Big 4 With Bec: Jaclyn Moriarty

Jaclyn Moriarty grew up in Sydney’s north-west with four sisters, one brother, two dogs and twelve chickens. She studied English and Law at the University of Sydney and later wrote a PhD thesis at Cambridge on Children, Law and the Media. She has worked as a media and entertainment lawyer but now writes full time, dividing her time between Montreal and Sydney.

1. Our reviewer, Renee, has just read A Corner of White and describes it as, ‘a seamless tale of dual universes, dual protagonists and contrasting lifestyles’ that mixes ‘contemporary realism’ with ‘epic fantasy and magic’. (I can’t wait to read it!). Can you tell us more about where the idea for the story originated.

Thank you so much  (to both you and your reviewer).  The story came to me when I was living in Montreal, Canada.  A friend gave me a notebook that was covered in soft red suede, and that folded out to reveal a row of coloured pencils. I took it to a café on a snowy day, meaning to do my regular work, but instead I started to draw pictures with the coloured pencils.  The pictures turned into an imaginary world called the Kingdom of Cello.  Years later I returned to the Kingdom of Cello for this book.

2. You’ve done a lot of study, predominantly in the field of Law; and your first degree combined English and Law. How has your study and legal career influenced your work as a writer? Do you do a lot of research for your fiction?

I think that studying and working in the law might have helped to make my chaotic mind more ordered.  Not much though.  It also sharpened my awareness of the facts that: there are usually multiple layers to the truth, truth can be distorted and twisted in unimaginable ways, people live through the strangest kinds of heartbreak, and a world of story can lie behind a single line.

3. You say that you’re happiest when you’re ‘in (your) study and the writing’s going well and (you) can hear (your son), Charlie, giggling downstairs’. What gets you into the flow and into that zone? What do you do to get yourself back on track, when and if the words aren’t coming to you?

That’s funny—now Charlie has started school and we’ve moved to a single-level apartment.  So I guess I don’t hear him giggling downstairs while I work any more.  These days, I think that running around the block or dancing in the living room before writing, and then eating chocolate and drinking peppermint tea while writing, are essential for getting me ‘in the zone’. I also think that this is nothing more than superstition and a chocolate addiction.  But I’m not giving it up.

I still haven’t figured out what to do when the words aren’t coming—sometimes I make myself write anyway, even though the sentence are clunking along, and then delete all of that when it starts working again; sometimes I try writing something completely different, like a journal entry or poem or short story; and sometimes I listen to music/dance/bake cakes/cry/go insane/send a lot of text messages/eat a lot more chocolate.

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

At the moment it’s probably Elliot Baranski, who is the hero of the Colours of Madeleine trilogy.  The characters who usually stay in my mind are the ones who are the most troubled and confused, like Lydia Jaakson-Oberman from Finding Cassie Crazy (or The Year of Secret Assignments) and Bindy Mackenzie from The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie.