Briefly tell us about your book.
The Banksia Bay Beach Shack is a story of first love and last chances and of the truths and lies that can connect people across time. Laura travels to the sleepy beachside town of Banksia Bay armed with only two clues to her grandmother’s past – an old photo and a broken pendant. With an eclectic group of locals in her way, who all seem to be hiding something, she pieces together the fragments of a summer sixty years ago and discovers an horrific event that has repercussions reaching far into the present.
If I looked at your internet history, what would it reveal about you?
Nothing good! It would show that I spend way too much time on social media, that I have a fascination with wars, and that I research things like the statute of limitations for crimes, immigration histories, medical and psychological conditions, Australian native flora, sixties fashions and cheese factories. Yes, cheese factories! It may not be as dark as writers of other genres, but it sure is eclectic.
What are you hoping the reader will take away from reading your book?
As with all my books, firstly and foremost I hope readers enjoy a stonking good read. I hope they can see themselves in my characters, and escape to the Banksia Bay, leaving their world behind for those brief few moments we steal when reading. If I achieve that, I’m happy. If readers also reflect on the power of truth and lies when they read The Banksia Bay Beach Shack, that’s a bonus.
What’s the easiest and most difficult parts of your job as a writer?
The easiest part of writing for me is coming up with ideas. The hardest part is turning those ideas into coherent slabs of text that can grow into a book. It can be a bit of a mess up there inside my mind. The best part is connecting with readers, especially when they contact you to let you know your story moved them. And for me, as someone who doesn’t plan their novels, working to a deadline is the hardest part of this writing gig.
Do you write about people you know? Or yourself?
Never directly, but I think all authors ‘cherry pick’ traits from the people around them – whether that be the certain way a character smiles, or a nervous tick they have, or a turn of phrase they use. There is probably a little of me in all my characters, some more than others. There is a lot of my dad in Charlie in The Cottage At Rosella Cove and a lot of me in Kelly in the book I’m working on next, The Wattle Island Book Club. In the Banksia Bay Beach Shack I have definitely cherry picked from a number of friends – I wonder if they’ll notice? What I do tap into a lot from my own life, is the emotion behind the events in my novels.
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