Speaker 0:00

The Kill City podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands we're on. Here in Melbourne, that's the Wurundjeri Woi Worong 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. Hi Troy, so glad to see you.

Speaker 3 0:57

Hello, nice to see you. Well, I've already met you once, but nice to meet you at least online as well. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:06

Now, as people might not know, um I did meet Troy at the Surf Coast Writers Festival a couple of months ago, and I actually am really embarrassed when I think about it now because I turned into this groupie where I pretty much ran up to you, squealing with the excitement, and I asked you for selfie, I think, before I even introduced myself properly and you know said, Hi, I'm Helen from Kill City. But you were amazing that day because I kind of kept an eye on you. And look, you were on a panel about why young adult fiction matters. I saw you popping up as a sort of a cheerleader in other writers' sessions, cheering them on. You facilitated a session with historical crime romance novelist Chrissy Belbray, I think, whose latest book is called The Florentine Quilt. And I did always remember that because it's got some of the most beautiful cover art I think I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 1:54

Yeah, really, really beautiful. Beautiful covers, both of them. Yeah.

Speaker 1:58

I know, and um, yeah, I didn't get to go to that one at all, but um, yeah, no, it was so nice to meet you. But um, it's lovely that you're able to come and hang out with Leigh and I for a bit of a longer chat today.

Speaker 2 2:07

Oh, thank you for asking. No, absolutely, it's um it's great to meet you, Troy. Um, and fantastic, obviously, to have you on the show. If it is all right with you, I will kick things off by giving people a quick rundown of your backstory. Um, so you're a Melbourne-based writer with a young adult crime series that's really taken off. Your debut, Gus and the Missing Boy, came out in 2024 and was shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly and the Bad Sydney debut awards. Uh, then Gus and the Burning Stones landed in 2025, and the third book featuring Gus, Gus and the Climate Killer, is due out in March 2027. Um, you've spent about 25 years in the marketing and comms space across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors, and you're currently consulting in the university sector. Uh, you run writing workshops, and you also host the Queer Write Sessions podcast, which sits under the Fantastic Words and Nerds podcast umbrella. And on top of that, you've got a real passion for Agatha Christie and for getting reluctant readers, especially boys, into books, um, both of which we'll dig into a bit more later on. So, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Alright, so if we go back in time to talk about Troy the Young Boy, for a minute, were you a reader or a writer from an early age? And what's the earliest piece of writing you remember being proud of?

Speaker 3 3:22

I wasn't a reader from an early age. I remember I sort of I was raised by my grandparents and they didn't really have any books. So it wasn't one of those houses that was full of books that other people talk about that I'm quite envious of. But somewhere along the line, I think uh a librarian pushed a mystery book into my hand, and it was called the Mystery of the Old Violin, which just sounds riveting, I know. But um, I it was the first book I ever remember finishing. And so, and I think because there was this kind of the violin went missing, you know, plot twist. But anyway, um trying to solve it, trying to figure it out, that was the first book I remember finishing, and so I think that kind of got me into reading. I genuinely don't remember liking reading before that book, and so that would have been I don't know, grade three or four or something like that. And I think it was around then that I also started to write silly little stories and things. And in high school there was there used to be this magazine that went round the different high schools called Pursuit, I think. And they used to have this short story competition every year, and I used to enter it and um oh sound like a wanker saying this. I won it two years in a row, so I thought I was just going to be this sort of amazing writer, and so I do remember being proud of those short stories, but I also have a feeling that not too many people entered that competition. But I do remember the first one was the vampire with braces or something, so he wasn't able to suck anyone's blood because his braces kept getting stuck. So um, yeah, so that was kind of so I suppose I started the writing thing more in high school, really.

Speaker 2 5:22

Wow. Um I'm just having visions of a vampire in braces. That is just one of the more um visual concepts I think I've come across.

Speaker 3 5:35

I um I do have a story about how you can come up with ideas, and it tends to be about two different things, two things that don't belong together coming together. So I can talk about that later if you want. Yeah. But that's an early thing.

Speaker 2 5:54

Um so when was the moment you realised that writing was going to be more than just a hobby?

