Author interviews

1. Congratulations on the publication of Cannon! This was your second outing in long-form storytelling and a fair while in the making — was there anything new that you wanted to try this time around? What did this process look like for you? Was it very different to Stone Fruit?Thank you! Yes, I took my sweet time with this one. I came out of making Stone Fruit raring to go and convinced the next project would go faster… two years into the pandemic and I really had to eat my words. My partner, my editor and my agent helped me trim a good 70 superfluous pages out of the final version, which is not an easy choice when it has already been pencilled out! With a larger set of characters in this story, my eyes were too big for the book’s stomach: I really had to keep revising whose story I was telling and what the north star was.Despite the plot-line still being rather serious at times, I did manage to a have a lot of fun with this one after spending so much time on heavy heartbreak themes in the last book. I wanted to be a bit more silly and soapy with my plot lines (a trashed restaurant, for example) and paint with a bit more simplicity. Try out some cheap millennial gags. Throw a bit more sex and gossip in there.2. Uniquely, Cannon is framed by Cannon's meditative practice (or her attempts at it). What did creating this sort of structure come to fruition for you?More than anything, the meditation sequences ended up being a useful sound-scape strategy, to allow me to stitch together parallel sequences between different characters going about their lives. On an emotional level though, Cannon’s relationship to ‘that new-age shit’, as Trish calls it, ends up being much like my own: a very useful tool, but an ineffective way to circumvent confrontation with real, pressing life problems.3. Sort of tying in with the meditation framing, one of the most stark features in the book is your selective use of red. (The double spread? Exquisite.) What was your process like to select these panels and work in the colour like this? One of the benefits of being so married to black and white is that a little colour goes a long way as a narrative device. I really enjoyed myself with those red panels, and connecting them to sounds, moments of rage, moments of fear, and all those silly horror scenes. There’s something ridiculous about anger: at the peak of the wave, it can so easily switch into something comedic. I enjoyed the chance to create some visual links between those campy, vintage horror scenes and Cannon’s own rage: marrying the silly and the serious together with something as pure as the feeling of anger, overwhelm or panic.4. Something that struck me in Cannon is that it's so joyfully, unquestioningly multicultural, and where there are non-English words or phrases, they're not translated. It really helped ground the book's setting for me, and coming from a multilingual household myself, this made me feel more at home. However, I find that publishing as an industry (especially in novels) is still very hesitant to allow this sort of language exchange. What are your feelings on this? Was this casual lack of translation something you had to fight for?Thanks! I’m so glad this part spoke to you. I didn’t actually have a hard time advocating for the multilingual moments in the book: one of the many benefits of working with indie publishers, I think. My editor was enthusiastic about leaving the non-English phrases un-translated, so long as there were enough context clues in the surrounding dialogue. I feel similarly about inserting non-English moments into the story as I do about writing hyper-specific details of queerness: they’re there for the people who get it to enjoy— a little wink and a nod. It’s such a thrill to experience a text and catch those details: I remember experiencing this with Alice Wu’s wonderful 2004 film Saving Face, and recently with Torrey Peter’s Detransition, Baby.5. Like Stone Fruit, Cannon explores complex friend and familial ties, and how these can spill over to impact the other areas of your life. As a reader who's mostly drawn to character-driven stories, I love this. Do you think you'll continue in this vein? Are there any other relationships you're interested in delving deeper into?I am also a reader who’s drawn to character-driven stories, so I imagine I will indeed continue in this vein! I love writing dialogue and I’m chronically nosy about what’s going on for my peers and loved ones, so I can’t imagine my work’s going to depart from a focus on relational dynamics anytime soon. There’s TOO many relationships I’m interesting in writing more about, but to keep it to a succinct list: senior-parent, adult-child relationships have really been on my mind ; power-exchange and friendship between dominants and submissives ; the simultaneous antagonism and deep love between siblings ; the joys and exasperations to be found in leftist organizing spaces. To name a few!6. Part of the relational backbone between Cannon and Trish is that they've grown up together after finding each other as sort of the only other queer, Asian kids in school. I think this dynamic of clumping with the 'only other' that you find is familiar to a lot of us, but like these characters, it can be hard to know if/when the relationship has shifted from being a necessary liferaft to being an active choice. Do you think that Cannon and Trish have reached that point by the end of the book?I actually wrote the first draft of this story with the intention to break Cannon and Trish’s relevancy to each other, and depict a relationship in which those identity-ties became no longer crucial. And then as I ventured into the story, I realized I couldn’t bear to do that and took the story into a more hopefully, but ultimately more ambivalent direction. Ultimately I think we’re constantly having to assess and renew our importance and agreements to one another in our long-term friendships. I’m not sure if Cannon and Trish are anywhere certain by the end of the book, but my hope is that they’ve learned a lot during their very uncomfortable period of questioning.7. Cannon and Trish spend a lot of time watching horror classics together. What would you recommend they watch next? What about your readers? Why?Hereditary if they, and readers, would like to have the living daylights scared out of them. Though perhaps more on theme of classic-genre, I watched Sinners recently and found that it used all the jump-scares and cheesiness and vampire-tropes to create something searing and stirring and moving.8. Lastly: what was the book that first made you feel represented?When I was in high school, I read Skim by Mariko & Jillian Tamaki which is about a mixed-race, Asian girl who is gothy, grumpy, gay, and very at-odds with the teenagers around her who seem to be so good at participating in ‘normal’ life. Hit the mark, to an embarrassing degree, in many places. _________ About the author Lee Lai is an Australian cartoonist living in Tio’tia:ke (colonially known as Montreal, Canada). In 2021, she was selected as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 for her debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit, which went on to win several awards, including the Lambda Literary Award, the Cartoonist Studio Prize, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, and two Ignatz Awards. Her comics have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, Granta, and the Museum of Modern Art’s Magazine. Her second graphic novel, Cannon, was released by Giramondo in September 2025.  

