Podcast with Anna Fienberg

Anna was born in England in 1956 and came to Australia at the age of three. Her first book, Billy Bear and the Wild Winter, published in 1988, originated from a series she wrote while working as editor at School Magazine.

Anna has written many award-winning picture books, short stories and junior novels including The Magnificent Nose & Other Marvels, Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life, and more recently the Tashi series.

The latest title is the fifteenth Tashi book Tashi and the Phoenix. She has also written the four books in the Minton series, both bestselling collaborations with artist Kim Gamble.

Anna also writes for high school students. She published Power to Burn in 1995 and, in 1999, Borrowed Light, described as a complex, frank portrait of female teenage sexuality'.

Borrowed Light was an Honour Book in the 2000 CBCA Book of the Year Awards for Older Readers and was also short listed for the 2000 NSW Premier's Literary Award.

Nearly all of Anna's books have been listed as Notable Books by the CBC. Anna's most recent book for older readers is called Number Eight.

Click play to listen.

Running time: 29:04

If you like the idea of writing books for children and young adults check out our course Writing books for children and young adults with Judith Ridge.

Transcript

* Please note that the author transcripts have been edited for your redability

Valerie:
Anna, thanks for joining us today.

Anna:
Oh, hello. It's a pleasure to be here.

Valerie:
Well now Anna you come from a family of readers and your mother is a librarian. Do you remember when you were a child the kinds of books you were encouraged to read then?

Anna:
Yes, I do actually quite clearly. We read a lot of fairytales together you know earlier on and my mother being the librarian would bring home new books all the time. So I was very lucky that way and oh such a range, there was Betsy Byars, books about relationships and kids my age I suppose I loved, but I also loved fantasy, the Narnia books and Rosemary Sutcliff. There were quite a few you know when I got a little bit older historical books that I was certainly, certainly encouraged to read. My mother had quite a passion for particularly Roman history and so on. But I do remember Enid Blyton being all the rage and just her nose turning up a little you know. I could see it. She wasn't mad about Enid Blyton but she certainly didn't sit through anything.

Valerie:
Right. So which would be your favorite Anna Feinberg book and why?

Anna:
I think probably it would be Number Eight, that's the latest older readers' book, probably because, not just because it's the latest one but because it came so easily and books certainly don't always come easily. They can, you know novels can be a couple of years in the writing if not more and there can be lovely easy parts to them but sometimes you really struggle and you're in the dark world down there. Number Eight though was - yeah, it was just sort of easy to read, to write and a joy really. Probably it was based on, well based on, it was based partly on my son and it's about a boy who has an absolute sort of passion for even numbers.

Valerie:
Right.

Anna:
But he really despises odd numbers and, but evens you know they make you feel sort of secure and they're reassuring. And he lives with his mum who is a singer and they've moved around a lot in his life. I actually haven't at all. I've been in the one place quite a long time but - and so anyway, various adventures happen because in fact in the last place that she was working in the casino there she saw something she shouldn't have seen.

Valerie:
Right.

Anna:
And she moves out to the suburbs which you know are quiet and safe so she supposes but her history catches up with her. And of course her past life catches up with her son and he has to sort of run for his life. So there's a mixture of humor and drama and so I think that's probably why I just enjoyed the ease of it.

Valerie:
Sure. And I have to ask, does your son have a passion for even numbers?

Anna:
Yes, he does. Yes. He particularly loves the number eight and very often actually he'd you know, if he was chewing he'd have to chew twice on one side and twice on the other and have to count his peas on his plate before he ate them and so on.

Valerie:
Really?

Anna:
And so everything took quite a while but I'm glad to say he seems to be over this now.

Valerie:
So where do you get your ideas for the Tashi series? You're on your 15th book now.

Anna:
Yeah.

Valerie:
So how do you come up with so many stories for this character?

Anna:
Look I think they actually they do draw on fairytales quite often. There's such a rich variety there you know to look at and interpret in new ways. So I think we all in some ways rewrite ideas according to our own world and for instance, I love that character of the evil grandma from Russian and Czech and Polish I think fairytales and the Forbidden Room was actually based on Blue Beard and the Magic Flute where the stranger comes to town and there's a locust plague. So we draw on these things and I think fairytales you know although they're fantasy they obviously really highlight real human dramas and conflicts, don't they? And there's the source probably. They also - I mean even though they're fantasy they're catchy stories like most fantasy probably has come from certain experiences, too. And I remember Tashi Lost in the City came quite directly from the day when my son was about eight and he was lost just for seven minutes at Darling Harbor but it was the most horrifying seven minutes I think of my life.

