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Frequently Asked Questions
(Based on an interview conducted by journalist Shaunagh O'Connor.)
When were you born?
1959.
Where do you live now?
St Kilda, Victoria.
Isn’t that a bit of a rough neighbourhood?
Not really, I like it here. I haven't been robbed yet. Mind you, it's only ten o'clock.
Are you married?
No.
Any kids?
Just the ones that break in.
I thought you said you haven’t been robbed.
Sorry, I was trying to be funny.
How many books have you written?
26. Half of them are good.
What about the other ones?
Most are out of print.
Out of all the books you’ve written, which is your favourite?
It’s a tie between The Clockwork Forest and Tumble Turn.
What is your next book?
It’s a very strange story, about a boy in hospital who believes he is being stalked by giant insects. It’s not a comedy. How could it be? Have you ever been stalked by giant insects? Oh my god, what’s that behind you?
What made you decide to become a writer?
We didn’t have a telly in our house for years. Mum and Dad would read aloud to us kids at bedtime. (Later, we did get a telly and I fell in love with it, especially Japanese cartoons.) But I remember Dad reading Winnie The Pooh out loud. I was impressed that he could do the voices of the many different characters. Then I learned to read all by myself. The very first book I finished is Gumphlumph, by Stratford Johns. It’s about a friendly two-headed alien. Hardly anyone knows it, but I was crazy about it.
As I grew older, I invented stories and wrote them down. Most of them were about friendly two-headed aliens. Then I started writing more original stuff. I would type up these stories and send them to newspapers and magazines, to see if anyone would publish them.
Did they?
Not at first, but I was stubborn and kept sending them out. Eventually I got a monthly column in The Age newspaper when I was thirteen. I later put some of these columns together to make a book, which was released just after my seventeenth birthday. I got the advances when I was sixteen. I guess that means I was published at sixteen.
What was the book called?
Hippopotabus. It’s okay but not that great.
But you keep going on about how John Cleese sent you a fan letter about it.
The book features a poem called A Damaged Alphabet Rhyme. It actually is a pretty neat idea, and I’ve used it again in other books. Mr Cleese wrote that he and his daughter enjoyed that poem. It was a wonderfully generous and encouraging thing for him to do. It wasn’t solicited at all.
What do you mean by that?
I didn’t send him the book and ask him to write something about it. He just did.
Who illustrated it?
I did. Not terribly well.
What was your second book?
Really, really bad. It was published when I was eighteen.
What’s it called?
That you will never know. If I ever find a copy in a secondhand bookstore, I always buy it then dispose of it ecologically.
Which authors do you like reading?
Too many to mention. I try to read a lot. When I was a teenager I was crazy about Kurt Vonnegut’s books (especially The Sirens of Titan).
What was your best holiday?
Europe in 1984.
Why does your hair look like an orange pot-scourer in that last picture?
For five minutes in 1984 it was very fashionable to have hair that looked like an orange pot-scourer.
Did you always want to be an author?
Yes. But I also wanted to be an illustrator and a magician. I used to save up my pocket money to buy magic tricks from Aladdin’s Magic Store in the Embank Arcade in Melbourne. I was very good at turning one billiard ball into two billiard balls, but you really can’t base a whole stage act around that. I wasn’t good enough at magic or illustrating so I concentrated on writing instead. Though I did draw the pictures for my first title published by Penguin, Tales of Tuttle, published in 1980.
Who is your favourite illustrator?
We have so many good illustrators in this country. Roland Harvey, Jane Tanner, Graeme Base, Shaun Tan, Leigh Hobbs, Craig Smith, Terry Denton, Drahos Zak, Nina Rycroft, Alison Lester, Marc McBryde, Elizabeth Honey, Pamela Allen, Donna Rawlins, Michael Atchison, Frané Lessac, Polina Outkina,the list goes on. Long ago, Terry Denton did the pictures for a counting book I wrote. It took Terry a lot longer to do the pictures than it did for me to do the words. Have a look at the title page below, and you’ll notice that Terry doesn’t seem happy that we were each paid the same amount of money when he did so much more work. I can’t say I blame him.
What’s your proudest moment?
Being the Traralgon Junior C Grade table tennis champion. I totally rocked at table tennis.
I was also quite proud when I got to interview my hero Spike Milligan for Puffinalia magazine, for which I was a contributing editor.
Some of your books are fantasy (like Kevin the Troll and The Clockwork Forest) and some are funny but realistic (like Tumble Turn, I’m Being Stalked by a Moonshadow and Siggy and Amber.) Which do you prefer?
The funny but realistic novels are definitely harder to write, and I usually do about six drafts before I’m happy with them. I’m helped by my editor, Dmetri Kakmi, at Penguin. He’s a writer himself and has a good idea of what works and what doesn’t. We work together through all the drafts. The Clockwork Forest needed only three drafts, but that book was based on a play that I had already written, so I had the story all worked out.
Is working out the story the hard bit?
It is for me.
Do you think you write better in the morning or the afternoon?
Definitely in the morning.
