person pet present.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then I say, This is really starting to work.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then I think, what if I just knock off those that last page if we just end here and suddenly and I went, oh no, that's so great.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so that kind of, you know, a lot of artists do talk about whatever their form is, but it's talking about the first draft of anything is a bit of clay, even if it's a song, you know, you've just got the clay.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, yeah.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's got to be crafted and it's for it to be really the art piece that it needs to be.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that you clearly honed.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: You reflect on your need for solitude when you write, understandably, and you reflect how you need to immerse yourself and that you're a quiet, somewhat introverted person.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, to be honest, when I saw you on stage, I'm like, no way are you an introverted person.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're so but that's interesting because the archetype of introversion is not entirely true.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can be an introvert extrovert, actually.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like black and white, and you you certainly articulate well, but I know that you need a lot of solitude from what you have relayed in order to really.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: And and you know, some people have said to me, you know, people who've known me my whole life are going, God, what happens to you when you get on stage and there's a microphone and there's an audience?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I think part of it, Debs, comes from, you know, if there are people who are live in front of you, I think you have uh a kind of an obligation to connect with them.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that doesn't mean you and have to entertain them, but yeah, I think you have to connect with them in some way.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a writer's, you know, on stage shouldn't it is definitely not marketing.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: That is um the opposite of that.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes, you know, I'll tell these stories and I'll think, why don't I say that?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Because it makes the book sound shit.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I just want to I just want to connect with people in a really um genuine way.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then yeah, then you know, I it's just true that for every hour, just an hour of socializing with friends, I'll need nine hours to be my recovery and yeah, recharge.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's interesting, you know, when you you know look at and I'm just gonna compare myself to Freddie Mercury, but you know, when you would see any of these uh interviews are on YouTube, but you see him performing, and then you actually see him being interviewed.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: And one, he's tiny, two, he's an absolute articulate erudite gentleman.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, he's having a few little you know, little camp witticisms here and there, but you know, when he was on stage, he had to act big.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the reasons why he had that big crown on was to give him extra height, but maybe psychologically that he then became Freddie Mercury, the sort of performer.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I certainly don't do any of that, but it's interesting when you do compare the person on stage.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you see Freddie Mercury in front of a Queen doing push-ups in front of 100,000 people.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: I know ridiculous.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's very common though.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: The artist, I mean, just on that note, actually, that that actually feeds into something that I was going to ask you.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, Freddie Mercury, who tragically died of AIDS and had and was such an extraordinary powerhouse of you know, gay culture and authenticity, for you reflecting on when, you know, in your your story that we started out with about meeting your partner, do you think the queer world has changed since you were young?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: How's it affected you?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And do you see that it's a much easier or more progressive world for you to function and live in?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's no doubt about that whatsoever.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, I think it it's great about um marriage equality and um, you know, what we're five years post that, and and I just knew that it was going to send this wave across Australia of all forms of love, adult love are all equal and all forms of relationships are equal.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, it would be naive to say that there aren't pockets still, whether it's geographical or cultural or societal or class, where there are still issues um for for some people.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I think that it would be a brave couple who would walk up George Street, you know, in Sydney and um uh hold hands.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's true.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe over in King Street um in Newtown, they would.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, you wouldn't do that where I live in a regional town.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so so it's not it's not all it's not all perfect by any means, but I think that it has sent a message to particularly young folk that they can pursue all sorts of different relationships and they can move between different types of relationships.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: And if there is no need to come out anymore because there's there's just no issue, then I think that's you know absolutely wonderful.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, having having said that, I think that for those of us who grew up in that particular era, you know, homosexuality in the 70s was still a um mental mental illness.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the the so the medical profession was against us, the church was against us, um, families were against us, police were against us, uh schools were against us, and our families more or less were against us.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: So um, you know, I you think you you do carry that sort of trauma um in your body for the rest of your life.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, look, I I I'm kind of I'm very, very comfortable.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I'm almost grateful.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: I am grateful for for being gay and having a wonderful relationship and and um lots of intimacy and magic.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um there are still things that you know we were out somewhere recently.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was at a play.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: And just in the play, there was the word faggot.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm very happy for people to use whatever language and an artist.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm surprised in this that it's that it was in the play.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and you know, it was afterwards we went to that was a shock, wasn't it?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I was thinking it was quite appropriately there.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was a very good reason for it to be there, but it was it was uh and I think that Tim and I both just had that sort of visceral reaction of, you know, we've called and called that, you know, you fucking faggots in the in the street when we're you know be wearing black jeans and a black hoodie and a beanie and just walking home from the shops.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, and that that's not that long ago.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, look, I think it is so much better now.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we you know, we had when I was young, there was no language.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the point.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and there was there, it was just completely underground.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so this guy that I was in love with when I was 15, uh, and he was 15, and we we had a language which was P, H, and S and poof to homosexual and sex, and that was our way of you know, you know, would go, do you know that guy might be an H?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but even that it was that was too overt.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was just like, have you been thinking much about H lately?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Or you know, what do you think about H?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: And would go, uh-huh, I think I know what Pete wants to talk about.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was um fascinating time, wasn't it?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because I mean I grew up in a similar time, so I have great, you know, really clear recollections.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's so interesting just to see the trajectory and the way that it's evolving and evolved.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's still, as you say, a work in progress, but it's certainly easier for the next generation, I think.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I hope and pray.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I hope so too.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: And and just to finish on that, you know, one of the things that I was exploring with in my heart is the world thing is having a character called Patrick who's 45, and he's been left behind.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: He cares for his mother, lives in the same street.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, he he you know, he obeyed his mother.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I didn't obey my mother, but he obeys his mother even to the point where he's 45.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: And what I wanted to do, and I didn't realize this until after I'd finished the novel, is that I actually track the changes that's happened in Australia's um society in terms of gay stuff from from the um 70s to now.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I wanted to sort of, you know, make sure Patrick finally, not without you know, I don't want to spoil the story, but it's a great story.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: To break break free, so to speak.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: Just to quote Freddy McCreet.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, on that wonderful note, I'd like to thank you so much for joining me on the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute treat.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh I yes, everyone should go out and read this book.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite beautiful and poetic and inspiring, and you love it.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much, Nigel.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure to have you on the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's been lovely chatting together.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: The What I've Learned Podcast will now be coming to you weekly with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Love Dev.