Valerie:
I'm sure.

Anna:
But there was a huge crowd and yeah, so I just somehow knew that this was going to happen poor old Tashi and you tend to work out your angst sometimes through stories.

Valerie:
Oh yes. The lot of the writer. Now when you were 28 you lived in Italy for a year and you've mentioned in some interviews that the Witch in the Lake was an inspiration from living there.

Anna:
Yeah.

Valerie:
Can you describe how that came about?

Anna:
Well yes I think one of the lovely things about writing is that when you're writing a book you tend to live in that place with those people in your mind for a lot of your life and even when you're doing other things in the real world so often does that little space you'll be going back there and Italy was somewhere that I really really loved living. And just, it seemed to me just the daily things there, asking for bread, coming home with the right thing having said it in Italian; it was such a stimulating part of my life then. And you know coming from Sydney and arriving in Florence I was to do a course in Italian there for three months and then stay for a year. Back in those days I'd saved up enough to not have to work for almost that year. I couldn't do it now. But in wandering those couple narrow streets and you know at dusk when everything - the lights have dissolved or outlines and the medieval churches and so on. And I think that sense of anonymity, too. I didn't know anybody and I was to live there for a year so there was a feeling - this tinge of panic quite often, even though I felt really excited about living but you know if anything happened no one would know and it's a perfect place to actually live out your imagination when you're traveling in that sense you know.

Valerie:
What made you want to go there and why Italy then?

Anna:
Well I think it began because mainly at school I was doing art for the high school certificate we studied for renaissance painting and I was so struck by the way, the difference between the medieval and so on, you know the Byzantine sort of mosaic beauty of those paintings but the people were still, you know they weren't lifelike. They were like gorgeous bathroom tiles you know. And then the Renaissance painters they just brought the human face and figure to life you know and there seemed to be such warmth and humanity and wisdom and all those things in those faces and in those landscapes. And I think I just wanted to you know jump through those DaVinci sort of arches you know into that life.

Valerie:
Your book Borrowed Light is about a 16-year-old girl who falls pregnant and feels alienated from her family. And it was your first young adult book. How has this book been received and what are your feelings towards that book?

Anna:
Yeah. That was actually a really difficult book to write. You know it was sort of before the 80s with some books. I really wanted to write about adolescence and you know that search for self and you know the, "Who am I?" but - "And if I am this person, will I still fit in and will people still accept me? Am I weird?" and all of those feelings. And so often I think that's the very time, too, when you're starting to form relationships and someone, you know the attraction between people can often be, you know it's about sex but very often you're actually really looking also for that connection, mainly for that connection, and some sort of intimacy.

But it's such a fumbled difficult sort of time and I really wanted to write about that but I think what happened when I was writing it was that I - as you do I tend to write from the inside you know and so you push yourself there and I was back at the bottom of that well you know being 16 and thinking about how it felt, how life felt at that stage. And I was rescued really by the metaphor of the you know celestial world. I'd written mainly fantasy before then but I wanted to write a real-life story but I just couldn't find my way in or out of that you know rather gloomy place. And I remember when I was telling my son a story about something else completely different and he just wouldn't get to sleep so we just lay there in the dark for a while and I started to tell myself the story of this Borrowed Light but in another voice as if I were a friend, a kind friend who wasn't being critical and so on. And there I found the voice so it -

Valerie:
Right.

Anna:
And she was very interested in astronomy and I suddenly saw this connection between the celestial world and gravity and some stars. You know stars have much more pull and that other planets will orbit around there. And was I a star or was I a moon? And very definitely a moon. And so on. And so it went. But in terms of reception of the book it was pretty well received. It's very - it's quite explicit and you know so I think that probably some schools have a bit of difficulty with it and others seem to have embraced it. I always felt it would be great if it was a jump off point for people to actually discuss these issues that we all find often difficult to discuss. But you know that would be how I'd love to see it received.

Valerie:
You're saying it was hard to get into the real world after writing fantasy. Have you -

Anna:
Yes.

Valerie:
Since then has it been easier to write in the real world?

Anna:
Yes I think that's - yes that's true actually. Yes. You've got to do things for the first time, don't you? You know I think books are always about your life in some way or other but yes, they're also various disguises which in themselves can be interesting.

Valerie:
Yes. Where do you reach into to get most of your ideas? Is there a particular place or process you draw inspiration from? Like is there a system almost?