Speaker 3 6:00

Oh look, I think um so there was those competitions, and then um I didn't really do much for years. I kind of, you know, I went and kind of got myself a a job and then a career, and I think writing always was a hobby. There was a moment when I got, you know, a short story published somewhere and did win some small competition for something, but it always to me it always felt like it was going to be a hobby, and I just didn't think I mean I'm not sure that anyone does, but there aren't too many people that can make a living wage out of writing, um, like writing fiction, I guess. And so I never expected anything would ever sort of come of it. So it was always a hobby. I think it was only about maybe 10, maybe 10-15 years ago, I started to dabble again. So I'd done stuff in my 20s. I think my 30s and 40s were kind of about trying to build a career, and we've already talked off-camera about our big corporate comms careers and media and marketing, and the the you know, the joy and pain of those sorts of roles. But they they if nothing else, working, particularly working for big companies like it sounds like we all did, there's not a lot of time, it can really take up your time. And so I think I only got really serious about writing again maybe 10 years ago, because I I had been working at Telstra and the hours were punishing, and yeah, and so I took a job at Melbourne Uni and it was four days a week. And that fifth day I was prepared to like you know, sacrifice the money um so I could have a day to write, and so that's when I started to take it seriously because it was like an investment, I suppose. And so yeah, so before then, until ten years ago, I suppose it was much more of a hobby.

Speaker 2 8:01

Um so who was the first person to take your writing seriously at the same time that you were um sort of ramping up your writing?

Speaker 3 8:08

I don't know that there was anyone in particular. I did go to a writer's course at the Wheeler Centre run by author Andrea Goldsmith. And so that was one of those things where you met four or five times throughout the year, and you were sort of meant to it was I think it was called literally called a year of the novel. And so from that group, I don't know, say there were ten in the class, five of us, um, or maybe even more, formed a writing group. So I think that all sort of started to come together as well. So there was a writing group, and then you're suddenly looking at one another's writing, and you're getting encouragement and different things like that. So I know um the writing group helped, and I did end up there was one writing group and then there was a a second one without much overlap, and I think those two writing groups were really, really invaluable and I mean a good sort of testing ground, but also just I think sheer support. And almost like AA for writers, like you could sit there and have a real deep conversation about writing in a way that you probably couldn't with your normal friends and family.

Speaker 2 9:25

Like you could really nerd into it. And so, what was your journey to publication like from that point?

Speaker 3 9:32

Yeah, so um the Gus book. If I had the idea like 20 years ago, I was working on this small um marketing campaign for a client, and I remember I ended up on this missing kid's website. So it was an American one, um, might have been FBI or FBI adjacent, but anyway, just one of those random um rabbit hole things that you do. And so you're looking at this page, and so like I said, this is you know 25 20, 25 years ago. So, you know, AI didn't exist, but Photoshop did. And what what you'd have is you'd have like a picture of, you know, Jimmy, little Jimmy, who was, you know, sadly kidnapped at three or five or whatever, and then there'd be all these different Photoshop photos of Jimmy at seven and nine and eleven and thirteen. And I just remember looking at it, and I just thought it was the most heartbreaking thing because there were hundreds of pages of these things, and clearly parents were paying money to update these images every couple of years, and it was just really, really distressing. But then I also thought, what if I flicked on one of these pages and found a photo of myself? And so that stuck in my head for a long, long time, and I just thought I must do something with this. So I think I tried to write a play, and I think there was a film script, and I don't know, I kept going, possibly in Puppet Show, I don't know. But um it it it stuck it stuck in my head, and then like I say, when I started to take writing more serious, like maybe 10 or so years ago, that's what I worked on, but the book was um it was an adult book, and it was set into time zones and it was really complex, and it wasn't working for me. But I went to a pitching session at the Wheeler Centre um in Melbourne, and I um I stood in the wrong queue, so I was meant to I thought it it was really, really packed room in my defense, but um, yeah, so I stood in the YAQ by mistake, and so I didn't realise till really late in the day, so I changed my pitch so that it was YA, the um YA editor there um liked it and wanted to see the full manuscript. So then suddenly I had this adult book that I had to turn into YA, and in my mind, a lot of the conventions around YA tend to be, you know, it's contemporary, um, present tense, first person. So I rewrote the whole thing as as YA and changed the sort of protagonist from like 35 to 15, and then contacted this editor, but she had left the publishing house and she'd actually left publishing. And so I had this YA book, and the story had come to life in a way it never had when it was an adult book. It's a really long story, sorry. And so I had this YA book. So my journey to publication was I had this book, I didn't know what to do with it. I had everything that I started looking around and kind of realized that basically there were sort of like three ways to get published. You either got yourself an agent, you went direct to the publisher and crossed your fingers, or um, you won something. And so I started entering competitions, and um, like I said, back then, eight, nine years ago, there was Hachette and the Queensland Writers Centre used to run this manuscript development program. So they'd shoot you, I don't remember what you sent in, but say you sent in 30 pages and the synopsis and all of the usual things, and um yeah, you I know they chose maybe eight people, and you went away on this weekend, and they kind of gave you this sort of boot camp on publishing. So you'd meet with the publisher, meet with an editor, and so you had dedicated time, like half an hour, meet with a editor, meet with um an agent, meet with um, and they'd explain how sales and distributions and the acquisition meetings and all of that stuff worked. And so that was a that was really, really good, and I took it very seriously, and um I got my agent through that, and so that was the beginning for me because I met my agent, the lovely Jane Novak, through that. Once I had Jane, then I was reworking that manuscript, getting it ready to send out, and so just as that process was happening, COVID hit. So it wasn't one of those COVID novels that everyone seems to have written, but it it was written before, but trying to get a publisher during COVID. And so, yeah, um, so it was going around for I don't know, probably the duration of COVID, which was probably only two, three years, but it seemed like a decade. Yeah, and so and so eventually um through Jane it was picked up by Wakefield Press. So that's a really long, protracted journey, but it I find it sort of interesting how many weird little steps and sidesteps you have just to just to get there.

