Speaker 1 00:00:09 The Freeman Press podcast is recorded in wk on NoJa, and we offer our respects to Nja elders past, present, and emerging.
Speaker 1 00:00:18 Welcome to the Freeman Press podcast, special Fogarty Literary award edition. I'm Georgia Richter, publisher and judge of the Fogarty, along with publisher Kate Sutherland and Brooke Nell. This year we found ourselves a unanimous agreement about the sixth short listers In a moment, 2021 Fogy Literary award winner, Brooke Nell, who's author of the Glasshouse will interview Emily Paul about her novel, the Dreamers. Emily Paul is a western Australian librarian, author, and a book reviewer having formally worked in book selling. Emily's an avid reader and a big supporter of the West Australian writing community. She regularly moderates author interviews round Perth in 2019. Her debut collection of short fiction well-behaved women was published by Margaret River Press. Her manuscript, the Good Daughter, was highly commended in the 2021 Foggy Literary Award. When she's not writing, Emily can often be found with her nose in a book. So The Dreamers is a love story and a war story. It starts in Freeman in 1937, and so of course we know that war is looming and that pretty soon the characters of the young adults, Winston and Sarah, are gonna find their worlds turned upside down. This novel does what the best war stories do in concentrating on particular details that make any story unique. It draws us in and makes us want to find out what happens next. The Dreamers has just the right mix of romance and secrets and bad behavior and hopes and dreams, and it really pulls the reader in.
Speaker 1 00:01:53 It's a beautiful and satisfying read with heaps of twists and turns, and I found it perfect for a rainy afternoon read. So let's hear Emily Paul talking with Brooke Tennell.
Speaker 2 00:02:07 So Emily, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 00:02:09 Thanks for having me, Brooke. That's
Speaker 2 00:02:11 Great to have you here. So, um, we're gonna talk today about your manuscript, the Dreamers. So could you start off by giving our listeners just a little bit of a summary of what the manuscript's about?
Speaker 3 00:02:22 So it's a historical fiction. It starts in 1937 and it centers around two main characters. So we've got our, our male main character, whose name is Winston Keller. He's working class. He works at the Millware Biscuit Factory in Fremantle and he has a very close relationship with his family and he sneaks into a party one night, um, hoping he gets some work, but mostly just looking for a good time. And he meets a young woman named Sarah Willis, who is from an up and coming quite well-to-do family. Her father owns a cigarette factory and they're kind of new money and he instantly falls for her. She's dramatic and, um, larger than life and you know, she loves Jean Harlow, who was an actress in the the thirties. Somebody famously once said Harlow, the teases silent. So she was sort of vampy and that's a kind of actress that Sarah aspires to be.
Speaker 3 00:03:19 She doesn't really know the value of a good day's work when we first meet her. She's just kind of all about having fun. So they meet each other at this party and as 17 year olds do in love with each other without thinking about any of practicalities, only for Winston to later find out that his father knows Sarah's father from a long time ago and they don't like each other at all. There's some sort of history there that Winston's Father George is reluctant to talk about and as they'll soon find out, there's something in the past is gonna get in the way of there being together in quite significant way.
Speaker 2 00:03:58 Oh, really, really enticing opening for people who would like to experience the manuscript. So are you able to give us a little taste by reading us an extract from the Dreamers?
Speaker 3 00:04:10 Sure. And just for a bit of context, Locke's a footballer. He's a star footballer. And when Locke's on the field, it doesn't matter what class he's from because he's really, really good. And you know, Australians love sport apparently. So I'm told <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:04:27 The great equalizer.
Speaker 3 00:04:28 Exactly. They could hear the party long before they could see it. Winston hurried along the field road, struggling to keep up with lock as he stro ahead. There were more motorcars on this one street than Winston had ever seen in his life. One on every driveway and more lining the side of the road, the chrome on their hoods in the fading daylight, a dark greened towards them. And Winston jumped as it sounded, its horn. A young woman laughed as she leaned out the passenger side window to whistle at Lockey. Full forward physique was on full display whilst he continued to carry his dress shirt over his arm, Lockey waved in. Winston had sweated through the old shirt he'd borrowed from his father. In the first 10 minutes, I think we're late. The parties already started. Winston called out. Lockey had made the long walk from the train station, looked like a stroll in the park.
