Fiona McIntosh was born and raised in Sussex in the UK, but also spent early childhood years in West Africa. She left a PR career in London to travel and settled in Australia in 1980.  She has written fourteen adult and five children's novels since her midlife crisis in Year 2000, and her bestselling books sell worldwide and in various languages. She lives in Adelaide with her family but roams the world for story ideas and research.

Why did you decide to become an author? Is writing something that you have always been passionate about?
Reading is something I’ve always been passionate about certainly.  But becoming a novelist was never in my sights.  I grew up loving language and having the ability to knock together well-structured essays and later I was bashing out press releases in my work, which ultimately led to being a co-publisher on a travel magazine where although I was head of marketing I was turning my attention to putting out some travel stories.  I used to write long letters to family and friends – it was obvious I was a wordsmith but writing a book came as a genuine surprise.  I wrote my first manuscript in a few weeks and when it was done I was shocked that a publisher wanted it.  But I haven’t looked back. I now have 20 novels published, two more coming out this year and another one written for publication in 2013.  All of my adult fantasy is sold worldwide and in foreign translation.  You could say the floodgates of my imagination opened in Year 2000. 

Growing up, which authors do you believe were the most influential on your writing style?
For my childhood it would be Enid Blyton and C S Lewis, who do still influence my writing for children. In my teens probably Stephen King and where perhaps I’ve developed that notion of suspense, which permeates my stories.  By the time I turned 20 I was reading doorstop thrillers and sagas from people like Ludlum, Follett, Irwin Shaw, etc.  And those are definitely stories that I emulate. In my thirties I rediscovered fantasy and writers including G G Kay, G R R Martin, Robin Hobb et al, had a huge influence on the style of writing and the books that got me known as a novelist.  These days it’s Sharon Penman, Sebastian Faulks and a lot of very good non-fiction writers who deliver history as storytellers and have me completely under their spell….Anthony Beevor, David Cressy and co. 

You were born and raised in England, lived for a while in West Africa and moved to Australia in your 20s. You also travel frequently around the world. How would you say your globetrotting has affected your writing?
Yes, I’ve travelled the world extensively since I was three and I think it would be fair to say that my globetrotting has profoundly influenced the sort of books I write, with their epic storylines and the way I like to set them across international landscapes.   I would go so far as to say that every one of the novels I’ve written has, to some extent, been inspired and influenced by my travels and I can’t see that stopping because now I seem to set up a travel schedule for each new novel on the wind.  Travel is a brilliant educator and the people you meet and experiences one is exposed to means ideas for stories are continually presenting themselves.  Next trip is to Marrakech.  Let’s see what it gives me!

You have written over 20 books since 2000. Looking back on this prolific career, what would you say has been your most rewarding experience as a writer?
Oh there are many if I’m honest.  I’m always humbled by a happy audience that comes out on a very cold night during winter to spend a couple of hours listening to my tales and then clapping loudly before buying my book.  That delivers enormous satisfaction but also genuine humility as I realise how powerful the written word is and how stories can reach out and touch people emotionally hundreds, often thousands, of kms away.  I think my most gobsmacking event was being asked by my publisher to come to the French Book Fair and being flown with all the diva trappings into Paris and pinching myself that this was actually happening although I wasn’t entirely sure why.  Then arriving at the publisher’s stand on the first day and marvelling at the enormous queue of people waiting for the four of us international writers from Bragelonne’s stable who had been brought in for the event…..but then being told that queue I was looking at was just for me.  Nearly fainted clean away!
These are all good times but nothing compares to one’s first book contract and the first time you lay your hands on your first novel for the first time.  I defy any new writer not to weep happy tears!

What can you tell us about your latest novel, The Lavender Keeper?
I can tell you that this is the favourite book of mine to date.  It has everything in it that I go looking for in a novel….at its core is a wonderful love story as well as a tragic love story.  And swirling around that ‘double affair’ is a tense, action-packed adventure of escape, treachery, revenge, despair and triumph.  All of this is set against arguably the most romantic and yet fear-filled backdrop of Occupied Paris during WWll.  This is a story of hope, and a story of a man’s love for his family, his life, his land …and for one woman whose presence threatens to destroy him. 

What was your inspiration?
There were two triggers.  I stumbled across Bridestowe Lavender Farm in Launceston while looking for attractions to visit with my parents in Tassie.  It gave me the seed of my story i.e. the bringing of true French Lavender from the alpine region of Provence to the other side of the world.  And I was flying into Paris for the French Book Fair and walked into all the celebrations of the 70th anniversary for WWll and the Liberation of Paris.  It made me think about writing a wartime story and suddenly I remembered the history of Bridestowe and it was easy to bring the two together into an action/adventure romance.