Speaker 2 14:58

I I always find them really fascinating stories, the publishing journey ones. Um because yeah, I mean yours was is quite unique to and it will be quite unique to the next person. So yeah, and I I I love hearing the the stories of um of how people get published, so thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 15:15

No, we um we love a rabbit hole to go down. I do want to talk more about Gus and the Missing Boy, because I think it was such a cracking debut. I'm a huge YA fan. Theoretically, I should have grown up. I don't know. How old are you allowed to keep reading YA books for? Can you read the book? Until death in the 90s? Excellent, until death. Until death, do we part? Young adult. So I think um the great thing about the world you built in this book is not just well, book series is not just Gus, who I do love, because he is self-described as I think fat, gay, awkward, too, true crime-obsessed kid. You know, you you've mentioned already that um, you know, uh he discovers this um missing person case, which um could be him, and and off we go in terms of a whole new mystery, but it's not just Gus, he's got some awesome besties. There's Kane and Shell, who are just um such great characters that kind of leap off the page as well. Um so when when so when you knew it was going to be a young adult novel and you knew that it was sort of all about Gus, um, he is so real on the page. And I think I mentioned to you I do have a teenage boy at home, so I'm very fluent in sort of the grunts and the mood swings and the kind of existential crisis, especially when VCE exams are are underway. But I think for me, Gus has this real extra layer, so I think he's described as sort of that teenage Agatha Christie quality. But did he when especially because you pivoted the book and he had to become so how did you flesh him out and build him up? And and the $50 million question is is there a bit of you in Gus?

Speaker 3 17:01

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess when you you've got like these three characters, and they're all just bits of me, really. So you know tell me which character you like the most, and I'll say, yeah, that's the one most like me.

Speaker 17:17

But um no, it's Shell, come on. I like Shell.

Speaker 3 17:22

But yeah, they're I they're all parts of me, and I suppose I guess I mean yeah. I mean the fat kid thing um has always I don't know, it's kind of always been a thing, and I I think when I was writing it, I remember thinking how when I was a fat teenager that I don't know, there didn't seem to be fat kids in books leading the story. It always felt like they were the funny sidekick or the brunt of a joke or something. And I think if you watch, you know, like Tally 2, there was an element of that as well. And so that's why I did sort of want the kind of fat queer kids to be at the front of it. But I I you know, I um I was really lucky. Like growing up in Bendigo, I had lots of different friends, and um so I've always liked the dynamic of an unlikely sort of scooby gang of friends, and I don't know, there's something about uh the you know the having three friends makes a lot of sense, so it's not just two people either agreeing with one another or arguing with one another, but there's a sort of different kind of dynamic, and because um yeah, and just making them really different um quite appealed to me. And I've always liked that sort of straight guy's gay guy friendship thing. So yeah, I just kind of wanted to look at all of those things and the kind of the the tensions that kind of come up, but I wanted it to be I wanted them to be good friends, and you know, there's tensions and weirdness, but they're real friends, and I I think at that age, I know I did, and I think, you know, even though it's been a million years since I was actually a teenager, I feel like being a teenager at in any era is probably the same. It's it's kind of sort of about identity and friendships, and you know, everything's big, the feelings are big.