1. In Half Truth, you delve into a lot of Moroccan history, including the treatment of Amazigh people and the ways that they’ve adapted their cultural practices over time (whether by choice or not). The book also generally covers such a long span of time and travels a lot of ground. Especially coming from diaspora, what was the research process like for this? What was your favourite part of it all? I have a background in academia, and possibly because of this, I relished the process of researching this novel. In fact, when I first decided I wanted to write a story based on my grandmother’s life, one of the motivating factors was the opportunity to do this research – I wanted to really get to know my grandmother – a woman I didn’t have the chance to meet, as she had died two years before I arrived in Morocco. To write her properly, I needed to get to know her cultural practices and beliefs so deeply that I could imagine myself inside her life experience which was completely different to my own.  So, I used lots of different methods for my research – from speaking to my family and other friends in Morocco – including a friend who was an activist in protecting the Tamazight language, to reading novels written about this era written by Moroccan people, reading texts on Moroccan political history and accessing academic articles on various topics. Ironically given the anti-colonialist themes at work in this novel, one important source of information for me were ethnographic texts by anthropologists who had catalogued Moroccan cultural practices and beliefs in the early 1900’s – a such as Edward Watermark, and Francoise Legey. These texts, whilst needing to be read through the context of their authors’ cultural bias, nevertheless catalogued many of the religious beliefs and practices of the Amazigh people as they were at the time my protagonist Khadija was living in the village outside Marrakech, and so were a really useful source of information. Additionally, having travelled to Morocco regularly over the last 25 years has also given me lived experience of how things change – occasionally for the better. For example, when the novel is set in 1999, the Tamazight written language was completely unrepresented in broader Moroccan society – now, in 2024 it is taught in government schools and road signs and the names of government buildings are written in both Arabic and Tamazight.  So, a positive story for once! 2. Half Truth does one of my favourite things that you can find in a well-executed historical, which is that its two timelines are parallel but reflect back onto each other. It shows the ways that womanhood and motherhood have changed over time, but also how some things have just sort of morphed into a new version of the same. Which of these themes do you find the most interesting to explore? I am fascinated by questions of motherhood and identity, including how they interact with each other. Half Truth traverses the first year of motherhood for the protagonist Zahra - often now referred to as matrescence – the cataclysmic shift mothers experience after having a child. During matrescence, everything changes; from your body to your hormonal and psychological state and your sense of identity. This changing sense of self is Zahra’s motivation for heading to Morocco as she seeks to understand herself in the context of her cultural and familial background, in order to make sense of herself as a mother. I also wanted to speak to the issues of motherhood and identity for Khadija, as she transitions from a child from the village to a mother in the city. Importantly, Khadija finds support in the wisdom of an older female friend and mentor – something that Zahra also finds through her aunt Fatiha. This is also an important theme and constant source of fascination for me – the way that female friendships and platonic love can step in and take over when other forms of familial or romantic relationships fail. 3. I always find it fascinating to read a book where the characters are actually speaking in multiple languages throughout its events. You very intentionally include when people have swapped to different languages. What was your thought process behind this? I guess this is something that I did intuitively. Every time I am in Morocco, whether I am with my family or in the souks of Marrakech, there are multiple languages being spoken around me at all times.  Everyone has to work out how to make themselves understood, so it wouldn’t make sense for me to pretend that my characters didn’t have to navigate the same issues! For Zahra questions of language are important as the fact that she doesn’t speak Darija (Moroccan Arabic) is a constant reminder of her status as an outsider, despite her finding a sense of belonging in other ways. Similarly, Khadija also experiences this as she changes from her native Tamazight language to Moroccan Arabic (Darija) as she moves to the city after her marriage. So, this is an ever-present issue in a place like Marrakech which for millennia has been a meeting place for travelers from all across the Africa. 4. The novel has such strong characters (particularly in its protagonists Zara and Khadija), but there’s also a lot of plot intrigue pushing things along. What comes first for you in the writing process: characters or plot? Why? For me, it’s always about the characters. As a reader, I need to care about the protagonist to keep reading, so as a writer this is the first thing I think about. But plot is important too – I love the feeling of not being able to put a book down because I want to know what happens next! I think in this novel, however, having a propulsive plot was important because the novel changes between two POV’s and two timelines, and so it was important to keep the reader moving forward, and make sure they didn’t get confused.  5. When white authors are writing novels, no one bats an eye that all their protagonists are also white like them. When it comes to authors of colour, there’s much less of an expectation of this. In Half Truth, you share a background with your protagonist. Do you think this is something that you’ll stick with going forward? I share a background with the protagonist Zahra because this novel was inspired by my own life experience, and initially Zahra’s story was written as memoir, though it was subsequently fictionalized. So, unless I write memoir, I don’t expect that I will ever share a background quite as closely with any other character as I do with Zahra! That said, I am fascinated by Moroccan women’s stories, and so I do expect to continue to explore different aspects of that culture, simply because its where my interest lies. And I imagine I’ll keep writing complex and strong female characters, regardless of their cultural background. But of course, who knows! One of the things I love about writing fiction is the ability to inhabit lives that are different to my own, so I could end up anywhere I suppose! 6. Could you share two or three of your favourite (or recent favourite) reads by BIPOC authors? I loved Jumaana Abdu’s Translations for its quiet and gentle rhythm, the gorgeous writing and for the exquisite portrayal of a complex and deeply spiritual protagonist in Aliyah. Similarly, I had my heart broken open by The Sunbird by Sara Haddad - a stunning representation of the deep loss and ongoing grief experienced by Palestinians. Thirdly, I loved the brutal and beautiful Dirt-Poor Islanders by Winnie Dunn. And, as my favourite author of all time, anything by Elif Shafak always jumps straight to the top my reading list and There are Rivers in The Sky did not disappoint.  7.Lastly: when was the first time you felt represented by a book? What was it? I have struggled to answer this question. Possibly because I really want to say I don’t think I have ever felt truly represented by a book – which may be why I felt I needed to write my own story. I certainly can’t think of any Moroccan Australian protagonists in any novel I have ever read before. But there are books that stand out from my childhood– Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret comes to mind as the first time I ever read something that made me feel seen as a young girl; by talking about topics I was afraid to talk about in my own life. But as a mixed-race person, it’s only a lot more recently that I have felt my experience has been represented in Australian literature – Jason Om’s memoir All Mixed Up felt like a revelation to me, though I know , thankfully, there are now many more books that speak to this experience of being between cultures.  _____ About Nadia Mahjouri NADIA MAHJOURI is a Moroccan Australian writer, counsellor, and group facilitator specialising in maternal mental health. Her professional background is in health policy, governance and academia, where her research focused on ethics and feminist philosophy. Nadia and her husband live in Hobart/nipaluna with varying combinations of their family which includes three young adults, two school-aged children and a black labrador puppy called Russell Sprout. She is the host of The Whole Truth: Motherhood and the Writing Life. In this podcast, Nadia interviews authors about how they manage to keep writing while living in the messy middle of family life, work and creativity.

