Who Are You: Wendy James?

This time Wendy James is under the magnifying glass while The Who belts out Who Are You? We investigate the essentials first, then get fast and fun.

THE WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, HOW, AND THEN… OF WENDY JAMES

WHO are you as a writer and in the other part of your life?
I’ve been writing for quite a long while – almost 25 years, now. I started out writing short stories (I think my first publication might have been in 1993 or 94), and then had my first novel, Out of the Silence, published in 2005.

I’d love to be able to write full-time, but don’t see that happening any time soon. Like most Australian writers, I’ve almost always had to have some sort of paid job—research, book-keeping, child-minding, editing, teaching—but writing is my profession. I’ve had scholarships and an Ozco grant, and being able to just focus on writing was brilliant. I currently work as an editor at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie uni. I’m editing academic books about health systems research, so it’s a little bit different to my fiction, which usually involves some sort of criminal behaviour in a domestic setting.

Lately I’ve been thinking that I’m seriously in need of a hobby.  Mostly I seem to just write, read, edit, write, edit, read, write…and am definitely in danger of becoming a very dull person! I do walk a lot, and swim, too.  Music’s pretty important to me, so maybe a choir? I also have four kids – though the youngest is 14 now, so I’m not in such demand.

WHAT is your latest release and what inspired the story?
The Golden Child is a domestic suspense novel and here is the blurb:
Blogger Lizzy’s life is buzzing, happy, normal. Two gorgeous children, a handsome husband, destiny under control. For her real-life alter-ego Beth, things are unravelling. Tensions are simmering with her husband, mother-in-law and even her own mother. Her teenage daughters, once the objects of her existence, have moved beyond her grasp and one of them has shown signs of, well, thoughtlessness…

Then a classmate of one daughter is callously bullied and the finger of blame is pointed at Beth’s clever, beautiful child. Shattered, shamed and frightened, two families must negotiate worlds of cruelty they are totally ill-equipped for.

This is a novel that grapples with modern-day spectres of selfies, selfishness and cyberbullying. It plays with our fears of parenting, social media and Queen Bees, and it asks the question: just how well do you know your child?

One of the big questions that inspired the novel was not just the ‘what if’ of your own child being the victim of bullying, but the other side of the question – what if your conscientiously reared, greatly beloved child was the bully? The Golden Child looks at what must be a parents’ worst nightmare – and looks at it from every angle.

I also wanted to explore the way social media seems to encourage people to present their lives, and their selves, as perfect – middle-aged women just as much as teenagers. The way Beth presents her life is a confection, and one that’s increasingly at odds with what’s really going on.

WHERE do you write and do you have any quirky writer’s habits?
I write in room that’s part study, part library, part storage room. My books and I currently share the space with a number of surfboards, a Marshall stack (for sale if anyone’s keen), several guitars, a double pram, a weights bench, toolboxes, a lawnmower, a bike, and my teenage son. Luckily, it’s a pretty big space ???? I think the fact that I’m able to work in chaos is pretty quirky habit.

WHEN did your writer’s dream start and how long did it take to write your first book?
I think I probably dreamt about being a writer for a long long time before I even admitted it to myself. I feel like my childhood was spent in a book, and then my early adulthood was spent studying books – which probably made the idea of actually writing them seem rather daunting. I had children quite young, and suddenly had things I desperately wanted to say. I also, strangely enough, had the confidence to say it. I wrote short stories for around five years before I attempted a novel – and then that first one took me another five years.

WHY do you write in your chosen genre?
I’ve written two historical novels, a collection of stories, and four contemporary novels – which are generally described as being domestic suspense, or domestic noir. The first novel, which was set in at the beginning of the last century, was also a crime novel, although it was a whydunnit rather than a whodunnit. It won the Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction—almost out of the blue—it certainly hadn’t been marketed as crime.

My latest hasn’t really been marketed as crime, although there certainly are crimes committed – but this time by children.

It’s hard to say why I write what I write. I guess I begin with a story and a character … and then the structure, and the genre evolve out of that.  I really like to see what happens when fairly ordinary, decent people are put into extraordinary situations. Mostly those extraordinary situations have involved crimes of one sort or another.

HOW many books have you published to date and can you please give us a snapshot of them?
I’ve had six books published:
Out of The Silence: Historical/ crime: Set in Melbourne at the turn of the 20th century, and based on the tragic story of Maggie Heffernan. This novel won the Ned Kelly Award and was shortlisted for the Nita Dobbie Award for women’s fiction.
The Steele Diaries: Historical: A story about three Australian women, from three different eras, negotiating the tricky relationship between motherhood and creativity.
Where have You Been: Domestic Suspense: A missing sister reappears to claim an inheritance. Or does she?
The Mistake: Domestic Suspense: Where is Jodie Garrow’s first child, Elsa Mary, who she allegedly adopted out secretly more than 20 years ago?
The Lost Girls: Domestic Suspense: The 1980s murder of two teenage girls is reinvestigated thirty years later.
The Golden Child: Domestic Suspense: Can bad children happen to good mothers?
And a collection of short stories: Why She Loves Him.

AND… What is your current project?
I’m writing a novel about an abduction, loosely based on the Canning Affair, which was an 18th century cause celebre (and the inspiration for Josephine Tey’s The Franchise Affair).

AND THEN… What would you like to try your writer’s hand at in the future?
One day I’d like to go back to writing historical fiction – there are a couple of stories that have been rattling around in my head for a while. And perhaps, one day, a romantic comedy.

NOW, LET’S GET FAST AND FUN WITH WENDY JAMES
Favourite food: It’s probably simpler to just list the foods I don’t like: fish that doesn’t taste like chicken, seafood, goat cheese.
Beverage when I want to chill: Champagne.
Book I’m currently reading: Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words.
Favourite season: In the middle of winter I love summer. At the height of summer, I long for winter. I love spring and autumn all the way through. So you could say I love all the seasons equally (or that I’m a malcontent).
Strangest job I’ve ever had: Book-keeping. See chaos above.
Favourite song or band: My new favourite is The Secret Sisters.
Something most people wouldn’t know about me: I had two different coloured eyes as a baby — one blue and one brown. Now they’re both brown, but one is slightly lighter than the other.

CONNECT WITH WENDY JAMES
http://www.wendyjames.com.au/
https://www.facebook.com/wendyjamesauthor/