Speaker 19:24

Oh, absolutely. They're big and they're deep. Yes, oh, and it's and it's it's like today is forever, such a long time, what you're going through now. Yeah, no, and look, I I love how you've summed that up. And for me, I think the story worked really well on sort of those two levels. So you've got the mystery, which is a cracker, and we try really hard not to do any spoilers. So we try and gloss over the top of it a bit because that kind of is part of the fun of um getting into it. But um you touched on it, I think your the way you touch on those um deeper topics like um and themes around sort of sexuality and identity and anxiety, and you know, bringing things like self-harm that kind of emerge, but you do it in a way that's really natural and for us to be able to relate to as readers and kind of understand the complexity that sort of goes with there and makes it kind of open and honest, but you said storytelling is kind of real. So, how did you approach those parts in a way to kind of make that feel really relatable and genuine for you and sort of the readers?

Speaker 3 20:32

Um, well, there was a bit of sort of back and forth, but I didn't want to sensationalise anything, but I also didn't want to be talking about things like kids experiencing anxiety or self-harm without suggesting that parents knew about it or they were, you know, they were seeking remedies or um, you know, or um seeing a counselor and things like that. Equally, you know, you might have things like teenage drinking and smoking, but it's not it's not, you know, it's it's not overt, it's not gratuitous. So just trying to not normalize them, but just not sensationalise them because and and trying not to demonize them either. I mean, I think that you know, um teenagers these days have got a kind of a lot to a lot to deal with, and I think the good thing about being in this era is there's a lot of language around it. So people can talk about their identity and talk about being non-binary or or pan or what whatever that may be. And people, you know, kids can sort of talk about like there's proper discussions about mental health and things like that. Things that never happened to me, like growing up, I don't remember. I don't know. I think you were just happy or sad. It felt very binary.

Speaker 22:04

Oh, yes, completely. I know.

Speaker 3 22:06

You were brainy or into sports. Everything was binary.

Speaker 22:10

I know.

Speaker 1 22:11

I know.

Speaker 3 22:11

And so yeah, yeah. So I I wanted to look at all of those things that I feel like um kids were sort of going through, but not in a not in a checkbox kind of way, just trying to hopefully make it organic. But also when you think of the context of the story, if you've got a kid who thinks he's kidnapped, you wouldn't think that if there weren't other things maybe suggesting something was wrong. And if you start to feel like something's wrong, then you'd think about how does that sort of manifest for them. And also thinking about stuff like cutting, like self-harm. It's not something, it's not something I've done, but I remember I remember talking to someone about it, and I I felt like while they were both trying to, you know, create a different pain to feel because they were in a lot of pain. There was also this element of they're trying to dig something out of themselves. So it's one of those sort of conversations or explanations someone gave me that stuck with me. So I suppose all of these different things together.

Speaker 23:18

Yeah, and I think um you can definitely tell the thoughtfulness and the way it it's it's very particular in terms of when you mention it and why you do. So I think that point you make about not being virtuous is really important, and I think that comes through really clearly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 23:34

Yeah, it's really I mean you've you've handled it really well. Like it's um, yeah, it's very sort of yeah, gentle and considered, and um certainly don't forget, I had an editor, so um this lovely editor Maddie's sexton at at Wakefield Press.

Speaker 3 23:51

And so if if something's gentle and subtle, it's probably because it's probably her more than me.

Speaker 2 24:00

Well, it's funny I I've I've it's funny you ask that you say that because I've got in the habit lately of asking this question, and it's tricky to always put a percentage on, but I'm always curious about what kind of percentage value you think an editor and that whole process adds to the quality of your book from you know draft one to the publisher to release book on the shelf. It's um yeah, I'm always curious about that one as well.

Speaker 3 24:23

Yeah, about a thousand percent.

Speaker 2 24:26

I cannot describe to you the value it adds. Yeah, okay. That is the theme that we are we are hearing back. So that uh that does make sense. Very clearly.