1. What is the biggest change you’ve witnessed in the industry post COVID? On a practical level, the acceleration of work from home. Many publishers have reduced office space and operate a hybrid model of in office / WFH; some smaller publishers have gone entirely remote. This is a real benefit for those who value flex working, though it does assume people have office space at home. I know one young WOC in publishing who was living in a one bedroom flat with her mother, which is not ideal for working from home. Another recent trend is continual growth in diversity and inclusion initiatives, including both recruitment and internships and publishing diverse voices. As always the good initiatives come with a sting in the tail – the controversy around use of sensitivity readers, for example.2. Publishing is notoriously a very difficult industry to get into. What is your advice for those looking to get their foot in the door? (Preferably something that doesn’t involve getting a degree in publishing)As well as your skillset and great attitude, a quality job application demonstrates your passion for the industry, A degree in publishing is one way to do this – but not the only way! Internships, part time work in a bookshop are great – but also really thorough research so you’re on top of industry trends and pressures. What’s happening in this segment of the publishing market? Can you talk about competitors, bestsellers, awards, authors, the process of making a book?Another good tip is to look at the entirety of the industry to get that first step. There are absolutely areas in publishing that are significantly less competitive. Look into sales and marketing jobs, and consider professional and academic, education, library and reference sectors, rather than more competitive areas such as editorial in literary fiction and children’s.3. As WOC in the industry, we know how unfriendly it could be for us. What is your advice for other POC who are looking to get into the industry considering how the industry handles diversity, equity and inclusion? We’re seeing some progress in the industry but there are still persistent challenges for POC. I would advocate for self understanding. Know what you can tolerate, where you can thrive, where your limits are. We all have a different threshold and what might be a warning sign for one person could be acceptable or even positive for another. Self-awareness empowers us to see red flags and know when an environment isn’t right for you… and the next step is to be prepared to take action accordingly.4. Where do you see the industry heading in the next few years? And what skills should those aspiring to work in publishing have to stand out? If I were to envision the future, I would emphasise the significance of digital literacy. The way we function in professional environments, communicate with others, and acquire information has become increasingly reliant on digital skills. Moreover, the publication of work has become more technically oriented, involving various tools, systems, and processes. Educational and journal publishing, in particular, is now predominantly centered around digital platforms. In addition to enhancing digital literacy, technology provides us with innovative tools to gain insights into our audiences and reading patterns.In case the previous passage and this one appear a little wooden or verbose, this answer was crafted using ChatGPT, the freely available version. I’m planning to explore the advanced premium AI writing tools soon, exemplifying digital literacy in practice.5. And finally, what characteristics of an employer should potential applicants look out for to vet if they are providing a safe space for their diverse staff? Great question. There are obvious things like diverse faces in the management team and the interview committee, as well as in entry level roles; a commitment to diversity programs, core values that acknowledge diversity, maybe an employee resource group. Then ask questions in the interview. Ask about how diversity is supported. Is there training? How does the company ensure inclusion? Can you go for a coffee with one or two staff members and get the lowdown on their experiences, off the record?Susannah Bowen is co-author of How to Get a Job in Publishing 2e, recently published from Routledge. Other publications include Australian Publishing Industry Workforce Survey on Diversity and Inclusion (2022) and How to Market Books 6e (Routledge).

