Briefly tell us about your book.
Five Bush Weddings is a romantic comedy set throughout country Queensland and seen through the eyes (and lens) of wedding photographer Stevie-Jean. She’s in her early 30s, seriously single, and starting to feel left behind as her friends settle down. Over a year of bush weddings we follow Stevie’s search for love and career success, her tangles with a reality show (Bush Bachelors), and a gossipy old lady better known as the Bush Telegraph following her every move…
What inspired the idea behind this book?
When my sister got married on her in-laws’ farm outside Cecil Plains, I was left with such a strong impression of the impact a bush wedding can have on a community. This wedding didn’t just bring together two families around a couple – the whole community got involved. Her mother-in-law worked on her garden for months so it would be green and beautiful for photos and the reception. There was a working bee to clean out the shed for the reception; we all helped to hang cotton boughs and fairy lights, to decorate the long tables. The groom’s brother built a dancefloor. The caterers were family friends using meat from their property. The waitstaff were local teenagers. The bar was run by the Lions Club. Guests stayed at the local pub, which also hosted the recovery, and it all created an influx of energy and resources into the town.
In the longer term, this young couple settling in the district and starting a family will have an impact on the local school and other services. That was something that crystallised for me as I worked on the story – the idea that these aren’t frivolous love stories. People falling in love with the right person and then committing to a small town or regional area has a material impact on the sustainability of that community.
Weddings, especially in the bush, are also a chance for people to get together and let their hair down. I thought a wedding photographer would be the perfect perspective to look at different types of love and relationships. They’re in the thick of the action but removed enough to observe family dynamics and the heightened emotions of high-stress wedding days, with all the humour and drama that brings.
What are you hoping the reader will take away from reading your book?
I hope this book is a fun escape that leaves people feeling happy, with a few laughs. If it gets people interested in visiting regional Australia or supporting a regional business, that would make me really happy.
Tell us about your background and what led you to writing this book.
I was born and raised in a small town in southwest Queensland called St George. Even though I’d lived far away for many years, in Sydney and even New York, I found myself setting whatever I was writing there. I guess it just gets into your bones. Five Bush Weddings is kind of my love letter to the places and people of Queensland, and I didn’t really think I’d seen this world on the page before.
While I didn’t write fiction for many years, I’ve always worked with words, and while I haven’t done a lot of direct news reporting I’ve worked around and with journalists for many years in my job at the Walkley Foundation. Sitting in on judging sessions for brilliant Australian photojournalism, and reading the statements photographers entered explaining their images, gave me some of the language to imagine how a wedding photographer would work and look at the world around them.
What was the most challenging part of writing this book?
I don’t have direct experience living on the land or working in agriculture, but it was important to me that the details of the book felt lived-in and accurate. Farming is more of a backdrop than integral to the plot, but I wanted someone from home to be able to read it and see their life reflected, without any little off-notes that would pull them out of the story. So I had friends read early drafts to make sure I wasn’t making any howlers with the farming scenes.
Writing the rugby action scenes was also a challenge! I’m far more fluent in rugby league, but for a character that had been to boarding school I had to go with a code I’m less familiar with.
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