Speaker 3 24:37

One thing I would add about that, sorry to cut you off. I was just gonna say, before the book went to Wakefield, I got um a manuscript assessment done by um wonderful Melbourne writer Nicole Hayes, and and that was I didn't know Nicole then, but I think that was through the Wheeler Centre as well. And so that's an another thing I did. So, you know, it um it had already had um one set of very talented um eyes on it before it I think it ended up in the hands of anyone really. And so yeah, so between that, my agent, but between that, between Nicole having a look at it and my agent and then doing all of that work and then having an editor as well. So yeah, so I've been lucky to have all of that sort of influence um coming through. So if the book's good, it's partly because of all of those people.

Speaker 2 25:39

So before we jump into your second book, and look, and again, I mean I just want to say that I really loved um Gus and the Missing Boy, and as Helen said, they're such wonderfully drawn characters, um, and I love how different they are from each other, and that's some of my fond teenage friendship memories are from kids that I was very close to, and we are just and I look back now, we were just miles apart and in in everything. So it was um it was lovely to see that on paper, and yeah, I really enjoyed the whole um the relationship they all had with each other, and yeah, when you put them together, um despite them being so different, how strong and honest their connection with one another was, and really taken by the story too. So um thanks um um and obviously as Helen said, we don't like spoiling anything, but obviously the the the crescendo and the build-up in the first book obviously was always going to have some sort of long long-term ramifications. Um so your second novel, Gus and the Burning Stones, for anyone who hasn't picked it up yet, it's another mystery with a a completely different sort of vibe. Gus and the gang head out to regional Victoria to track down someone important to him. Um, essentially it's a missing person's case, uh, and suddenly they're dealing with the sacred stone circles, old stories, local secrets, and a mystery that's bigger and stranger than anything they've faced before. And the way you talk the way you wrote about the stones, it really it kind of gave me the e BGBs the whole time. Like it every time someone they pop up and saying that was um Oh no, they they fascinate me and they freak me out. Yeah, so it did exactly the same thing for me. Um so this is obviously still a gus story, but the world has opened up in an interesting way. Um when you'd finished the first book, did you know straight away that there was another gus story to tell, or did it sort of sneak up on you a bit?

Speaker 3 27:33

By the end of writing the first one, I could think of I could think of two more, two more sort of stories that I wanted to tell. I guess the thing with publishing is like um this was a one book deal, and so I couldn't really um turn around and suddenly write a second one without a contract, because I guess, you know, Wakefield had commissioned the first one, a different publisher. So if Wakefield didn't want a second book, a different publisher's not going to publish the second book when they haven't published the first book, if you know what I mean. Yes. So yes, I had ideas, but I did want to wait and um f I think they wanted to wait and see how well the book did, and then yeah, and so once it was um once it was doing okay, and I I really do think things like those kind of crime award shortlistings were very, very helpful in in um yeah, securing the ability to have a a a second book. So um, yeah, so the the second book and the third, which I'm just right, I'm writing now, we can talk about if you want. Though there's there was a very clear kind of trilogy to me once I'd finished the first book. And so the and that the second book I did want to set somewhere else, and the third book is somewhere else as well. So it's so it's not all, you know, it's not country, it's not city, it's sort of like you know, different combinations of that.

Speaker 2 29:06

Uh I love in the sort of in the second book, I love that Kane's I love Kane's ship round 1970s Kingswood. It is such a um teenage freedom moment. Uh and you have again just brought back some wonderfully fond memories or first car memories for me because my first car was actually a 1970 HT Kingswood. Um my second car was well um this one was uh it was in um uh one of Holden's lesser-known colours, which is Smurf Blue, which is it looked genuinely like a Smurf. Um and that's what its net its um nickname was. Um and then there were just Kingswoods everywhere in our family. My dad had a ship brown one, my grandfather had a red one, and I had the Smurf blue one. Anyway, so they're um they're obviously they're on the road, they're out of their parents' orbits doing something that feels completely adult. Um, but you can still feel that um that sort of quiet safety net behind them. Um was that something you wanted to explore, that sort of mix of independence and still being held?

Speaker 3 30:09

Yeah, to a degree. I think it's really interesting when you read a lot of YA books, how little the parents don't feature. Or they're just kind of in the background, and they are this they are these sort of, yeah, these kind of second often these secondary characters. And so I liked in both books and in the new one to a degree as well, I like that their kids have this sort of this level of independence, but hopefully it's kind of clear that the parents are paying attention to what's going on in varying in varying degrees. But it is it is interesting. I think it might be a YA trope that the parents don't feature a lot unless the kids need to be told off, or in every book, there's you know, one of the parents is like, leave it to the police. Why are you doing this? Leave it to the police.