We spoke to author Joan He on her latest book Strike the Zither, adapting a classic novel, and going back to her roots as a Chinese American. Reimaginings are an incredibly popular subgenre at Amplify. We see a ton of classic retellings come our way but very few based on Chinese history and literature. What drew you to writing a reimagining of Three Kingdoms and why? (Side note, I (Xuan) remember studying this in after school Chinese tuition classes. Cao Cao was the bane of my 12 year old existence.)Don’t hurt me but Cao Cao might be my favorite character from the books! Though naturally Zhuge Liang is also a favorite — no surprise there since Strike the Zither’s Zephyr is inspired by him.As for why Three Kingdoms — like you, I’d learned about the major figures as a kid, mostly via stories from my parents. It wasn’t until college that I read the classic in full. I was struck by how clearly the characters grouped themselves into archetypes, rarely straying from their main traits and knowingly wielding their reputation as weapons. It reminded me of teens sorting themselves into jocks and geeks in a high school cafeteria, and I knew that it’d be a lot of fun to reimagine in a YA space.But I can’t really start writing a book until I figure out a central question, from which I tend to construct my midpoint twists. And so after reading the text and analyzing it in class, particularly how the author Luo Guanzhong elevated some characters to almost mythical heights, I found my “what if?” question and began drafting. What were some of the challenges working off a text as grand and historic as Three Kingdoms? Can you talk through your process of crafting your own story from it?The main challenge was, like you mention, dealing with the grandness of the text; it features over a thousand named characters! So I knew from the start that I needed to streamline for my audience — while keeping in mind that some of that audience would include readers utterly unfamiliar with Three Kingdoms as well as people like my mom, a person who grew up in China and knows all the common idioms inspired by Cao Cao but has never read the text because, I mean, the thing is 800k words long.Inevitably, there’s some loss that occurs in the streamlining process, but I also think there’s something to be gained in making the story fun to read for a reader like my mom — and even a bit more fun for myself. There’s so much to love about the classic but also some things that, even as a fan, I’m more ambivalent about, such as the treatment of most — not all, but most — of the female characters. But escapism from the ancient China patriarchy aside, I really wanted to preserve the spirit of my favorite elements of the classic. Those might not be the same as another fan’s favorite elements, and that’s okay! That’s the beauty of reading and of creating; it’s all so personal. At the end of the day I am first and foremost writing for myself, and so I’ll make my story and character decisions in kind. As a person of Chinese heritage, I find Chinese fantasy to be quite different to western fantasy as there's a bit of cultural knowledge that it's helpful to have before starting. Any words of advice for readers who are picking Strike The Zither up as their introduction to Chinese fantasy?It was very important to me that Strike the Zither be an easy read for someone with no prior knowledge of Three Kingdoms, and I hope I achieved that. But as I previously touched on, the midpoint twist is my textual response to how Luo Guanzhong, the frequently accredited author of the classic, shaped these real historical figures into bigger than life characters. And so it’s also fair to say that some familiarity with the story might give more context to the twist, for better or worse! If you are looking to get into the classic, I would highly recommend the translation by Moss Roberts.Other than Three Kingdoms specific knowledge, some cultural defaults are absolutely baked into the story, especially in the relationships between characters. Something I struggled with in writing and revising the book was to resist the urge to give Zephyr an easily-understood-by-the-West reason for her loyalty to her lordess when we first meet her. I’ve read a lot of western YA, enough to know that such a deep inter-character commitment is usually inspired by 1. seeing X character as a family member, blood or found, 2. romantic connection or 3. platonic friendship, or 4. some personal debt (perhaps X character once saved Y’s life!). What’s not so often seen is the kind of service a Confucian-minded strategist would give to their lord for no reason other than that’s just what was expected of them in that era. To give the loyalty a reason other than it just was weakens the deep and historic social mores the classic is steeped in, and while there were some social elements that I definitely tweaked (see the female characters), there were others, like this, that I really wanted to honor. Who's your favourite character that you've written?Zephyr, which is surprising for me to say since I usually dislike my main characters by the end of writing the book. What’s the saying, familiarity breeds contempt? But I loved writing Zephyr and Crow, her greatest rival, through the many drafts. Lastly, an essential question from the Amplify arsenal — when did you first feel represented in a book, and what was it? Why?Unfortunately I didn’t see as many characters who looked like myself when I was in grade school — certainly not among the very popular books that were always stocked in the library or the bookstore — but I really found a kindred spirit in Ramona. Her awkwardness and anxiety over fitting in with her peers made me feel less alone.Joan He was born and raised in Philadelphia but still will, on occasion, lose her way. At a young age, she received classical instruction in oil painting before discovering that stories were her favorite kind of art. She studied psychology and Chinese history at the University of Pennsylvania and currently writes from a desk overlooking the citywaterfront. Descendant of the Crane is her young adult debut.

We had the pleasure of speaking with UNHCR Ambassador, Zaheda Ghani on her debut novel, Pomegranate & Fig. We spoke about her work, finding somewhere to call home and subverting cultural expectations.11 July 2022To start, what inspired you to write Pomegranate & Fig? It's obviously built a lot around your life and experiences, but was there anything(s) that propelled you to make a narrative of it all?Pomegranate & Fig is a novel and a work of fiction about three characters Henna, Rahim and Hamid and their journey before and during the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. I have always dreamt of writing a novel and being a writer ever since I was a kid.  I created these characters and put them against the backdrop of war. While there are connections between their experiences and my journey such as leaving Afghanistan, traveling to India, landing in Australia and their home being in Herat - the path their life takes is similar to many Afghans. My family left Afghanistan when I was about five, so it took some research to get enough of the details about the situation and place that was Herat in those times.  Did your work with UNHCR inform or shape your novel? If yes, how?It didn’t inform or shape directly but I think it would have helped me. For example, I did spend time in Herat and Kabul during 2004 and 2006 to see family as well as spend time with UNHCR programs. On that trip we visited many places and talked with a lot of people as part of a small donor documentary we made for UNHCR. It enabled me to learn more and to feed my imagination about what life might have been like in the era I was writing about.The theme of home is very strong throughout the book, and the difficulty of having somewhere to call home, that feels like home is one that I think a lot of our customers can relate to. Did the process of writing Pomegranate & Fig change your own perspective on the concept, or maybe solidify it at all?I have always been interested in how no matter which country we come from as refugees or migrants, we occupy a space that can best be described as a nexus between two universes. The nexus of the culture and traditions of the country we fled and the culture of the country we have adopted as our new home. We can choose the best of both worlds and create our own culture and ways of understanding the world. My characters also occupy a nexus between the Herat they left and their new home in Australia.  Your story exists outside of the traditional western canon and it was so refreshing to see you subvert expectations of cultural traditions that anglophone media often demonizes. What do you hope that your readers will be able to take away from this?I love the freedom of writing fiction and experimenting with language and imagining characters who become real to me. This was my objective - to tell a story the best way I could and hope that others enjoy reading it. After I had written the book and from talking about it to people who read early manuscripts version, I realised that perhaps in a small way the story could highlight our shared humanity too. I have a hope that the next time people see a refugee narrative on the news, they can understand a bit more about them as human beings who did not choose to become refugees and want the same things we all want in life. Where do you feel most represented in literature/media?I feel lucky to live in a country and a time when access to the content that I am interested in is at my fingertips. Thanks to the internet, which has changed media completely, I can access the streaming and written content that suits my taste and needs. This is a different world to when we had a set number of television channels and newspapers in a given geography and had to consume what is presented to us. Zaheda Ghani, also known as Zoe, is one of Australia’s top technology executives. She was the Chief Technology Officer of online fashion giant THE ICONIC, before taking up her current senior role at software giant Atlassian. Zaheda served on the board of Australia for UNHCR, the private sector partner of the United Nations Refugee Agency from 2017 to 2021. She is now an Ambassador for Australia for UNHCR and has an active interest in UNHCR's humanitarian workCover image provided by Hachette Australia.

