SPEAKER_02 0:00

The Kill City podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands we're on. Here in Melbourne, that's the Warongjury Wurorong people of the Kulin Nation. We honour their deep connection to storytelling, a tradition carried across more than 2,000 generations. Pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and we extend that acknowledgement to First Nations people listening today.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

What was that timeline?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Well, the first instance of the idea was probably 2019, but I started writing the manuscript in 2020 and it was published in 2024. It's actually fairly quick in compared to a lot what a lot of people go through because it's not all the time, like you have big periods of waiting or not hearing or not working on it. So I wrote the first draft in 2020, worked on a second draft probably through about 2021 and started pitching it and getting rejected, but getting good rejections where it was like, this is good, but it's not quite right yet, or it's not quite right for us. I was shortlisted for the banjo in 2022. I think it was 2022, and then signed with my agent around the same time. I think I signed with her around September 2022. Then it was ages when we had to wait to see if HarperCollins wanted to pick it up because they do look at the shortlisted authors to consider for publication. And they did pick up one of the other authors in the shortlist whose debut came out around the same time as me, but um ultimately decided to say no. So then we went out on submission in 2023, sort of early-ish, might have been March or something. Um put a really short submission timeline on it, which I was really nervous about at the time, but my agent was like, let's just do it. And um, yeah, four weeks later, Ultimo came back and said we we want it, um, and um yeah, signed a contract and it was for publication the following year. So it's about a year. It's about it for me, it was about a year from signing the contract to the book coming out, which was all it's all planned. Like they have quite a long pipeline, it's often 12 months minimum, maybe even 18 months. Um yes, so I guess four years all up from writing it to publication.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

And did you um did you go exclusively agent first, or were you submitting to publishers yourself?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Oh, I didn't know what I was doing. I was hedging my bets and throwing spaghetti doll in, like in hindsight, probably a bit stupid. Um, I was trying to get an agent. I was originally trying to get an agent in the UK because of Curtis Brown. I got a little bit of interest and then didn't end up signing with anyone. Then I started pitching just to publishers in Australia because I thought, well, you can do that here. Like in the US or the UK, you don't have a chance of getting published without an agent unless you like win a competition or something. Um, but I did literary speed dating with the Australian Society of Authors, so I pitched it to four different publishers, got four for four, as in, they all asked to see the manuscript based on the pitch. Two rejected it, and two, I think I didn't hear from. Or maybe I think at least one I didn't hear from. And I found out later, I thought that that was just a rejection, but actually the Australian Society of Authors only gives them six weeks to get back to the authors, and so it was quite likely that they just had too much in their submission pile at the time. But then I'd also entered the banjo, so then I got shortlisted for that, and I'd already been talking with this agent, prospective agent at the time, who was reading the manuscript, and she signed me sort of um around the same time I was shortlisted. So uh yeah, which was great. Um, that was also a big moment. I just felt so happy to have signed with her. So yeah, so she she sold my book. Uh ultimately, she was the one who you know sold it.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

How nerve-wracking is the process of speed dating or speed publisher?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

It wasn't too bad. Um back then, again, I was sort of telling myself, setting myself these little goals. At the time, I was like, I don't I'm really bad at pitching, I don't know how to write a strap line or a like a pitch, or so I don't know if this is going to land. So I need to just try it and see. And it's on Zoom, so you're there just with one publisher, there's um someone in the background who's just managing the tech. You've only got three minutes, you're not even sitting across from them at a table, so it's not a huge big deal. They were very nice. We've been given a bit of guidance on how to do pitching with the Curtis Brown course, and honestly, I just sort of wrote it out beforehand following a bit of a script. Um, and they I could see they were keen on the idea. So the pitching out of everything I've gone through, probably one of the less nerve-wracking. Some of the other stuff, like waiting when you're out on submissions, hideous, and waiting to hear from agents is hideous, and you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Absolutely. Um, now that you've been through the full cycle of things um uh that have sort of helped you have help you helped you grow as a writer, uh are there any habits or things you've learned that have made a real difference along the way?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Oh gosh, I still repeat the same mistakes, I must be a slow learner. I think well, actually that's not true in terms of the writing itself. Um I think I recognise earlier when I'm going down a rabbit hole and that I need to pull back. Not so much that oh, what I'm writing here is not very good, but if if it's like, oh, I'm not sure where this is going, before I you with when you start out, you can tell yourself, I'll just write through it. I'll just keep writing, I'll write through it, I'll get to the other side, and it will have worked itself out. It doesn't. You just go down more rabbit holes. So I'm um getting better at stopping myself and saying you need to actually walk away from this or think about it more, or um just put a placeholder saying leave this chapter, go forward two chapters, write something else, rather than going, I'll just write through it. Because you can dig these massive holes that you then can't dig yourself out of and waste a lot of time. So I think I've gotten better at that. Um it's interesting. I was at the Willie Lip Festival yesterday on a panel, we were talking about this topic about when you first start out and the mistakes you make in the beginning, and I think that all writers we do tend to overwrite when you're starting out, um, and that's just because you're not as experienced yet, and it takes time to find what your voice is. So I'm a lot better at um pairing back now. Um better at pairing back, better I think at writing dialogue as well, which initially I was just trying to be you can try and be a bit too clever in dialogue, which is fine. Like I like writing dialogue, and I do put funny little clever things in my dialogue if it suits the character, but don't do it just to just to show how smart you are for the reader because people don't like it and it doesn't ring true. So there's little bits and pieces where I think I've I've gotten better. But I don't have good habits if that's what you're getting at. Well, well, it's a procrastinator.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