Where do your get your ideas from?
Daydreaming, reading books, remembering old experiences, trying to have new ones, exercise, eating bananas.
You seem to write a lot of comedy. Tell me about the appeal of that. What draws you to the quirky side of life?
My parents would disagree with this, but they are very funny people. Dad introduced me to a classic radio comedy program, The Goon Show (starring comic heroes Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe), and Mum likes comic verse. Eccentric people never believe that they are eccentric. Here is my father, apparently not being eccentric with my little sister.
Dad once blew off his eyebrows when he was trying to show me how uncontained gunpowder doesn’t explode, only it did. His eyebrows grew big and bushy after that. One points up and the other one down. My parents also spent many years collecting antique sewing machines, but not treadle ones. They like doing unusual things, although they don’t see them as unusual. Mum was in a play recently and there was a camel in it. Mind you, it was a nativity play. It wasn’t My Fair Lady or anything like that.
You’ve written plays too, haven’t you? And some have been published as books.
The first play I wrote was called My Son The Lawyer is Drowning and it was published by Currency Press in Australia and The Dramatic Publishing Company in America. (I like the idea of a dramatic publishing company, with editors falling in love with each other or suddenly appearing from under the desk and shooting people.) The premiere was at The Victorian Arts Centre in 1987. There was a live snake in the original production and he earned more than I did.
Did the critics rave?
They took a vow of silence.
Were you happy with the produced play of The Clockwork Forest?
Very happy.
What tertiary qualifications do you have?
I studied dramatic writing for three years at The Victorian College of Arts, which I enjoyed, except for the tights. I had to wear tights. I was in the School of Drama and I didn’t especially want to be an actor, but even in my third year of the writing course at VCA, I still had to attend some of the drama classes and wear tights. You can’t see them in this picture, but I’m definitely wearing tights.
I also studied law at Melbourne University very briefly. I was lousy at it, so I dropped out. I’m not particularly proud of that.
What is the most money you have ever made from a book?
It’s hard to say, because many books keep earning you little bits of money here and there. Being an author usually isn’t a well-paid job. I did get quite a lot of money for a little rhyme that I wrote. It’s the lyric for the Jetstar jingle. I pretend to be embarrassed about it. But if I were, I wouldn’t be telling you, would I?
Does it pay more to write television scripts?
It pays a lot more.
Are you rich?
No.
Are you poor?
No.
Can I borrow five dollars?
No.
What are your hobbies?
In the back of Kevin the Troll I write that my hobbies are riding my bike, taking long walks and listening to music. I have average looks and I’m of Norse descent. This means I am a biking, hiking, music-liking, not-so-striking former Viking. That’s pretty much true.
What were your hobbies when you were a kid?
Magic, table tennis, drawing, marbles and playing the violin. Our violin teacher organised for us to give a morning concert over the public address system at school. My little sister said we were so bad that her teacher switched it off.
Do you prefer book writing or TV writing?
Book writing often is more satisfying. Provided you have a good editor, designer and publisher, the result is usually what you hope for. This doesn’t happen so often in TV, where you are relying on large teams of people to bring your script to the screen.
I know this site is meant to be about books but - you were the script editor on the TV series Kath and Kim. What did you do exactly?
As a script editor, my job is to correct any mistakes in a script, suggest improvements to story and dialogue, and make sure the show will run to time when recorded. But Gina Riley and Jane Turner always turn in a very strong first draft. It takes this many people to make Kath and Kim. Only two of them write it, and they’re sitting in the front row.
Do you have any regrets?
I once wrote a picture book text called The Monster. I met a young, fairly unknown artist and we got on well. He drew some pictures for the text and I liked them. But the art director at Penguin, George Dale, didn’t feel the artist was right, so he turned him down. I should have fought that decision. The artist was, and indeed still is, Graeme Base.
Here is a rough illustration of the story’s two lead characters. Graeme did the picture in a few minutes.
Here is the final art depicting the same two characters, by the illustrator that the designer preferred over Graeme. I'm not sure that it suits the story.
I was rapt when the book was reissued with brilliant new illustrations by Craig Smith.
Do you prefer to write longhand or do you always use a computer?
If I’m writing nonsense verse, I always start with a pen and paper, so I can see all the stuff I’ve crossed out. Sometimes I can use it. When you delete on a computer, it’s more or less gone for good. My handwriting is truly terrible. Here’s a page from one of my notebooks, which ended up as a poem that was published in On The Cards, a book I did for the charity Comic Relief. I’m the only person in the world who can actually read my scrawl.
If I’m writing a short story or novel, I use a computer. Before computers, we authors had to use typewriters. Here’s a picture of me at work in the eighties, included in a book called From Pen to Print. It’s a complete set-up. Firstly, that isn’t my office. It’s too neat. Secondly, that isn’t my typewriter. It’s too expensive. Thirdly, that can’t possibly be my thin aqua leather tie. It’s too stupid.
Thank you. That’s all.
You haven’t asked me if I have any pets yet.
Do you have any pets?
Um, sorry, no.