Vanessa Len discusses growing up mixed race, the importance of representation, and her debut novel, Only A Monster. 1 February 2022   M: Can you give us a quick overview of the book? V: Yep, so Only A Monster is my first novel. It’s a YA fantasy about a monster girl whose summer is absolutely ruined when she finds out that the guy she likes at work is a monster slayer. It’s got time travel, it’s got I guess like a Captain-America-like heroic antagonist, it’s got a monster point of view, monster families with powers. I think if you like Doctor Who, if you like Cassandra Clare, if you like Holly Black, you might like Only A Monster.   M: So, a big part of the story is that Joan (the main character) is half-monster half-human, and we know that you’re also mixed yourself. How would you say that your background informed where you went with that?  V: It was really important to me to explicitly include some kind of rep. When I was growing up, I didn’t often see people who looked like me – not only as the main character in narratives but even as side characters. So, I definitely wanted to include Joan having I guess a similar background to me as well (my dad is Chinese Malaysian, her dad is also Chinese Malaysian). I think I’m just drawn to characters who live in multiple worlds within multiple cultures, so it felt natural to also make her mixed human and monster – although I feel like that metaphor doesn’t go too far *laughs* just because she’s a monster. But yeah, I feel like my background informed my choice of identity for my main character.   X: Where did you start when building your main character? Did you start with her wanting to be mixed race and then move into ‘Oh, it’ll be fantasy, a monster’ or did you start in fantasy and move into her being mixed race? V: Good question! I’m really trying to think about that. To start the whole thing, I initially just made a big list of things that I liked the most. So that included time travel and enemies to lovers, and out of that list I made this world. I think I had always wanted to write a really fun fast-paced story with some representation similar to my own background, so I feel like it all came together kind of at the same time. I knew that I wanted to tell the kind of story that I would like to read and I would like to include a main character that – I’m not a monster *laughs* - but someone like me. M: You’ve done a really good job of including both sides of her family … There’s a scene early on where she Facetimes her dad who’s having a bit of kaya toast with some half boiled eggs. I had a good little giggle when I read this part where Joan says she can see her dad is having “coffee that tastes more like flavoured sugar”. It’s not necessarily an important part of the story, but it’s still such a nice element to see and it’s the kind of thing that you really won’t get anywhere else. V: I guess that’s true, I guess that’s part of when you include some rep, you do get some familiar backgrounds. I definitely wanted, on purpose, to make that Chinese Malaysian background the nostalgic background; the place she wishes she was, the home she wishes she was at when things start to go terribly terribly wrong in the monster world. I wanted to create the feeling that I have towards my own family, of that very loving, safe harbour feeling on that Asian side. I feel like both sides are very loving, but when things go terribly wrong for her, I think that’s where she yearns for   M: I’m really interested in how you landed on using monsters instead of another fantasy element that you maybe see more. I don’t think I’ve seen monsters in, well, anything really? V: Yeah, I guess they’re like an original monster *laughs*. The idea for that came out of – I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences when you’re watching a movie or a TV show and it’s so rare (I guess in Western ones at least, the ones that I watched growing up at least) – it’s so rare that the heroes look like me or you. Usually they don’t. Sometimes I would notice when I was growing up that the bad guys were the ones who would look like me – there’d be no Asians at all until a fight scene and then suddenly there would be a couple. And in the fight scene, they wouldn’t say anything, they’d just die. I’ve got this line in the book about how in movies when the bad guys get killed, the camera moves away from them and follows the hero. But I know that in my own viewing experience, I can just sometimes find myself where if the few people on screen who look like me – which sometimes means being aware of these people lying dead on the ground and the camera’s panning away from them – I thought it might be interesting to write a story about – what would it be like if those good, decent heroes from the narratives that I like, what if one of those heroes was fighting against you instead of for you? M: How have you found the publishing process as a debut author and one who, maybeeeee with magic very relevant to being biracial, would sometimes otherwise be completely ignored? V: It was a definitely a choice I made very early on. I didn’t know if this was going to limit my ability to publish traditionally or not, but I thought why else am I writing this if not to put some rep in it? But in the end, I think it worked out really well. In fact, right now seems to be a real golden age of Asian fantasy (YA and adult) so I guess we all had the same thought at the same time that we’d like to see ourselves in stories. I think this is an exciting time and hopefully there’ll be more exciting times to come as more people see themselves in books and maybe want to write their own stories as well.   M: You’ve talked a lot about how it’s always been hard to find any [representation], but as you said it’s also been a good time in recent years to finally try and find something that you can actually see yourself in. So, do you have anything where you’ve felt represented? V: Yeah definitely, look at my shelf back here! Zen Cho, Shelley Parker-Chan who’s one of my critique partners, Kylie Lee Baker, June Tan who wrote Jade Fire Gold. So yeah, I feel like I’m finding new inspiration in all these new writers, and of course existing inspiration in people like Natasha Ngan… Oh, so many. Marie Lu, Cindy Lu who kindly blurbed me. I feel like there’s people who went slightly before me and sort of opened up that space and there’s all these people who are making that space bigger and making that home in publishing I feel great about all the people that came before, because I know that when I started writing I could not have imagined being able to sell a book with a protagonist who had any kind of background similar to mine and then books started to come out and you think, ‘Oh, I could write a book too!’   