I think um that that's given me a lovely segue to the the next question I'm keen to ask because I do want to jump in um back into um your second book, The Informant now. And just thinking about what you said about giving your characters funny little lines. I think Frank has some of the best lines in The Informant, yeah, the editor-in-chief. So he's he's one of my favourite characters. But um, for everyone listening, just to give you a bit of a sense about um the second book, um, we basically get to very excitingly jump straight back into the world that you've built in the community. But this time the book opens with the murder of Silas Sacconi, would we pronounce it like that? Yeah, um, and he's the president of the outcast biker gang, and that um immediately raises fears of a turf war and lots of connections. Um Lars heads up to Hopeville to sort of cover the case, and he's pulled straight into um the gang or rivalry while Silas's um girlfriend Ashley, who you've already mentioned, who's such an interesting character, um, is kind of caught in the middle of it. Um now this is a really sharp intense thriller. It is told over a sort of a quite a shorter period in terms of the intensity and the heart racing, and me sort of downloading it on my Kindle straight after I'd finished the community. Kind of, I thought I was going to get a bit of a breather, but no, because then I just got caught up trying to go what was what was happening. And because for me I was so um, I kind of formed a connection with Lars and Neil and Annika and Jack and and now Frank, um, I kind of got straight back into it. But for you, was it always the plan to go back to these characters? Um did you always want to know you wanted to do another story?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

No, and people asked me when the community came out if I was going to write a follow-up and I was saying to everyone, no, I'm not. Well, I wasn't initially, I did have in my mind that I might later down the track do like a prequel, which um probably didn't make sense, but um, because the community did reasonably well, um got a good response. Um, and as I said, I I suddenly I just had all these threads that were left hanging. The book was left open, it could have, you know, was open to a follow-up. And the informant can be read as a standalone. You don't have to have read the community, and you can read them in reverse order if you want as well. But um it would there was unfinished business for me with Lars and also with this character of Detective Fuller, which I wanted to explore the history there a lot more. Um, I needed a new character to to bring some intrigue and interest, so there was Ashley. And I think that I was I was probably thinking about you know the the question around the use and misuse of police informants. There's an informer that's mentioned in the community that where Lars's source from his days working at the Herald was a lawyer, and so I I think I probably toyed with the idea of going back and exploring that, and then I decided no, leave it, leave it. He's disappeared and we don't know where. But uh the theme about work like um how police are working with informants could be picked up with a new story. Um, but I guess that I was interested in understanding more about Detective Fuller and why he is the way he is and who he is, because I wasn't sure in the first book. People said to me, is he is he bent? Like, is he is he this, is he that? Like, I don't know. I mean, I kind of wrote him to be a little bit ambiguous. Um, and a lot of the characters are ambiguous necessarily, because people are, I don't think people are um yeah, as as black and white as we sometimes like to paint them, particularly in sort of crime novels like bad cops and good cops, and the informant is like who's good and who's bad, like the so-called people who are on the right side of the law maybe aren't as upstanding as you think they are, and some of the ones who think that they're doing good deeds turn out to be doing some pretty awful things. So, you know, um I was playing with that idea, but it's I'm not writing another one.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

You've just drawn the line, so there's no there's not gonna be any new revelation for new layers that's there's not gonna be any more Sunshine Coast police procedural novels coming from me, no.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

No, I can't do that. It's um you know, I understand why people do write long series, but uh it's not of interest to me once I've said what I need to.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Um when you're writing characters with lived experiences far from your own, what's like what's the way in for you? Um how do you make sure they're they feel grounded?

