I’ve been asked an interesting question by a student doing some research for her portfolio. My website has a Q&A - and I'll post others as they arise.
How you think growing up and living in Australia today affected your writing?
I grew up in Perth, Western Australia. I had an idyllic childhood – as a tomboy with the Swan River as my playground. I also had parents who were academics and interested in the arts and who encouraged me to explore my potential. They also gave me every opportunity.
I think the Australia I grew up in, at the time I grew up, had a wonderful sense of freedom and possibility. I went to high school in the seventies when women here, and worldwide, were demanding to be heard.
It was also a time when Australian voices were being heard strongly and clearly on stage and screen. What was lacking, though, were strong female, Australian roles for young women.
In the eighties I was teaching drama in girls’ schools in Perth, then Sydney. I couldn’t find suitable scripts for them. So I started writing scripts with strong female roles. And, of course, I drew on the lives and images of the world I’ve known. The Formal, for example, is based on women and girls I’ve known through the years.
I hope that my writing reflects some of the sense of freedom and possibility I’ve always felt – and that is, in part, a reflection of my upbringing. I hope, too, that while I am an Australian writing for Australians, my work is accessible to readers and audiences everywhere.
