Emily Paull

This interview was recorded at the 2016 Perth Writers Festival, but was not an official PWF event.   Emma Viskic is a Melbourne crime writer. She has won two of Australia’s premier crime fiction short story awards: the Ned Kelly S.D. Harvey Award (2013) and the New England Thunderbolt Award (2013). She has had stories placed and shortlisted in numerous other competitions and been published in  Award Winning Australian Writing . EP: So, first of all, Caleb is an interesting twist on the hard-edged detective character because he has a disability, and we don't see a lot of characters in fiction with disabilities.  Is there something in particular that inspired him? EV: Not so much inspired as probably was the seed, because I went to school with a girl who was profoundly deaf-- but I didn't actually set up to write him deaf.  It's been going around in my brain for many, many years, just this outsider. EP: But so many of the plot points hinge on this, lik...

The Perth Writers Festival is over for another year, and it was an especially wonderful year for me.  This year I was lucky enough to be allowed to chair a few sessions.  I was absolutely overjoyed that they would let me do this, and after I got over the initial anxiety about having to talk to wonderful, talented writers in front of a crowd, I really enjoyed myself. I chaired two sessions, the first a panel the Friday afternoon with Catherine Lacey, Laura van den Berg and Miles Allinson during which we discussed introspective narrators, and the second a one on one interview with Lauren Groff.  Lauren's most recent novel is called Fates and Furies  and it is really truly excellent.  I have since bought a copy of all of her other books-- or at least those that I could find.  My Friday session was extra special, because as I entered the venue, I surveyed the crowd and discovered my grandfather sitting in the audience.  If he's reading this, and I kn...

This week, for the very first time, I became a published author. That sounds very dramatic, but I must include the following detail-- that the publication I am speaking of was a short story which was included in the collection (Re)sisters, published by the lovely people at For Books' Sake in the UK.  I'm very humbled to have been selected for the collection, which is a collection aimed at Young Adult readers, encompassing stories of female empowerment and coming of age.  It's got a fabulous cover, and I cannot wait until my copy (finally) arrives down under.  Fingers crossed for next week. I thought I would write a blog post today about the story I have in this collection, which is called A Thousand Words.  It's not actually a thousand words long, it's closer to three thousand, which is fairly typical for my short stories, and for short story competitions in general.  It's about a girl who goes on a road trip with two friends she's known since high schoo...

The Words in my Hand Guinevere Glasfurd Two Roads Press 2016 (my copy courtesy the publisher) Helena Jans is a maid, living in Amsterdam in the 17th century.  She is employed by Mr Sergeant, an English bookseller who is a far kinder employer than Helena expected, particularly considering that she is able to write.  This is a skill far above her station, but it is also the thing which makes Helena interesting to Mr Sergeant and therefore begins her adventure. Helena prepares the guest quarters for an important lodger, the philosopher Rene Descartes, whose presence at the bookseller's house causes a stir.  Along with his valet, known as Limousin, Descartes disrupts life at Helena's home and changes her life forever.  Determined to master the quill, Helena has been practising, using ink made from beetroots and paper made of whatever she can find-- thinly baked pastry, the tabletop and even her own skin.  Naturally, Helena and Descartes are fascinated by one a...

2016 Perth Writers Festival  I read quite a few books this month, some of them in preparation for the 2016 Perth Writers Festival which kicks off at UWA in a few weeks time.  You may or may not know that I will be chairing two sessions at the festival.  The first one is called 'Coming into Focus' and features Miles Allinson, Laura van den Berg and Catherine Lacey, who are all going to discuss introspective narrators with me.  Miles Allinson's book Fever of Animals  is a stream of consciousness narrative which follows a character who is also named Miles as he searches for clues to the mystery of the disappearance of surrealist painter Emil Bafdescue.  Meanwhile he is also recovering from the death of his father and the end of his relationship with a woman named Alice.  Laura van den Berg's novel Find Me  is about a character named Joy who is part of a medical research project dedicated to finding a cure for a new disease which has wiped out a lar...