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I think it's really important that I'm trying to write from inside their perspective um and not from my perspective of what I'm of trying to say something too much. Like, thing is the characters, some of those people in the first book and the second book in the town of Hopeville, like I I grew up in a very working-class suburb um of around Ipswich um as a kid, and I knew people like these people. Um and so I I didn't I felt like I want I could write them without falling too much into stereotyping, I hope. Um and I, you know, I've moved through different circles all my life, like you know, I'm I guess I'm fairly privileged, well educated, went to university, have worked in professional settings. So again, you know, I've been exposed to different types of people, and you draw on that, and you're not trying to write one person who's a caricature of someone you've met. You tend to like, well, at least I do, kind of Frankensteining people together based on little snippets of things I've seen or heard or in the past. Um yeah, it's a good question because one of the interesting things, I guess, with both my books, I'm writing two uh two in the first and three in the second male point of view characters, and obviously, I'm not a man, so I'm having to think differently about how they would think or approach or say something. Um, and like the friendship between Jo and Lars in the first book was an interesting one dynamic to explore as well. It's thinking about how they interact with one another and how much they say and how much they don't. So it can be trying to get that balance with what's sort of not on the page, but the reader might infer through their actions. Um, yeah, it's almost intuitive, really. It's not a I can't easily say, well, I sit down and I I don't know, I just try to go into their heads um as much as I think.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Are they are they the your characters revealing themselves as you write?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, which is why I have problems sometimes with plotting too much in advance, because um I have to write a good many chapters initially to try to get the the vibe of the thing for one of a better way of putting it, uh to understand the characters as people, and then I'll stop and I'll plot out the book because it's really hard to write a crime novel if you've got no idea where it's going. But if I do it as a once-off, which I did do that a bit with the informant, but it's because the characters were consistent, some of them. If I was to just sit down and map out a whole book and then start writing it, um, I know that it will change drastically because what happens is once you start writing the characters, you put them in a situation, and then they don't behave the way you decided at the outset they were going to because they're not the person that you thought at the outset that they were. And if you try to manipulate it and say, Oh no, but they've got to do this, and then in chapter 17 the car's got to explode, so I have to put them here, and you try to manipulate it, it doesn't ring true, it doesn't work. I can see when writers are doing that, when they're really plot-heavy, too plot heavy, and characters start, you know, going off the rails, and um, and you sort of lose the thread, you sort of get pulled out of the story, um, and you're no longer in the character's head because they've tried too hard, I think, to make something work that maybe just doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So obviously they're starting to make um lots of decisions on their own without you once you get sort of deep into them like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Well, to a degree. I mean, obviously I'm not, you know, um I'm not hearing voices. Um although I sort of do hear their voice. Like it's I don't hear them talking to me, but it's um I can hear my characters' voices better than I can see what they look like in a way, because I'm writing in their point of view. Um so what they look like is fairly um not that important compared to what they think and feel and say. Oh, there is a famous author, and I'd forgotten who it is, um, who talked about that flow state in writing where you get to the point where you're just following your characters around and writing down what they do. And I did reach that state in the informant at one point in a bit of a frenzy when I went on retreat where I was just sort of madly going, Yes, this is what's gonna happen now. And I sort of had that momentum, I knew where it was going. It was great, and rarely happens for me.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Um that retreat that you took yourself on, what um how many words did you produce during that period?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

That was crazy. I think I wrote like 30,000 words in about two weeks, which I never write that much. I'm not a particularly quick writer, but I had to I was under contract, I had the time, I was on a bit of a roll, I was by myself, there was nothing else to distract me. So yeah, I wrote a lot. It was kind of like you know, 3,000 words a day for 10 days.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