The Lavender Keeper is set in France during World War II. How did you go about researching this turbulent period in history?
I read dozens of reference books – everything from Nazi uniforms to spy memoirs.  I read about Hitler’s rise and the progress of the Nazi war machine across Europe, forever pushing east.  I read Holocaust reference books, I ordered huge botanical tomes on the history of Lavender, about London during the Blitz and Paris during Occupation.  I had towers of books by my bedside.  Then I began watching documentaries – so many I’ve lost track.  I ordered one particular documentary made by a French director that was incredibly helpful and was once banned in France because it was so confronting about the collaborators, etc.  Intriguing stuff.  Then I began to surf the Net.  I spent months and months compiling the information I thought I needed to learn more about – and this was everything from the extraction of oil from lavender through to French politics at the time.
Finally I had to visit key destinations so that I could find my locations and understand them properly for the novel.  If I didn’t know what they looked, smelled, felt, sounded and tasted like, how would I evoke those places for the reader?  I spent several weeks in Provence, made several trips to Paris, two trips to London and then began to broaden my reach once I realised that I needed two volumes to tell this tale.  So I visited Strasbourg, Krakow and Auschwitz in Poland, Vienna in Austria and spent a week or two on the south coast of Britain where returning spies were landed after the liberation of Paris.
Most importantly I talked to elders.  I spoke to older people all over the world from Poland to Germany, France to Scotland.  Their memories nourished this story because there’s nothing like real life experiences to spice a novel. 

What would you like readers to take away from The Lavender Keeper?
The joy of getting completely lost in the pages of a rip roaring story – I’m hopeful that The Lavender Keeper is a page turner that allows readers to forget their daily drudge and live vicariously through the lives of three intriguing characters, and share WWll through their eyes. I’d like readers to have a new appreciation of what it must have been like to live under occupation and remind them about the catastrophe and tragedy that war can provoke including the Holocaust.  I’d especially like Australian readers to appreciate the marvel of Bridestowe and its lovely history and the fact that we have a very special farm in Launceston that is now supplying the very precious oil of lavandula angustifolia, or the true ‘lavender fin’ that once grew wild and lush in Provence, back to the French to make their beautiful perfume.

Do you have any quirky writing habits?
Well, I don’t know if they’re quirky but they seem to intrigue aspiring writers.  Firstly, I never write to any plan.  I don’t plot or take notes.  I simply write on mood and whim.  20 books in print behind me tells me that this formula works for me so I mustn’t over-analyse myself or I’ll become insecure about this curious method of freefalling into my novels. I write to a strict daily word count and when I reach the agreed amount I stop whether I’m in the middle of a tense scene or even a sentence.  I just down tools and leave my computer and I’m confident I can pick up from where I left off the next day.  I like to bake as a reward for my writing week.  Crazy but true.  I like silence while I write; I despise interruptions but it happens all the time when you have a family.  I don’t read back my work until I’ve finished the entire manuscript and I know this sounds barmy but I can barely remember what I’ve written until I read the first draft – and it always surprises me.  I like to write back-to-back novels.  I don’t like not having a book on the go…so I rarely take holidays.  The last was five days for a special birthday several years ago but I was quite twitchy by the end of it!

Can we expect another novel in the near future?
I’m pleased to say yes!  In August 2012 is the release of my new middle readers’ fantasy – The Rumpelgeist – which follows on from The Whisperer.  And then in November 2012 is the launch of my new adult fantasy…The Scrivener’s Tale.  Next April the sequel to The Lavender Keeper will be released and that’s called Luc’s Promise we think.  It’s written and now being edited.  And by the time that rolls around I would have delivered a new shift into magic realism called Tapestry and I’ll be looking toward my next big historical action adventure by then.   Always plenty on the go!

Do you have any advice that you would like to offer aspiring writers?
Yes.  ‘Write’ is an action word.  It requires you to do produce words on a page.  Tinkering with yesterday’s words and worrying about tomorrow’s words are both unproductive pastimes.  Get disciplined, don’t give yourself excuses and get on and write.  I meet so many people who tell me they’re working on a book and when I probe a little further they’ve been working on it for years and then trot out all reasons -  marriage, children, jobs…these are excuses not valid reasons.  If you want to write, you will.  But you have to make time in your life to do so – everyone can unless they’re sick, moving house or have a newborn baby (I allow for those unsettling and difficult situations!).  Writers of popular fiction as I am have to be disciplined but also flexible, if that makes sense.  You also need to develop a tough hide and absolute belief in yourself as a storyteller.  

