In this pithy and candid interview, the author of The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers talks about the pressures that go along with a dramatically successful debut, the gestation time involved in writing literary fiction, the despair within the publishing industry, her main character, Captain Frederick Benteen, about using real history as the subject of fiction, her writing style, the way in which The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers is also an Australian story, the importance of being ribald, and lots more.
Author:
A review of The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers by Delia Falconer
This is a lovely, spare but beautifully written book full of contrast. It is a very feminine, reflective, and quiet book about a man whose life was masculine, noisy, and full of action. It takes a single point of history…
A review of Write It Right by Dawn Josephson and Lauren Hidden
Despite the didacticism inherent in the subject matter, this book doesn’t prescribe how you should edit your work. Instead, it leads you down the path of self-discovery, so you can uncover your own weaknesses, and work, as an increasingly experienced…
A review of About a Girl by Tony Nesca
Through the narrator’s reflections we accumulate an unusually exact understanding of his aims and character. His life is not pretty and he may waver and wobble but he is grounded in honesty. He waves illusion away and sees life with…
A review of The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr
Carr is a fine writer and his pastiche of Conan Doyle’s prose perfectly captures the voice of Holmes and Watson. One might say (entering into the spirit of things a little) that the particular singularities of Carr’s mimesis are most…
A review of My Arthritic Heart by Liz Hall Downs
But this is just the beginning of what most of us don’t want to hear. A good part of this collection is about the poet’s struggle with debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that when coupled with poverty and inhumanity is a hard…
A review of New Beginnings
The clear bent is literary fiction, and that makes this a moving collection full of provocative and evocative work from some of the most well known and respected writers working today. This is a wonderful marketing idea, and one which…
A review of Emma Strunk by Tony Nesca
This is an approach that has peculiar qualities. It never becomes poetry of the quotable and pretty sort but it avoids the pitfalls of a prose that needs connective tissue that is simply functional. It is not conventional narrative but…
A review of The Barbarian Parade by Kirby Gann
This is a stance with true commitment. It is evident in Our Napoleon in Rags and it flowers beautifully in The Barbarian Parade. There is indeed about the latter some virtuosity for its own sake, not at all a bad…
A review of The Rose Notes by Andrea Mayes
Although the story is fast moving and satisfying, with all of the ends cleanly tied up, it isn’t the plot which will stay with the reader once the book is finished. Instead, it is the marvellous passages within the characterisation…