That's incredible. So um I love hearing about flow. I think we uh hear hear that phrase quite a bit in the corporate world as well, like in terms of how you get in that space. So no matter what you're trying to produce, I think it's um yeah, I really um very lucky to have had it for so long and to have that such um amazing output. So um I'm curious thinking about output and how you um build the supports in place for yourself. You've spoken about sort of the value of having a mentor. Who else do you have kind of in your inner support circle that kind of is there for you, particularly maybe when things aren't going as well with writing or that so the course that I did through Curtis Brown, there was a group that I think there were 12 or 16 of us initially, and about eight of us have stayed in close contact, and we um we have a group on Slack that are sort of a bit of a cheer squad, and we've stayed in contact ever since, and it's just encouraging one another through the um all the ups and downs, and um that's been really good.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

And one friend from that group I share my work with, and she said shares her work with me. Other than that, I've recently joined a writers' group in the inner west, it's fairly recent though, only joined three months ago. It's been really good because we're sharing work in progress, and um like once a year I'll do a masterclass or something where I'll connect with other writers to really go in deep with workshopping. I think I've gotten to know a few more writers now in the last couple of years. Um that's good. It's good to have other writers to talk to, but you also have to build a bit of an inner resilience around this stuff because an ever There'll be times when it doesn't go well, when it's just feeling like it's not going that well, and that's when you actually have to switch it off and go back to your life outside of the writing. And you know, I have a busy life, so writing's not all that I do, it's important to me, but at the end of the day, you know, it's it is it's it's not everything.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

That's probably a very sensible way to approach it, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Well, I think it's the only way to approach it.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yes. Good point, exactly. Um, I'm just thinking about um, when you think about um the feedback that you do get, you know, you've got this amazing network now and you're sort of continuing to build with writers. Um, readers are another kettle of fish. How have you found the response from readers? Have you been sort of surprised by the feedback? Been anything particularly interesting that people ask you or want to know or want to share with you about your books?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Well, at times, yeah. Um, it's quite a lonely isolating thing, really. You don't get a huge amount of feedback from readers because I tend to stay away from good reads. Um it was with my first book, it was amazing having my the thing I was worried about the most was my friends who were readers, if they would hate it. Because if someone I don't know doesn't like it, well that's much of a muchness to me. But I was like, God, what if my friends who you know whose whose opinions I value hate it. Um, and luckily they didn't, and that was really great to get feedback from people I know saying, I just you know, I forgot that it was you, like, which is good. I don't want someone reading my work saying I can see you all over that, because that's that's the complete opposite of what I'm trying to achieve. Um, and I did have some good feedback from readers. Certainly, people contact me on Instagram now and again and saying, Oh my god, like I live on the Sunshine Coast, this is so realistic, or it was so nice to see a book set up here, or the ladies really like Lars for some reason. I don't know. That's the that's been fairly consistent. There's something about him. Um he's a bit damaged, maybe that's what it is. I don't know. Uh so yeah, uh that that's the nicest thing when you just get feedback from someone who's anyone who's read it, really.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

That would be very, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah. Alrighty, you have given us so much to think about, and um, we didn't want to let you go with a couple of sort of more lighter questions to finish up on, if that's okay. The first one I think we have to follow on from the Lars comment from readers. Um, who is going to play everyone in the film when they make it of the community?

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Who is going to play Lars and Davis and I I saw Richard Roxborough as Lars, but then some people said to me they think he's a bit too old, and I'm like, oh but he's kind of you know, it could make him could freshen him up a bit, couldn't we? Maybe he's he might be as well. So do you think a great choice?

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Great choice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

You're biased, Lee. You saw him in a play recently. I did, I did.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Um, yeah. I think Matt Nabel's gonna play um Gary Shepard.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yes, um writing crime novels. I know we've talked about that before, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yeah, he's an amazing writer, amazing writer and actor. Um that's I think Justine Clark would play Jules.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Oh, I can see that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Davis Davis. I don't know about Davis. David Wenham could play Davis, maybe. Yes, yeah. Like Don Honey could play Lars, except he's probably just because I like him. So I want, you know, and he played Joe Cashin in the film adaptation of The Broken Shore.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Yeah, and Lucky Lars would always ask this one. So if you're stranded on a desert island and you can only take one Australian crime fiction novel with you, what's the book that you'd want for company?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Uh I think The Broken Shore by Peter Temple.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

If I'm only allowed one. That's a great pick. That means you'll you'll be Lee's BFF now. So why did you pick that?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Um I I really love the writing in that book. Um, the story, I mean it's a great crime novel, but it's a great novel, full stop, as is Truth, the companion book that won the Miles Franklin. Um I have great admiration for his sort of spare writing style. Like um, I think he's a master of being able to say um everything with um few words, and uh yeah, I sort of aspire for that sort of level of mastery, I think.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah, that's very well said, actually. He's um yeah, he is one of my all-time favourites. I love Peter Temple.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