Anna:
I think a system starts to happen once you've got an idea but I think really feeling is the state of the imagination you know that when you have deep feelings about something that's happened or that you've dreamed or whatever, that's the urge you have then to express it and explore it. So I do tend to write about things I feel deeply about. And even just to sustain writing a novel that would for maybe two, three years, you need to be really like falling in love I suppose, you need to be totally swept away by an idea and involved and engaged. And once you have an idea for instance with Borrowed Light when I thought about using the celestial world as a mirror for what was going on on the earth, it's amazing then how much you see around you events that are related. You know it's almost as if you have a focus that sort of suddenly turned on and triggers your observations and so on. But yes I think often just the height and awareness then of what you're feeling.

Valerie:
Right. And then once the book is completed, is that - it must be almost sort of almost a sense of well not loss but that something's gone away?

Anna:
Yes.

Valerie:
That world has gone away?

Anna:
Yes, I think it is a bit of loss actually. It's a funny uneasy time. And I remember feeling it quite particularly with Number Eight. I hadn't ever - well maybe because I enjoyed writing it so much and would go for walks with my dog and you know I got so used to those the last year of worrying about Esmeralda's math homework you know which she just found so difficult and what she could never understand reciprocal fractions or you know back to boy Jackson you know counting his peas on his plate and how long it took him. And then you know that week when it had gone and finished and nothing more I could do, it was just this sort of quietness in the bush as I walked and, "What am I going to think about now?" It was like not being inhabited anymore.

Valerie:
Wow. Now you wrote your first story when you were eight years old and I believe your mother kept it. Can you tell me about this about the story and also whether you still have it?

Anna:
Well actually, in fact I do wonder where it went in you know those great urges of spring cleaning and renewal. I think it's gone but I do remember it. It was about a mermaid and I think for about a year or so I tended to write stories about mermaids. Quite early I discovered that when you're writing about something you can actually live it you know in your imagination. And I think I just yearned for an expanded sort of life you know. I'm sure we all do. We do it in play when we're little, don't we? But I love the freedom of - you know my particularly mermaid just swimming and whether to swim through the seas and mine of course could go anywhere they wanted. And if they got lonely I invented this system where they had a hat and if a passing ship came along they'd throw the hat over a sailor's head and that meant that he could breathe under water. And so he could come under the water and spend the day and you know visit islands and all sorts of things. So I was tightly into it.

Valerie:
When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?

Anna:
Not until very late. I didn't think I would, I could ever do it for a living. I knew that I enjoyed writing and certainly I enjoyed reading. But I got a job with the School Magazine which is still going and it's been going since 1916 and it's full of stories and plays and poems, and I got a job as an Assistant Editor there and worked there 10 years actually. We had to write stories and articles and so on often for the magazine and one of my stories Billy Bear and the Wild Winter was picked up by Angus & Robertson - they wanted to make a book out of it. And in a sense that sort of gave me the idea that maybe it would be possible.

Valerie:
Right.

Anna:
And I don't know that I would have gone on to write another, I mean full publishing, but luckily I was working under an editor [Kat Hawk] who was, oh she was a wonderful woman. And she was terribly encouraging about my writing and so on and kept urging me on. So I went on from there.

Valerie:
So you seem to like books with magical aspects like Mrs. Pepperpot and the Narnia series. How did you learn to incorporate aspects of magic into your works?

Anna:
I think it's an interesting question. I think magic for me has always felt very much like the dream world. You know I love the way I suppose it's a more Freudian look at it but you might be dreaming about the sole of your shoe but really it's your soul or, you know in dreams things are so obscure and I love the way you work out what it really might have meant to you when it's probably a completely different scene but you can extract things like a puzzle. Almost like some incredible geometry or something. And I feel that magic and fairytales and so on, they're heavy weighty with symbols like dreams are. And so in a sense I think I have used symbols of my own dreams and what I've read and think about how they relate to the character's real-life experiences and try to get them to reflect that.

Valerie:
Well as a writer you do live in another world when you're writing in particular, and you were just saying before at the end of Number Eight you were thinking, "Well what do I think of now?" Do you crave you know the next world or do you crave - ?

Anna:
I do. I do. And I always look so longingly, you know I read about writers saying that while they're writing one book they've got ideas for the next and you know that it's just - but I have long periods of drought in between, between the major sort of novels I suppose. Yes. You know I'm still grieving for the last and thinking about the next but it's so wonderful when it arrives you know.

Valerie:
Describe it. What's that feeling when it arrives?

Anna:
It is like falling in love you know when you suddenly see maybe you've seen someone at a bus stop you know and there's this, as if you were, and you know sort of looking at their face your world's going to change you know. Well it's a bit like that, the dropping out of nowhere. And I'll just know.

