Q&A With….. Jennifer Scoullar

To celebrate the release of Jennifer Scoullar’s second novel, Currawong Creek she is a guest today on my blog, answering some of my questions. Jennifer’s first novel, Brumby’s Run was a lovely story of family, connections and life on the land. Currawong Creek has some similar themes and is sure to be a must-read for those enjoying the rural genre. You read my review of Brumby’s Run here and my review of Currawong Creek here.

Q1. Hi Jennifer and welcome to my blog. Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions for me. To start us off – how did you come to begin writing novels and how were you first published?

– I was a bookworm as a child, and began my first novel at eleven. I always believed I’d grow up to be a writer, but unfortunately life got in the way. In 2006 I watched a little wasp buzz past my window, and unaccountably felt compelled to pick up a pen and write about it. That story became Wasp Season, and was picked up by a small Melbourne publisher. My ambition though, was to sign with a major house. I pitched Brumby’s Run to Belinda Byrne of Penguin Books at a conference, and miracle of miracles – it was published last year!

 

Q2. Share a little about your writing process – do you plot extensively or go with the flow? Do you have a favourite place to write and are there any essentials (snacks, music etc) to your creative process?

– I used not to plot at all, just let the story carry me along. Deadlines have made me more efficient. I now draw up a rough preliminary outline, listing the major plot points. These go on to index cards, and then on to a cork board. However the narrative always takes on a life of its own at some point, breaking out in unexpected directions. I’m very glad of that, because it keeps me excited and interested. The carefully ordered index cards are hurriedly revised, and must play catch-up as the story evolves.

I’ve learned to write whenever I can, seizing any opportunity: my little home office, bed, the stable, the beer garden at the local pub. Sometimes it’s nice to have a change of surroundings. There are no essentials required – just my computer, or a pen and paper. I’m really very flexible. Although I must admit, the occasional glass of Shiraz does help.

 

Q3. Having read both your novels, your love of the land is so obvious and it really adds something to the stories. Have you always been so passionate about conservation and respecting the natural surrounds? Or has it been something that has come to you over time spent exploring it?

– I’ve always enjoyed a profound affinity with nature. It was undoubtedly encouraged by my parents, both great lovers of the Australian bush. But I think it’s more than that. I think I was born with it, and that most of us are. For some reason I just never outgrew that original, childlike wonder and connection with the natural world. I don’t need to consciously channel my love for the land. It automatically informs not only everything I write, but everything I do, whether I like it or not.

 

Q4. In Brumby’s Run you investigate the issue of the native brumby population and in Currawong Creek you explore mining and how it can affect the land. How much research did you have to do into these?

– An awful lot of research goes into my books. However, since I always write about issues I’m passionately interested in, that research becomes a great joy. I’m a nerd at heart!

 

Q5. The rural romance genre has really exploded in popularity in recent times. Do you attribute anything in particular to why this has occurred?

 

– Australian readers find independent, tough-minded women more appealing than the self-absorbed shopaholics who dominate chick-lit. These tend to be the main characters in rural stories. Before Rachael Treasure, there were no uniquely Australian contemporary novels in this genre. But more importantly, the landscape is an integral part of these stories. Australia’s wild landscapes are powerful settings. In cities, many people live lives so far removed from nature, that they rarely even touch the earth. But at what cost? The cost to our declining environment? The cost to our hearts? I think the world is hungry to re-engage with nature, to ground itself. Rural lit taps into this vein. The wildly successful movie Avatar did the same thing. Losing touch with wildness is losing touch with ourselves.

Q6. What do you like to do to relax when you’re away from your keyboard?

– As I said, I’m a nerd, and also a bit of a loner. I enjoy the company of my animals as much or more as any of my other friends. So horse riding, gardening, working on the property – these are my greatest pleasures. Also reading and spending time with my family.

Q7. Can you share a few of your favourite authors and/or books?

– I love the Aussie rural lit genre for their heartfelt love stories, outback settings and unpretentious depictions of regional life, both human and animal. Rachael Treasure, Fleur Mcdonald, Nicole Alexander, Fiona Palmer – these are all terrific writers. I also love books like Half Moon Bay by Helene Young and Bronwyn Parry’s home grown brand of suspense. But I also read widely outside this genre. Andrea Goldsmith and Charlotte Wood for example. I admire their elegant prose and keen observations of character. The Prosperous Thief  and The Children are particular favourites. I also enjoy environmental thrillers such as Dust by Charles Pellegrino and classics like Dune by Frank Herbert and Earth Abides by George Stewart.

 

Q8. And lastly, what’s next for you? Anything juicy you can tell us?