Speaker 31:05

That's true, it's very true. I I blame Edith Blyton. I mean, if you think about Secret Seven of Famous Five, where were the parents then? Where were the parents? Yes. I know it's gone back for decades.

Speaker 3 31:18

Yeah, no, like it's true. Although maybe maybe also part of it is I suppose I grew up in that era where you really were, you just kind of left the house and no one thought about you until you didn't show up at when it got dark and dinner was on the table. So I think, yeah, well, you guys would know as as contemporary parents, like that's very different from how kids are raised these days.

Speaker 2 31:43

100%. Yeah, I'm very much of that sort of leave the house in the morning and just find your way back when you're hungry or when it starts getting dark, or whereas now it'd be like despite the the relative safety of our street, I'd be sort of you know watching from the front window. So it's a completely completely different.

Speaker 3 32:02

So I mean I grew up in Benigo, so I grew up in the country too. So there's that element as well, I suppose. Yeah, that would that would contribute as well, wouldn't it?

Speaker 2 32:13

Have you gotten in many sort of memorable research holes? I mean, we love sort of the research rabbit hole, but um the kind where you sort of look up and realize you spent three hours reading about something you'll only get one sentence from.

Speaker 3 32:25

Yeah, well, I think the um the stone circle's a good example of that. I um I've always been sort of really curious and mildly obsessed with them, and there was a um there was this creepy 70s TV show called Children of the Stones about a a village that was in the inside of this really large stone circle, and I remember watching it too young, alone in the house. Again, I don't know where where every where anyone was, alone in the house in the dark, and scared shitless, absolutely scared shitless, and I've never forgotten it. And um, so yeah, I don't know. There was something about when I was writing the story about this off the grid community, for whatever reason I called them the circle, thinking, oh yeah, the houses are in a circle, because that's nice. And then I I don't know, I opened the cupboard or was digging through something, and I found the DVD of Children of the Stones, and I just I watched it again and still scared as an adult. I just thought I needed this, I wanted this other element to the book, and I wasn't sure what it was because it was the early days, and I thought there'll be a stone circle, and so I started researching all these stone circles, and the most interesting thing I found out is that there are indigenous stone circles. So I was really, really thinking about you know, minor versions of Stonehenge in the UK, that kind of Celtic tradition. But yeah, so I once I discovered their indigenous stone circles, I went deep into the research around that. In the end, out of respect for different cultures and traditions, I didn't go into it that much. I referenced the fact that, you know, people had discovered this out of the blue. Um, it was unclear, you know, I and so they were gonna, you know, they were gonna work with a me working at the uni, they were going to work with an academic to try to find um, yeah, some locals that may sort of have a connection to the stones. So I didn't so I did a lot of research, but I didn't really you you wouldn't see much of that on the page. I just really liked the idea of it. Because they creep me out.

Speaker 2 34:34

Uh Me To 100%. They um they genuinely creep me out.

Speaker 3 34:39

So that uh Have you heard of Children of the Stones then?

Speaker 34:43

No, but I'm Googling it now.

Speaker 3 34:45

Yeah, I'll um I'll s I'll find you and give you the DVD. It's amazing, it's beautiful 70s British sci-fi. Everything's brown.

Speaker 34:56

I'm thinking Doctor Who-esque me. Yeah, no. Did it feel very Doctor Who-ish?

Speaker 3 35:01

Yeah, it's very Doctor Who-ish. And one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes was called The Stones of Blood, where the stones were actually aliens that would suck the blood out of anyone who touched them. So there's that as well.

Speaker 35:13

Okay, there's some good themes there about the danger of inanimate objects.

Speaker 2 35:18

Generationally, we're talking obviously just then about the um just the the difference between our generation and children of now's generation, but that whole watching stuff that was just clearly not appropriate at a young age. I still my parents were quite loose with what they let me watch. Um they'd let me sort of self-regulate, and and sometimes that didn't end that well for little me. So um I'm still traumatised. Yeah, is there something that traumatised you in particular?

Speaker 35:47

Yeah, what what traumatized you, Leigh?