Anthony Field is the creator and a founding member of the global phenomenon that is The Wiggles. Born in 1963 the youngest of seven children, he grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs. Anthony and his brothers Paul and John and purple Wiggle Jeff were members of the ′80s chart topping group The Cockroaches.

For the first time, Anthony tells his inspiring, behind-the-scenes story of how he overcame depression, life-threatening illness and chronic pain to get his life back.

What were some of your favourite books when you were growing up?
Well I would have to say Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally.

As the blue Wiggle, you obviously lead a pretty busy life. What books do you like to read to wind down and relax?
Meditation books by Jean Vanier, my fave would be The Broken Body. I love biographies too.

Are there any particular moments in your extensive career that stand out above the rest?
The first few years, when we were loading in the PA system, driving ourselves miles and miles to do a show, playing ourselves and the characters, meeting people who had never heard of us, it was all very exciting.

What books do you and your children like to read together?
Well they are still very young, but they love Anthony Browne picture books and my oldest, Lucia, 8, loves 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!' books.

What can you tell us about your new book How I got my Wiggle Back? What led to its creation?
I was so thankful to the health professionals who saved my life and inspired me to work to become pain free. I wanted to produce a book which showed the world some natural cures and thanked these great healers.

What would you like your readers to take away from How I got my Wiggle Back?
That good health and a pain free existence are available to most people naturally. Yes you have to work at it, and yes you have to make lifestyle changes, but it will be worth it.

How I got my Wiggle Back is quite a revealing and yet inspiring look into your personal struggles. What challenges did you face when writing your book?
I couldn't and wouldn't delve too far back into some painful times, which I think really contributed to my clinical depression in later life.

Who would you say have been the most inspirational people in your life?
My parents, my fellow Wiggles, the doctors in the book and lately, famous Greek photographer Spiros Poros, whom has taken me under his wing and really helped me see things in a real Greek philosophical way.

Can we expect another book in the future?
I would love to write a book about some of the fun and inspiring people we have met on the road in the last 21 years, some funny stories, heart-warming stories and sadly some heartbreaking ones involving children with terrible diseases.

Do you have any advice that you would like to offer to your readers?
Health and happiness are attainable and yet they can be transient. Natural is best in diet and exercise. Take the steps, educate yourself on how our marvellous bodies work, respect your bodies and give them the best fuel and lots of rest. Enjoy life and love.

Felicity Young was born in Germany, educated in the UK and settled in WA. She trained as a nurse, married young and, with three young children, her arts degree took ten years to complete. In 1990 the family moved from the city and established a sheep farm in Gidgegannup WA. Here she studied music, reared orphan kangaroos and started writing.

What were some of your favourites books when you were growing up and why?
I can’t ever remember learning to read, it was about the only thing I never had difficulty with at primary school and I tended to read above my age. I started with the children’s classics, then onto C.S Lewis - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series still my favourite by far, and then graduating to more realistic adventure stories such as those by Willard Price: South Sea Adventure, Pacific Adventure, Lion Adventure etc By early teens I think I had read everything I could lay my hands on by Alistair Mclean and Hammond Innes. Then came a variety of ‘unsuitable books’ such as The Exorcist which I covered and took great joy in reading in front of the nuns at my boarding school, and a racy version of Calamity Jane that I found in the school’s compost heap. Funny, we were never allowed to read Enid Blighton – she was deemed unsuitable.

On plane trips home to Australia I used to thrive on Aeroplane disaster books such as Arthur Hailey’s Airport and then composing my own disaster books.  I think that was probably my way of having some kind of control over the very dangerous flying conditions of the ‘70s.

In my mid teens my reading became suitable again: more classics, only the adult versions now, and Catholic angst by the likes of Graham Greene and Morris West.


Having trained as a nurse, what inspired you to become an author?
My father always enjoyed my letters home and wanted me to study journalism. I didn’t have the confidence and chose nursing because I saw it as ‘safe.’ I also thought it was a way to romance and adventure, and it was in a way. I met my husband when I was still a first year student. As soon as I had qualified as an RN I signed up for and arts degree at UWA. Each discipline provided something the other lacked. They were a great compliment to each other.


