News & Blog by Roger McDonald
Read the latest news and bulletins, essays, features, opinions from our bestselling authors. Find out what's being said, debated, and discussed in the world of books and ideas.
“How could this loud, obstreperous man be the Anthony Trollope who wrote with such extraordinary insight into the hearts of men and, even more extraordinary, of women?” (Victoria Glendining, Trollope, 1992) Somebody once told me it was hard to believe that someone as stupid as I was could have written something as wise as I had (stupidly, I can’t remember which book that was). I didn’t...
It is publication day and I’m feeling exposed, out in the open, caught in the spotlight and struggling to sound wise. What is your new book about? “The broad stream of life narrowed down to seventy years of Australian existence, and structured around the life of a drunk.” Can I say that? I hear the publicity clock ticking. There is a great silence out there, where I trust copies are...
There is an outrageous vanity to getting a book into print - a midnight whim converted to an architectural structure, a wisp of the imagination dressed up from the props cupboard into an epic of the mental stage, a passing glance grown into a love story, enacted under a reading lamp. Here I am, with a new novel on the market, a typical author with a book to promote. You, my possible reader - I want...
If a novel or short story doesn’t surprise the writer it won’t surprise the reader. Almost from a whim, a solid, real-seeming structure evolves to a length of around 80,000-140,000 words. If the writing goes well there’s a first draft in twelve to eighteen months. All seven of my novels up to this one grew in this way from a word or a phrase that wouldn’t let me go. But “When Colts Ran”...
At the end of last year, while finalising the not quite final draft of “When Colts Ran”, I changed the title to “Made in Australia”, words I saw embossed on the bottom of a galvanised iron wheelbarrow as I hosed out dirt. The lettering came into view like an aerial shot - as if the worn-down landscape was turning itself into words. “Great title,” said a friend. “Terrible title,” said...