X: Do you have any extra things you want to say about your book? V: The only other thing that might be interesting to your readers, is that I was really interested in writing that diaspora experience, where in coming from culture or cultures that have been slightly removed from their original context. My dad immigrated here when he was very young and I feel like even he doesn’t always fully understand everything about the culture that he came from, and then when he imparted it to me, sometimes it was very removed from its context. Those are the things that I tried to also put in the book. Like, when Joan enters the monster world, she eats this food that tastes like her grandmother’s food and she says to her frenemy Aaron, ‘I thought this was just something my family cooked.’ And he’s like, ‘No, this is monster food.’ And I feel like I’ve definitely had that experience before, where I was like, ‘Oh I thought this was just something our family did.’ And then you realise no, this is a giant cultural thing, half the people around the world does this. But I guess because you’ve been removed from that original context, you don’t always know what’s cultural, what’s personality, what’s your family. So that’s another thing I really wanted to portray in the book. Vanessa Len is an Australian author of Chinese-Malaysian and Maltese heritage. An educational editor, she has worked on everything from language learning programs to STEM resources, to professional learning for teachers. Vanessa is a graduate of the Clarion Workshop in San Diego, and she lives in Melbourne

Daisy & Woolf rewrites the story of Daisy Simmons, an Anglo-Indian side character in Mrs Dalloway. In doing so, Cahill deftly explores the intersections of gender, race, class, and literature, and how the literary canon has kept People of Colour in the margins.30 May 20221. How and when  did your fascination with Daisy start?It began with re reading Mrs Dalloway as an adult and for the first time discovering Daisy. She is encountered by the reader in brackets (‘she had no sense of discretion’), she is described as an ‘adorable’ amorous object without her community. We don’t know where she lives, what city for example. She is purposely described as ‘vain’, ‘dark’ and lacking a moral compass, suggesting promiscuity. I have only found one critic who takes notice of Daisy describing her as English though Woolf always describes her, through the eyes of Peter Walsh, as ‘dark’.At the time, I was also reading the Letters of Jean Rhys edited by Francis Wyndham and Diana Melly. They provide insights into Rhys’ creative process and her personal struggles. In one of the letters dated April 14, 1964, she wrote about the Brontë sisters, then  went on to write about Jane Eyre, saying that she was often vexed at the ‘portrait of the ‘paper tiger’ lunatic; the all wrong Creole scenes, and above all by the real cruelty of Mr Rochester….’ Rhys imagined there were several Antoinettes and Mrs Rochesters. I realised that my Daisy was altogether different to Virginia Woolf’s. In my novel, India is not a referential colonial subject for society table-talk, but India has its own hub of intellectuals; freedom fighters, entrepreneurs, activists and strong women such as Daisy. I needed to give Daisy a vibrant inner life: a body, a mind, and a voice in my novel.2. Both you and Daisy are Anglo-Indian. Did your experience as an Anglo-Indian and mixed-race person help shape the way you saw and wrote Daisy? I think so. The experience of being Anglo-Indian has been one of self-erasure and a particular kind of concealment since you are always between cultures and homelands: India and England, (as well as Australia) neither country which you can properly claim. Anglo-Indians are a heterogenous community so an ethnic description, even a single descriptive label is inadequate and there have been many terms used ambivalently over the decades, and centuries. ‘Anglo-Indian’ was first used in the 1911 census but before that it was ‘half caste’ and ‘country born,’ and even ‘Indo-Briton’. The imposed definition of the British Nationality Act required a British-born paternal ancestry, shaping an idea of nationality which is based on whiteness. Through intergenerational displacements mixed ancestry people become impoverished and homeless.(Just think of the sad life of Jean Rhys.) I don’t claim to be a victim of these dynamics, but writing can be an act of reparation. About 4% of Australian Indians identify as Anglo-Indian. On migrating to Australia, I found that I could be judged by different communities to whom I bear a resemblance: not being white, not being a Hindu nor a Moslem Indian; and not quite Australian. (Of course, there are other Indian minorities: Parsees, Jews, Jains. They, like Christian are outside the official and dominant caste system.) In the Calcutta chapters of Daisy and Woolf, I dramatise these different social, cultural tensions as they were during the early 1920’s when anti-British riots and race riots take place, and the city is divided by zones. 3. You mention Woolf's racism several times in the novel, could you expand on this for our audience who have yet to read the book but are interested in this?Well, there are repeated undertones of the racist ideology that Woolf inherited in most of her references to India in the novel, Mrs Dalloway. Specifically, Daisy is described as ‘vain’ and ‘very dark’ but also as she is sexually objectified as ‘adorable’ and ‘charming’. Through Peter Walsh’s eyes we are provided with a depiction of India that is backward, tedious and disorderly; the women are far less attractive than British women, which appears to excuse Peter from stalking a young woman near Regent’s Park. Through the eyes of Clarissa’s circle, India is chaotic, and on the verge of uprising. It is a place where the coolies beat their wives. This kind of reduction was fairly stereotypical of the Raj era.Woolf’s Orientalism manifests more generally in many of her novels. The painter, Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse is described as having “Chinese eyes” yet this racial sign doesn’t shape her personality or her development as a character or an artist. The Chinese reference instead is unknowable, creating a cool distance rather than cultural warmth or connection. And even in Mrs Dalloway there is a certain aesthetic passiveness associated with Chinese objects while Elizabeth Dalloway, Clarissa’s daughter, who is quite unlike her elitist mother, is described elusively as having ’Chinese eyes’:‘She had no preferences. Of course, she would not push her way. She inclined to be passive, it was an expression she needed, but her eyes were fine, Chinese, oriental, and as her mother said, with such nice shoulders and holding herself so straight, she was always charming to look at.’ (149)                               Woolf did blackface. She took part in the infamous Dreadnought Hoax of 1911, dressing up as an African prince with friends, other disguised Bloomsburians. They boarded a battleship, the HMS Dreadnought wearing turbans, robes and blackface, pretending to be Abyssinian royalty. Although Woolf didn’t mimic Swahili one of the instigators had the caucasity to do so. Nonetheless, Virginia Woolf seemed not to be aware that to parody brown people is a form of control over them. She extolled the prank in a lecture written for the Memoir club some years later. To this day, I find it alarming that some Instagrammers have posted these photographs without referencing how inappropriate that behaviour was to people of colour .Virginia Woolf sits on the left hand side of the photograph.Having read some of the letters and diaries, it is apparent that racist assumptions are evident in many of the Bloomsbury correspondences.  