Speaker 2 35:49

So there was this, I was like a lot of little um boys, love the whole war movie thing, uh and and got through all of them pretty much unscathed except for one called Southern Comfort, um, which looked pretty harmless on the cover, just uh, you know, sort of a soldier walking through. And I think, and I've been too scared to go back and watch it, but uh also I shouldn't say that, but I've just never got around to going back and re-watching it. But I had read about it and it was and it wasn't even actually set in the war. I think it was like a National Guard training thing. It's got a bit of a little bit of the maybe a bit of they all get sort of I don't know, they all get hunted down by somebody like a bit deliverance or something. Yeah, a little maybe a little bit of deliverance had that kind of vibe, I think. So Ning Ning Ning Ning, yeah, just minus the banjo, but it just I remember watching half of it and just being traumatised, and and that was that was that. Um actually the only thing I was never allowed to watch was Prisoner.

Speaker 3 36:47

Which everything was I knew people who weren't allowed to watch that, but I was for some reason.

Speaker 36:52

Can I try and trump you? Somehow. Yeah, go, go. Are you ready? Somehow I managed to watch I Claudius. Remember that the debauched Roman Emperor like really crazy things going on in that era. And I had to do that.

Speaker 3 37:10

And do you remember his yeah, when um not Claudius, but what's the insane? Kellygula. When Kellygula, yeah, his wife was gonna have a baby, and then he had a dream that the baby would be more more powerful, more famous than him. So yeah, he just strung her up on the bed and cut her open and got rid of the kid.

Speaker 37:32

And I'm just nightmares, nightmares for weeks.

Speaker 3 37:35

I watched that at like stupid o'clock alone.

Speaker 37:38

Maybe I'm I'm quite glad I'm a hot a um helicopter parent and my actually, no, my kids still had nightmares about things, but yeah, maybe not quite that graphic.

Speaker 3 37:46

They're probably worried about climate change.

Speaker 37:48

I know, I know.

Speaker 2 37:52

I shouldn't be laughing saying about that, but yes. So and I've I've just remembered one other thing, and we can actually time code this with the recent passing of Dolly Parton. But I was also able to watch the best little whorehouse in Texas. Way, way too young. Like so that um, yeah, but not that one that one war movie got me though, or not even another war movie. Um I could talk about this. I I see what you did there. I've even look at sense of place because um Gus and the Burning Stones, the second book, it really feels rooted in the environment. Um was that a and I you did touch on this before, um, an intentional shift to get out of the sort of metro landscape um in a distinctly Australian setting?

Speaker 3 38:47

Yeah, look, it it was, but it was also about the idea. So I might you know, I sort of talked about the sort of inspiration for the first one in the sense that there's like this website, but there's also this contradicting idea of what if I found myself on it. So with this one, um, I had this image of a boat on fire on a lake, and I just thought that was really strange. And I remember just I I think it may have been a dream, but I remember sort of waking up, sort of going, would the boat burn? Or like when you're in water anyway, so I had this image and a body, a dead body on a pier as well, and then the stone circle, so all of these sort of things were coming together, but yeah, my um stepfather lives up near Lake Ealdon, and so there's certain sort of quite remote parts of that, and so I was thinking, I was thinking about the lake, and then I was thinking about how um you know parts parts of that area can be quite um remote, and I think there are small, I'm not necessarily saying they're off-the-grid communities, but there are small isolated communities living up there, and so I did get just a sort of a sense of that, and I thought that would be an interesting place to set it, but not in that kind of um you know what it it's like. I think a lot of crime books that uh said in those communities, you know, the people are nut jobs or they're cults and things like that. I I I didn't want it to be that, I just wanted it to be people who you know didn't necessarily want to be in cities or part of the mainstream, but not super alternative. So yeah, so that's why I chose that for the second one. And the first one, it was always it was always going to be Gus and Boy was always going to be just said in Melbourne, but then you know, as you do research, you sort of realize, well, you wouldn't kidnap someone and then say in the same town in the same city. And so I thought, well, you'd have you'd probably have to take them into state because that would be that um originally when I I wrote the book, it was actually sort of said in the eighties and police um police record, you know, there were barely, I don't know if I think only ATMs came in in the 80s, and so everything was very disconnected um digitally, electronically. And so basically it was a lot easier to kidnap someone and get them over the border and start a new life. And also starting a new life in a in a country town made sense to me. So that's why oh sorry, it was the other way around. They were taken from a country town and then sort of in the city. So that's how that the location of the first one came around. Second one I just explained, and the one that I'm working on now, they're climate killer ones. So that's all in Melbourne, that's all in the city. So yeah, just trying to have them in different places.

Speaker 2 41:51

Well, that's the end of part one of our conversation with Troy Hunter. Be sure to join us next week for part two.