Speaker 3 00:05:23 He had not a hair out of place, whereas Winston looked like he'd been wandering in the jungle for a week. His hair was plastered over his eyes. He tried to relax back into a walk, but his father's old broke, struggled to get a grip on the lawn. Lock flashed the grin at Winston. By way of reply, he pushed his way through one of the side gates as bold as anything lock's. Confidence had got them both into trouble more than a few times on the football field. Lockey Bell was untouchable. It didn't matter what suburb he came from or how much money his family had or didn't have. But sometimes Lockey forgot that off the field. These things mattered a lot. It'll be fine. Called lockey over his shoulder as they crossed the back lawn party was supposed to start at six. It's only six 10 now.
Speaker 3 00:06:06 We'll just tell them when the train was late, apologize. Grab a tray and start serving. I've worked parties for the Jones' heaps of times. They're nice people. Did you tell them that you were bringing me? Not exactly. I asked if they'd need extra waiters and, and the housekeeper said probably she'd see Winston cough attempting to get rid of the lump in his throat. But Jones' house is the biggest one on the block. White and square like a wedding cake surrounded by an iron fence. There was a marquee set up in the front yard with tables in one half and a piece of laminate rolled out across the other to make a dance floor. In front of this was a stage with a real life war piece band. The boys dropped back a few steps as a young woman, short white blonded hair, hurried past them, squealing and excitement as she raced up to a group of other girls.
Speaker 3 00:06:55 Lock rolled his eyes. Rich girls, Hey said Lockie Winston. At the side of the house, a door had been propped open with a breeze block. The house was high up on a hill and Winston paused a moment to look at the view. Hello them. The river was lit up by the sun and the foam on the river was tinged brown like the head on a pined beer. Little sailboats bobbed up and down to the west. He could see the cranes at the port colossal. And still this place felt a world away from the Fremantle. Winston new imagine looking at this every day. He said to lock, lock grin, tucking his shirt into his pants. I bet they don't even see it anymore. Come on, you can draw it after we work. Da Vinci Winston kept his eyes on the horizon for a moment longer fixing the image in his mind. Then he ducked through the open door after his friend.
Speaker 2 00:07:46 So that's the opening of the novel. And that's in the late, um, 1930s. As the novel progresses, it moves on into the forties and into the second World War. And so what I wanted to ask you was how did you go about researching that particular era in Western Australia, in Perth, in Fremantle, and what was your process when it came to weaving the information that you discovered into the manuscript?
Speaker 3 00:08:13 I mean, I have a history degree. One of my many degrees <laugh>. Um, I did a modern social history as part of my creative arts degree, Murdoch. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So some of it came from there. A lot of it came from Trove. So the suggestion earlier this year or late last year, that trove might have been defunded absolutely horrified me. Mm-hmm. Because research on Trove can be such a gift. You know, I went on there to look at the newspaper article from the time to see what kind of newspaper would've had in Fremantle about the ramping up of the second World War. And I think I looked for indications that Britain was revitalizing its navy a bit more. And that was on one page of this old newspaper. And then the other page of the spread had something about the death of Gene Harlow, um, who died in, I think it was in mid 1937 from uremic poisoning.
Speaker 3 00:09:03 And so that gave me a scene because Gene Harlow was an actress that Sarah was always talking about. And then how would she react to this news? So a lot of old newspapers, a lot of reading mm-hmm. <affirmative>, both fiction and non-fiction. I collect books when I'm writing, even if I never end up actually reading them cover to cover. I collect a lot of research books. So I have like a plastic tub for every book that's filled with things that I've collected. So, um, there's a portion of the book that takes place on the Thai railway. So I read, um, like the War Diaries of Jack Fork, a biography of Weary Dunlop was one of the things that I looked through. Um, there's a book by Lin Cams called Secret Fleets, which is about, um, American submariners being based in Freemantle during the Second World War.
Speaker 3 00:09:52 I had a little, um, scrapbook actually that I, I just recently found because I started this book sort of 15 years ago. Wow. It's been kicking around that long. And every time I've gone, no, that's it. It's never gonna get published and shoved in a drawer ended up coming back out again. And I found this scrapbook when I was at my mom's place the other day that I'd sort of shoved on a shelf in a room at their place. And it was my sort of research and, and rewriting notes scrapbooks. I have a lot of printouts from Wikipedia, Uhhuh <affirmative>. I know that Wikipedia's not like a verified source, but it's a really great place to start if you just need like an overview. Cause there's this real danger when you're writing historical fiction that you'll just research forever and ever and ever and never write your book.