– I’m currently two thirds of the way through my next novel – a star-crossed love affair between a flood-plains grazier and a cotton farmer …

 

Visit Jennifer’s website
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Visit her site at Penguin Books Australia 

Thanks to Jennifer and the wonderful people at Penguin for facilitating this Q&A.

 

Brumby’s Run – Jennifer Scoullar

Brumby’s Run
Jennifer Scoullar
Penguin AU
2012, 294p
Copy courtesy of the publisher

Samantha Carmichael is 18 when her world is rocked – her parents are not actually her biological parents, she is adopted. And on top of that, Sam has a twin sister named Charlie who was not adopted out by their biological mother. Before Sam can really process why only one of them was offered up for adoption, she is also told that Charlie is sick, a form of leukemia. That is the only reason Sam is now being told, because Charlie’s best chance of a full recovery is a bone marrow donation from a close genetic match. As Sam and Charlie are identical twins, the match doesn’t come closer than that.

Sam wastes no time meeting Charlie and offering to help her. Having trouble relating to her adoptive mother now after the secrecy, Sam chooses to spend some time helping out Charlie some more by taking care of Charlie and their mother’s property, Brumby’s Run while Charlie fully recovers from her operation and gets healthy again. When she arrives, the property is not as she pictured – Brumby’s Run is struggling, tired and worn down and in need of some TLC. Sam soon finds herself immersed in the lifestyle, taking the job Charlie had lined up breaking brumbies. The two girls may look identical and be very, very different in their manner but it seems they have one thing in common: a deep love and passion for horses.

Soon Sam is falling in love with this beautiful countryside, Brumby’s Run, the wild brumbies and also Drew Chandler, the son of a neighbouring farmer. Drew has been around most days, helping Sam fit in, giving advice and generally just being there. The two of them are enjoying a steadily burgeoning friendship and Sam sees herself becoming part of this scenery. Back in Melbourne Charlie is feeling left out and restless, ready to pick up the reins and take her life back.

Everything Sam has done has been to help Charlie but the two of them have yet to spend much time together. They’ll have to negotiate a truce, learn to be sisters and see if they can’t both find a way to make a living out of Brumby’s Run.

Like the author Jennifer Scoullar, I grew up on a steady diet of Elyne Mitchell novels. I had the entire Silver Brumby series as a pre-teen and read and re-read them probably dozens, if not hundreds, of times. Thowra and Co instilled a love of horses in me that persists until this day, even though I don’t own a horse, nor have I ever been lucky enough to own one. They’re a past time that I unfortunately cannot afford, but I’ve managed to find other ways in which to be around them. When I can’t do that, books like this one hit the spot.

Sam and Charlie are so different, but Sam feels the loneliness of having been an only child keenly so she is more than willing to help out Charlie and their biological mother Mary any way she can. She’s also a bit at odds with her adoptive mother, both for the secrecy and something that her adoptive mother does while Sam is spending time with Charlie at the hospital, so it’s no hardship for her to agree to go to Brumby’s Run and try and keep it going while Charlie is recuperating. I really liked Sam, she was mature beyond her years – going to a remote property at 18 and attempting to run it wouldn’t be easy and I think she made an excellent go of it especially as her adoptive parents were quite wealthy and she was used to luxury. Brumby’s Run is quite primitive, with the sort of conditions that would’ve had a lot of city girls heading straight back for the bright lights. But Sam doesn’t do that – she knuckles down and starts getting the place cleaned up.

Helping Sam find her feet is Drew Chandler, son of the property-owner next door. Mistaking her for Charlie at first, Drew is the only person who knows that Sam isn’t actually Charlie – Sam finds it easier not to have to explain her complicated family history to the locals, most of whom don’t have much time for Mary and Charlie anyway. Sam falls in love with the beautiful wild Australian brumbies and becomes personally invested in their fate. Often considered to be pests to the natural habitat, they are rounded up in order to attempt to tame them. Other methods have in the past, involved culling them from the air. Sam wants to save all of them, horrified when she learns that the ones the Brumby Rescue organisation don’t buy may end up as bronc horses for local rodeos.

Although at times I queried the decision to make Sam so young and undertake so much in what is essentially her first summer of freedom after high school, I think in the end it managed to work because of her youthful enthusiasm for everything. Everything was a new experience for her and she threw herself into it wholeheartedly, which was refreshing and charming in its honesty. It also did work better to highlight the differences between Sam and Charlie – Charlie had not had anywhere near the privileged life that Sam had and her resentment and at times, childish behaviour about it wouldn’t have sat well on an older character.

Brumby’s Run is a lovely story of family and self-discovery, of love of the land and the wildlife that live on it. I’d recommend it to any fans of the rural literature genre or anyone that has a love of horses and a sweet love story.

8/10

Book #113 of 2012

Brumby’s Run is the 42nd novel read and reviewed for the Australian Women Writers Challenge