For instance, I did a short story once called The Ghost Bird and I knew I had to write a story for teenagers but I really had no ideas at that stage at all and I was driving and going shopping I think and John Dengate came on the radio talking about Martin birds and what rigid flight paths they have you know that they'll fly. They fly from Tasmania to Japan or Siberia and they always go the same way. No matter what's in their way, they'll just go the same way. And I found that fascinating. I knew something was starting so I pulled over and started to make notes you know next to the two kilos of meat or whatever was on my shopping list and I think what it was when he was talking about this rigidity, I was thinking, "I know people like that." And there are certain aspects of myself like that that "I know this way and I know this kind of living and life and I always do this no matter what." So I just - sort of a character came from there you know somebody who had come from another country in another situation and was living here and who had a son and he just - the father just couldn't adapt to this new world and he was a little bit like the Martin birds and in the end I had to kill him off because the Martin birds - he was in - out camping and he was in the flight path of this flock of Martin birds which sounds cruel but you know his ghost anyway came back to resolve things with his son. But you know, so who would have known that going shopping that day I would listen to that radio. But for me I was so grateful to John Dengate and the ABC and the shopping list because it just made all the difference the next few months.

Valerie:
So when you write in that zone, when you're in love can you describe your working day?

Anna:
Well I wish it were more disciplined and I could in fact give myself to you know the subject but you know with domestic life and so on, usually I get my son off to school and do the breakfast and so on and hopefully then I have the day to myself or at least the next few hours. But I always thought I had to wipe down the kitchen sink; that was really important; and have things in order you know. Because otherwise I feel chaotic and I've left things in a mess before I go into this other world.

Valerie:
Do you have a ritual?

Anna:
It's a bit of a ritual with the kitchen sink I think and now so I walk my dog, too, and that, the act of walking is lovely actually. It frees you, it's almost like a passage from the real world into the imaginary world because I can - I've got a bush nearby which is lucky and so it's sort of quiet and still and you can just let your mind off its leash I think you know, not the dog but -

Valerie:
So what would your advice be for aspiring writers? What tips might you have for them to make the writing process easier?

Anna:
Well one of the first things I'd say is to be kind to yourself. You know I feel like I've spent years with this critical voice on my shoulders saying you know, "Call that a sentence? Why do you even bother writing for?" You know you need - I think writing's a bit like dreaming while you're awake and you need to do the dream you know in order to then have the material there and the excitement and the discovery to edit back and shape and so on. And if that editor on your shoulder comes in too much and too strongly, it can really inhibit that flow and the whole reason for writing. So you know I'd try to make conditions for yourself so that you can be kind and let it go you know. And also take a notebook. I often say that to children at schools but you never know when an idea is going to come and it's terribly helpful to be able to write it down right then because a bit like dreams you might remember the flavor of something but not the details.

Valerie:
You never know when John Dengate going to talk about Martin birds.

Anna:
Exactly. That's the wonderful unpredictability of the world. And so that about being ready and open and also open to you know to the world, to observing, and also to what you're feeling about the world. So I suppose a bit of it is an inside journey of really getting to know yourself and what's important to you. And within that I think then is the detail you know. If you're going to talk about a tree, what kind of tree is this? You know the more detail you have in your stories, it individualizes it and brings that feeling; often the better it is, within reason of course.

Valerie:
And finally, what's next for you?

Anna:
Well I've written a grown-up book which I'm just starting to edit at the moment. That was probably my most difficult process I think. And so I'm thinking at the moment - well I'm about to edit that and then I've been writing another short novel for children and thinking about another adult book. So I'm a bit all over the place for the moment.

Valerie:
Can you tell us a bit about the grown-up book yet?

Anna:
Yes. It's about a woman who's quite slightly obsessive actually, very passionate about escapology, about particularly Houdini and the way in which he can defy death with his escape acts. And she's probably rather keen to escape from her own life but has no idea how to do it. And so it's sort of a journey for her I suppose about learning how to escape but come back too to herself.

Valerie:
Was it hard to make that transition then to the grown-up book?

Anna:
In some ways it was. I think you feel when you've been writing children's books for a long time although young adults was also a challenge but you feel, "Oh, oh. I can explore this bit and now I can say it about this," and so on. And sometimes you can get lost inside I think and you've got to be very aware of the narrative structure and it's just as important in a book for adults as it is for children I think.

Valerie:
Wonderful. Well thank you very much for talking to us today, Anna.

Anna:
Well thank you Valerie. That was great.

If you like the idea of writing books for children and young adults check out our course Writing books for children and young adults with Judith Ridge.

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