Speaker 3 00:10:35 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I don't really have that problem. I tend to be light on the research, heavy on the writing side of things, which means that you then have to go back and change scenes because when you go to research, if the facts line up, they don't. So there was a scene in the book where Fair is being taught how to drive by an American submariner that she meets. And I showed the book to my grandparents and my grandfather said, well you can't have that cuz it would be stealing petrol from the army. You can't just take a car and go and teach this girl how to drive. Wow. So I had to take the whole thing out. It's sort of a little bit of research to get you started, get the flavor of the, the time period and the basic facts like when the war was on, put the story together and then I was going back and researching to add more and more detail every time I fleshed it out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it's been a very long process. So there's been a lot of research in there now that I'm thinking about it <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:11:29 Yeah, it sounds like a really good approach because I think some people's issue when they write a book that has a lot of research in it, like you said, is that either you never start the writing, but also there's probably the, the risk that it can feel like a report as opposed to a piece of creative writing. Yeah. But so your approach would, the creative writing part comes first and then the research is there to support it. I guess
Speaker 3 00:11:52 It was interesting because, um, Richard Flanagan's book, the Arrow Road to the Deep North, came out while I was writing this book mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And because I'd been doing all of that research, there was a scene in the book that involved somebody stealing a duck egg and them finding out who had done it because the duck egg shell was placed in an area on the person's body. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that analogy came from one of the research books that I'd read. And I went, oh my goodness, I've read the same research book as Richard Fl. So that was, that was kinda cool.
Speaker 2 00:12:27 Yeah. I'm sure you've, you've read a lot of books over that 15 years of time as well,
Speaker 3 00:12:32 <laugh>. Yeah. I couldn't even begin to count them <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:12:35 And so it, since this book was, um, this manuscript was 15 years in the making, what does it mean for you to have it shortlisted for this year's Fogarty Literary Award?
Speaker 3 00:12:45 I mean, first of all, it's fantastic that the award exists. You know, that there is an award that specifically recognizes West Australian writers and supports younger writers. Not to say that, you know, um, more experienced older writers don't have anything important to say, but you look at things like the Vogel Award and, and the great literature that that's given us over time. And, and then to have something here in wa it's just really special. And then to be part of the shortlist for something that special, just something extra. But, um, as much as, you know, I, I don't wanna say I need the external validation, it is incredibly gratifying and humbling to have the judging panel for the Fogarty Award recognize something in my work. You have these moments when you're writing cuz it can be very solitary. I'm sure you know, Brooke, that you know, it's just you and your characters and your fictional people and you think it's fantastic most of the time.
Speaker 3 00:13:46 But you do have these moments where that critical little voice creeps in and says, don't you think you should have done something more practical with your life? Don't you think you should have got a real job? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, why are you wasting so much time to have somebody recognize the merit in all the unpaid work that you've done? You know, all the late nights, all the early mornings, all of the weekends that you didn't go out with your friends or didn't work part-time somewhere. And it's just the encouragement that I think I really needed at this point. I'm at a juncture in my life where I'm working full-time for the first time ever. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm really missing having that extra time to write. So knowing that at the end of this full-time secondment that I'm on, that writing is a, a realistic possibility for me to go back to and potentially make my career just really gratifying and humbling. And it means so much <laugh>, it's a nice break from staring at other people's Instagram stories and going, oh, everyone's successful but me
Speaker 2 00:14:48 <laugh> now they're staring at your Instagram story and going, oh, Emily.
Speaker 3 00:14:51 Exactly. Now other people can be envious of me for once
Speaker 2 00:14:55 And that's why we do it. No,
Speaker 3 00:14:57 Exactly. Just for the jealousy <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:14:59 Yeah, no, you need that. No, you do need that little pat on the back that Yes, keep going. You're doing the right thing. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:15:06 <affirmative>. Yeah. And having, you know, deadlines to work towards and having a goal to work towards, even outside of whether or not you make the short list or the long list or whatever ends up coming out of it, you know, having a really fantastic pride to go, Hey, this is something maybe I'd have a chance at. And, uh, deadline to set yourself up and, and see if you can do it. See if you can write a, a manuscript and polish it and get it ready to submit. Like that in itself is invaluable too. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2 00:15:37 Yeah. Um, I agree with everything you said there. That was my experience as well. So, um, it was really, really great to talk to you today about the manuscript. So thank you so much and all the best for the awards night.
Speaker 3 00:15:49 Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 00:15:51 So I'm actually going to be hosting the 2023 Fogarty Literary Award, which is a free event, which takes place at the E C U Spiegel Tent on Thursday, the 25th of May, 2023. Tickets are available from Freemantle Press
[email protected] au. I'm Brooke Nell, and thank you so much for spending time with us today.