How do you feel that your time in Germany, the UK and Australia has influenced your writing?
I spent a lot of my childhood as a stranger in a strange country. Looking from the outside in is a handy tool for a writer to have. And of course, my mainly UK –based childhood has helped enormously with the Dody McCleland series.

What have been some of your most rewarding experiences as an author?
So many rewarding experiences; being an author has opened up another world in much the same way as the transition from nursing to university did. Most of all I love meeting and talking to other authors and readers. There’s nothing more satisfying than hearing how much someone has enjoyed your books. My aim has always been to entertain.


What can you tell us about your new novel, A Dissection of Murder?
It’s about Doctor Dody McCleland, Britain’s first female (fictitious) autopsy surgeon, her suffragette sister Florence and Chief Inspector Mathew Pike. Dody is called upon to perform an autopsy on a woman killed at a suffragette riot who turns out to be her sister’s best friend. It is about the different conflicts and moral dilemmas faced by the main characters and how they overcome them during the course of their investigations, set against a background of non fictitious historical events.

What led you to writing a historical crime fiction novel?
I’ve always loved history, especially this period. I actually started with a history major at uni before switching to English lit. I had always wanted to write historical, but thought it might be wise to cut my teeth on contemporary crime fiction first – and besides, historical wasn’t selling too well at the time!

Your protagonist, Dody McCleland, is England’s first female autopsy surgeon. How did you go about researching this profession at the turn of the twentieth century? 
Mainly by trawling the internet, books and articles and visiting museums. The subject fascinates me and I love the research.

Can we expect to see more of Dody McCleland in the future?
Absolutely. I am in the process of editing book 2 as well as having written the first ten thousand words of book 3.

Do you have any quirky writing habits?
One, yes, and it almost lead to my downfall. I love writing in bed, but my back doesn’t. Forced to take my physio’s advice, I mainly write at a desk now, but every now and then during a particularly tricky scene, my bed lures me back.

Do you have any advice that you would like to offer to aspiring authors?
Be patient. Gain as much life experience as you can and don’t be in a hurry to get published. Enjoy the process.

T S Learner was born and raised in England and has lived in both Australia and the USA. She is well known in Australia as a playwright. Her first collection of short stories, Quiver, written as Tobsha Learner, has sold over 150 000 copies internationally.

Her third book – the bestselling The Witch of Cologne – was her first work of historical fiction and was followed by another collection of short stories, Tremble, and two more novels, Soul and Sphinx. T S Learner divides her time between London, Sydney and California.

Why did you decide to become an author? Is writing something that you have always been passionate about?
I actually began my career as a playwright (my original training was sculptor) so theatre, image making was something I was (and still am) passionate about – creating very visual, visceral prose excites me, stories my readers can breath, smell, journey through, writing excites me as long as I feel I am moving my audience.

You divide your time between Australia, America and England. How do you feel this influences your writing?
It gives me a very global perspective; it has also allowed me to join up disparate parts of my life. I feel more integrated in terms of my English/European background and also as an Australian who spend a lot of her adult life in Australia. I think also it gives me an objective edge, an outside eye in terms of the stories I chose to write about, on the negative I get very concerned about the big issues – no way do I ever get lost in suburbia!

You’re an author of many talents, writing historical fiction, thrillers and erotic short stories. Is there a particular genre that you enjoy writing the most?
Not really, the short stories provide a psychological balance for the intensity of the research that goes into the thrillers. I plan to write more historical fiction in the future, also some ‘straight’ short stories – more poignant than erotic!

Do you have any quirky habits when you’re writing?
Totally, I have a very ugly pale green hat with a Chelsea emblem on it I wear when it’s cold (I am a Chelsea fan!) There’s a saying my household – two hat weather – it’s a reference to the fact that I have been known to wear two hats (a beanie inside another) when it’s really cold. I get very fussy about body temperature – maybe it’s displacement activity, I also cannot listen to music with lyrics, classical is ok, silence when I’m in an intense dialogue with my imagination is even better. But I can write almost anywhere, although I try and time where I will be writing at what stage I will be in the development of the books. For example I like to do the polishing of late drafts in the courtyard of our Californian house – surrounded by my gardening (bliss) because I can afford a little distraction. Otherwise it will be the window in my writing studio in London that looks out onto a grey roof and pigeons, or my window in Sydney, which has a tree outside. I can’t write in front of anyone. 