In Daisy and Woolf, I reference some of these incidents, for instance, on how Julian Bell wrote letters to his friend, Eddie Playford, about his affair with Shuhua Ling revealing racist stereotypes about the Chinese and even worse ones about Indians also. 4. This novel also touches on the racism faced by Authors of Colour in the publishing industry, an issue that is very close to us. Could you give us an insight into your experience getting published as a Person of Colour? Did you face any backlash or questions on why you picked Daisy when there are many other (read: white) characters from Woolf's? It can be retraumatising to discuss these issues; so, I will make my remarks brief. I am always speaking through trauma, something that white people don’t readily appreciate. Although I’ve been an author and poet, an independent literary editor, and know something about publishing and the dynamics that privilege white writers in this country as well as in the canon, during the writing of the novel I came to realise that I had only glimpsed a small part of the obstacles facing minority writers. The playing field remains very uneven, the opportunities available to POC writers are undoubtedly restricted. What needs to happen is a more open discussion with white mainstream culture about the structural issues and more sensitive readings of minority storytelling.My publisher, Hachette, recognised that Daisy and Woolf is a story that needs to be published and reach readers because it’s a transformational novel. It revives and restores the ghost of a shadow character and gives her centre stage. It’s true there is little encouragement to research minority characters in academia, and there is a veritable tsunami of microaggressions that you have to survive just to get a novel like this one ready for publishing. The risk is that you are seen to be mirroring a text located in the canon, rather than creating a precedent. But it is actually hard work because you are excavating on the one hand, but also contributing by adding something entirely original.Metafictional and experimental fiction are less mainstream genres for BIPOC writers. Our material existence places pressure on us to reform and resist history and there are many ways to do this. Perhaps it is literary criticism that should be held to account as much as the industry or the canon. After all criticism constructs the canon; threatening to overwrite fiction. At times in my novel, Mina performs as a critic, being critical of the industry and of Woolf’s Bloomsbury and the white establishment. But in that role of criticism, we always see through her eyes, her subjective position. She does not perform as an independent authority on Virginia Woolf or Leonard Woolf or Vanessa Bell. In her critical act she makes herself vulnerable by exposing her own contingency.During my research it alarmed me that the only substantial criticism that I’d read on the roles of India and Woolf in Mrs Dalloway, after a century of scholarly industry, was an essay that described Daisy as a British woman. How could this be? It points to the selective filters in critical research and the strategic and investment directions of literature, whereby certain topics and subjects are effectively white-washed.The tide of all this structural racism as well as microaggressions kept surging and washing over me, yet I somehow survived and wrote the book,  5. And finally, is there a book (or books) that made you feel represented? As a writer, I feel represented by the books I’ve written: Letter to Pessoa, Vishvarupa, The Herring Lass. I’ve mentioned the influence of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea and in terms of my gender as a reader, Coetzee’s Foe has been an important text. Other books where I felt represented are Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, Tsitsi Dangaremba’s Nervous Conditions, Melanie Cheng’s Australia Day, Maxine Beneba Clarke’s The Hate Race, S.L Lim’s Revenge and Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji. Michelle Cahill is an author, essayist and poet. She also edits the online literary magazine Mascara and co-editor of the anthology Contemporary Asian Australian Poets. Her short story collection, Letter to Pessoa, won a 2017 Glenda Adams Award.Cover image credited to Nicola Bailey.

Eugen Bacon on her latest science-fiction collection, Danged Black Thing that explores Blackness and womanhood in afrofuturistic settings.1 November 20211. The book shows inspirations from a huge range of sources, from sci-fi classics to Norse myth. What are some works or writers who inspire you / who you’ve drawn influence from?I have always been fascinated with Loki and Norse mythology. But I grew up on African literature and was drawn to Camara Laye’s sensitivity in his novel The African Child, and Chinua Achebe’s tragic hero Okonkwo—colonialism got the better of him—in Things Fall Apart. I was also very drawn to literary fiction and at once fell in love with Toni Morrison and Anthony Doerr, Andrew McGahan. I talk about Peter Temple in my essay ‘The New Seduction of an Old Literary Crime Classic’ by LitHub, and pay homage to him and Michael Ondaatje in ‘Peaches and Lemons’:  ‘Peaches and Lemons’ is an impressionistic piece that seeks to bestow poetic homage to two diverse writers of literary fiction. Authors whose works clasp my palm in a personal and accessible way, who take me gallivanting to poignant places... This piece showcases Divisadero (Ondaatje 2007) and Truth (Temple 2009) as cunning, superbly crafted. Ondaatje and Temple spotlight mood, reorient prose, court characterisation to such extent the reader is seduced, deluded. I swooned into speculative fiction and found much to gain in Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler, among many whose works, respectively, charted new ground. I love collections, and remember being quite taken with Lisa L Hannett’s Songs for Dark Seasons and Margo Lanagan’s Stray Bats. 2. What drew you to speculative fiction?Curiosity… always curiosity, what if?  3. There are such complete worlds set up in these stories. Would you consider extending any of them into longer pieces?I have considered, more than a few times, to continue, rather than expand ‘The Water Runner’. In this climate fiction, Zawadi—in decrepit Old Dodoma—longs for New Dodoma: It was extraordinary, beautiful that world, a place you got beer with a haircut. There, streets had names like Miriam Makeba Road, Fela Kuti Drive, Kidjo Avenue, Masekela Lane. Towers steepled to the sky, esplanades and water everywhere. (pp. 22-23, Danged Black Thing).4. The stories in Danged Black Thing travel through time and follow a myriad of identities, could you expand on your fascination with moving through time and identities? I love experimenting. My writing reflects my hybridity, collisions, transformations, and longings that reimagine unlimited futures for Black people. These reflect in my characters and their quests. 