No, that's um that's music to Lee's ears for sure. And um and for people listening, um, we do talk about that book in a a preview of episode, so we'll make sure we reference that in the show notes. Now, you mentioned earlier in the interview you gave us a bit of a clue that you are working on your third book, so I was just wondering if I could tease any more details about it from you and if there's any sort of indication about how long we might have to wait for it to.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

You would have to wait for it. Um, and there's not that much I can say at the moment, other than it's not set in Queensland, it's set down here in Victoria on the surf coast, or on uh in a coastal area, and it's a more psychological thriller, I think, um, than detective sort of procedural crime novel, and um has a couple of female protagonists, and that's probably all I can really say at the moment, but that's yeah, where I'm headed, I hope, if I can get it.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Well, thank you for thank you for sharing what you can.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

That's piqued our interest, so we'll make a note and we'll definitely keep an eye on what you're up to in your socials, and we might tap you on the shoulder again down the track when when when you are ready to talk about it. So good luck, I hope all.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

All right, so before we let you escape, we've got one last thing, and it's purely for fun. It's our rapid fire round, the quick and the curious. So I'll throw you a bunch of either or choices, and you just go with whatever pops into your head first. Um, this time we've mixed it up and gone full crime and mystery themed, although I am gonna throw in a Richmond one, but anyway. And honestly, don't stress, we make this up as we go, so there's absolutely no wrong answers. Okay, you ready to go?

SPEAKER_01 29:22

I certainly am.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Okay. Locked room mystery or small town secret.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Uh lock locked room mystery. I think small town big secrets has been done to death myself.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Cold case or fresh crime scene?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Uh I'm gonna go with um uh fresh crime scene.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Amateur sleuth or seasoned cop?

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Uh seasoned cop.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Twist ending or slow burn?

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Hmm. I like a slow burn.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Nice. Uh who did it or how they did it?

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Uh how they did it. Actually, no, why they did it. That's that's not part of the rules. I know I just made it up.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

No, that's okay. I'm gonna add that though. Make it a three-parter, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Miss Marple or Fryany Fisher?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Oh, I've got a soft spot for Fry and E Fisher.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Excellent. Helen will be happy. Creepy neighbour or charming stranger.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Oh, creepy neighbour.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Red herrings or straight clues?

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Red herrings.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Rural noir or coastal coastal crime?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Coastal crime.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Truth digger or chaos magnet?

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Oh, chaos magnets more fun.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Unreliable narrator or rock solid witness?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Unreliable narrator.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Crime boss or lone wolf villain?

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Well, given my last book, I'm gonna say crime boss.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Uh final showdown or quiet reveal?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Uh um I don't mind a final showdown.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Okay. Miss Scarlet in the library with a dagger or Reverend Green in the billiard room with the lead pipe.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Uh, Miss Scarlet with a dagger every time.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

And the final one, Dusty or Rich O?

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Dusty or Rich O? Oh, it's got to be Dusty.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Lee, you spoiled my section. It was supposed to be strictly a scrime.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

I know. Sorry about that. But I know Christine's a Tiges fan, so and that's the big question for Tiges fans. Dusty or Rich O, the two favourite sons.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

So um, thank you so much, Christine. That was fantastic. I think we actually learned more about you in those 30 seconds than maybe part of the interview, and I think you might have even maybe even given us some more clues about your next book, so we'll have to go back and listen to it really closely to see if we can work them out.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, no, thank you very much. Um, those and as answers under pressure always reveal a few secrets.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I hope there is a next book for you to talk about in the not too distant future.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Fingers and toes crossed, but it sounds like you're doing heaps of work on it. Um but thank you so much again. Um look, we've just loved having you um share you really thoughtful insights around how you work and um the process and what the sorry, I hate saying the journey word, but you know, the writer's sort of experience for you. So yeah, we really appreciated it.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, no, thank you very much, Christine. We've loved chatting to you. So um, and for everyone listening, we've popped all of Christine's books that we've mentioned today in the show notes, so you can check them out there at your leisure if you haven't already read them, which you should have.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Thank you both. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Alrighty, that's ups for this episode. Thanks for listening to the Kill City Podcast. We're putting the bookmark back in the book till next time, um, but we promise we'll pick up exactly where we left off.