Where did the inspiration for your new novel, The Map, come from?
I’ve had a long-term fascination for both the International brigade and the Spanish Civil war, and I was looking for an epic political backdrop to set a thriller against, similar to my previous thriller SPHINX. I have a very close Basque friend who suggested I looked at the Basque experience under Franco, and at their fascinating pagan beliefs (the Basques were the last to be Christianized in Europe). I also discovered the fascinating fact that the Americans had trained up Basque nationalists with the idea of overthrowing Franco just after the war then had withdrawn their officers. A plot started to form - The Map is interesting because it actually fuses several strands from my other works – the Jewish psychic Shimon in the 17^th century subplot of The Map is also a Sephardic Jew fleeing the Inquisition – just like the mother of the Ruth bat Saul in The Witch Of Cologne.

What can you tell us about August Winthrop, the protagonist of The Map?
He’s a blue-blood Bostonian who has studied Classics at Oxford University then has been recruited (like many of the bright young things of the late 1920s and 30’s) into the communist party and then sent to Spain to fight in 1937 with the Lincoln Brigade (the US squadron of the international brigade). When we meet him it is post war England 1953, grim, in the grip of rationing and unemployment and August is morally bereft, suffering from PSDT, womanizing and looking for meaning. He finds it in the form of a mission – to take a mysterious 17^th chronicle back into Franco’s Spain and return it to the Basque family it belongs to – an incredibly dangerous undertaking for an ex-soldier with the international brigade.

What are you hoping that readers will take away from The Map?
I did a lot of real research for this book, so I’m hoping not only will it be a transporting ‘ride’, but also an informative insight into the suffering of both the Basques (and the Spanish left-wing) under Franco, an understanding of the many nationalities who fought (and died) fighting the growing tyranny of fascism (Franco, Hitler and Mussolini) long before war was actually declared against the Axis powers  - including the Erich Thaelman brigade (The Germans who fought against Franco and Hitler) . The mystical element in the book also covers the cabbalistic Tree of life, so the reader will also learn quite a lot about both the cabbala and the spiritual meaning of sephirots – the spiritual stations of The Tree of Life. There is also a disturbing twist at the end of the book which throws up a lot of questions about the nature of belief.

Can we expect another novel in the future?
Naturally, my next book will be set in Zurich in 1982 and the Romany (gypsy) experience in the Holocaust will be the back-story. It will be a thriller around the notion of ethnic identity, the duplicity of the Swiss and a family dynasty of Watchmakers.

What have been some of your most memorable experiences as a writer?
My most memorable experiences would come in the form of the people and places I encounter – sometimes these are very personal and moving first-person accounts, sometimes it’s a revelation of an historical fact that has gone under the radar of main-stream belief. For example I was with a close German friend of mine who has been my research assistant both on The Witch of Cologne and on The Map. We were in Hamburg interviewing people who had lived through the British occupation in 1953 (post-war) but also researching the German resistance in the form of the Erich Thaelman brigade (the German communists who fought against Franco then Hitler). We were at the Erich Thaelman centre and were shown a map of the German concentration camps for Germans within Germany itself –these were the camps where Hitler sent the Germans who resisted the Nazis – from ordinary businessmen who vocalized their dissent to organized underground resistance. Both of us were surprised at the number of these detention camps – there were many clustered around cities, but my German friend (who’s over forty) was seriously shocked – he had no idea! It gave you a real sense of the internal tyranny of the regime.

Likewise the older Basques who were generous enough to share their experiences of both the civil war and living under Franco felt like a rare gift – I only hope I can do justice to such memories! At the other end of the spectrum some of the most memorable and gratifying experiences for me is feedback from my readers, I remember a young lad at the Adelaide festival (decades ago) coming up to have his copy of Quiver signed and telling me he found it very instructive in terms of losing his virginity! One of my prize possessions is a letter from an American reader saying how he had been totally gripped by The Witch of Cologne, particularly the account of the persecution the Inquisition imposed – his second paragraph begun ‘..as I write to you from behind the bars of this prison…’ it turned out he was under ‘the care’ of the Californian State penitentiary system! That was very moving

Do you have any advice that you’d like to offer to aspiring writers?
Write detailed treatments, these will save a lot of heartbreak and time later, also be prepared to rewrite and rewrite, be as self-critical as possible, strive to finish a first draft and don’t get stuck polishing and re-polishing your favorite paragraph before you’ve finished the whole manuscript. Never ever send a first draft to an agent or publisher, become an avid reader, and remember craft, living a full life and tenacity counts as much as talent – maybe more.