5. One of the things that stood out to me with Danged Black Thing is how the stories take the reader all around the African continent. Is there a reason why you chose to set these peces throughout Africa rather than one or two countries?I prefer neutral settings that could be anywhere in the speculative world. I never consciously go out of my way on a specific location—each story nudges its own characters and place. In ‘De Turtle o’ Hades’, a collaboration with E Don Harpe, we sought to write the alternate history of an African dictator—Idi Amin in Uganda fell naturally into the story. ‘The Unfailing Name’ is a collaboration with Seb Doubinsky—a bilingual French dystopian writer. We wanted an Afrofrancophone story, hence Jolainne’s origins in Kinshasa. ‘Still She Visits’ is a raw story I wrote when my sister died of AIDS. I offer a ‘behind the story’ in Hadithi & the State of Black Speculative Fiction, a collaboration with Milton Davis. It’s a cathartic story that was too close, too painful… to set in Tanzania where my sister died—I isolated myself from trauma by locating it in Botswana.    But I was deliberate in my upcoming Mage of Fools, an Afrofuturistic novel in a dystopian world set in a country called Mafinga.Mafinga is a district in Tanzania’s Iringa region, where I did compulsory national service. On independence, Tanzania became socialist and adopted ‘Ujamaa’—a concept of familyhood and community. For all its good intentions, I believe socialism was an impairment that ultimately failed. Tanzania is one of the poorest 15 nations in the world today. 6. ‘A Taste of Unguja’ is set during the pandemic in Melbourne. Are there any other ways that the current pandemic affected your writing in this book?I was very prolific during the pandemic, wrote and published books, stories, essays and prose poetry. I talk about it in my essay ‘Saving My Shadows’ in an upcoming nonfiction book titled Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations on Creating Pan-African Speculative Fiction in the Pandemic Period, edited by Oghenechovwe Ekpeki Donald. In it, I share three things that happened in 2020 that I most cared about: 1) the COVID-19 pandemic, 2) events surrounding Black Lives Matter and 3) the US presidential elections.7. DID BAPOTO GET THE JOB (‘Rain Doesn’t Fall on One Roof’)?That would be telling! I’d like to think the best possible outcome for Bapoto in whom I see elements of myself at different points in life. As a migrant with no family close, you can be cash-strapped and keen to earn an earnest living, but there’s no-one to help you. All you see are walls closing every which way in what is sometimes mostly about ‘fit’. Do you want to change your accent, or the shape of your nose, or the colour of your skin? And even if you could, did… would you ‘fit’? I want the best for Bapoto with every fibre of my being. But the world—in its unpredictable dystopian self—is a conundrum.  8. In many of the stories, water is a priceless commodity. Why water?I have a special affinity with water, perhaps because I am a water child. I also want to pay attention to topical themes like climate change, to become the author as an agent of revolution, prophesising with dire warnings what our world might look like if we don’t act now. 9. Do you have any favourite pieces of literature that make you feel represented?A lot has happened across the years since Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, edited by Sheree Renee Thomas. Anthologies and collections continue to raise the awareness of Black people and their stories. Two at the top of my mind are Dominion, An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora and The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2021).It was amazing to see Nalo Hopkinson become Grand Master, a recognition of lifetime achievement in science fiction and fantasy literature—this made her the youngest person and the first woman of colour to win this award. And wasn’t it something to see N.K. Jemisin on the 2021 TIME list as one of the 100 most influential people of 2021?  There’s a little more Black representation in publishing today, but we’re not there yet.10. Finally, I just wanted to say that I love the way you wrote women and Blackness in Danged Black Thing. We’re so excited for it to finally be out and for people to read this wonderful collection that you've put together.I am truly glad to see how well you got my stories — this is an author’s earnest wish. Eugen M. Bacon is African Australian, a computer scientist mentally re-engineered into creative writing. Her work has won, been shortlisted, longlisted or commended in national and international awards, including the Foreword Book of the Year, Bridport Prize, Copyright Agency Prize, Australian Shadows Awards, Ditmar Awards and Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans. Her novella Ivory’s Story was shortlisted in the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards. New releases: Danged Black Thing, story collection by Transit Lounge Publishing (2021), Mage of Fools, an Afrofuturistic dystopian novel by Meerkat Press (2022), Chasing Whispers, story collection by Raw Dog Screaming Press (2022). Website: eugenbacon.com / Twitter: @EugenBaconCover image by Transit Lounge.

We chatted with Maxine about her latest poetry collection How Decent Folk Behave, the pandemic, and the healing nature of poetry.27 October 2021You can find our interview on Instagram, at these links: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Maxine Beneba Clarke is a widely published Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent. Maxine's short fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been published in numerous publications including Overland, The Age, Meanjin, The Saturday Paper and The Big Issue. Her critically acclaimed short fiction collection Foreign Soil won the ABIA for Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2015 and the 2015 Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Matt Richell Award for New Writing at the 2015 ABIAs and the 2015 Stella Prize. She was also named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists for 2015. Maxine has published three poetry collections including Carrying the World, which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry 2017 and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award. The Hate Race, a memoir about growing up black in Australia won the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural NSW Award 2017 and was shortlisted for an ABIA, an Indie Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and Stella Prize. The Patchwork Bike, Maxine's first picture book with Van T. Rudd was a CBCA Honour Book for 2017. Her children's books include Wide, Big World, Fashionista and When We Say Black Lives Matter.Cover image obtained from Hachette.