Jessica Shirvington lives in Sydney with her husband of ten years, FOXTEL presenter and former Olympic sprinter Matt Shirvington, and their two daughters. She has previously founded and run a coffee distribution company, Stella Imports, in London, and been involved in managing the restaurants Fuel Bistro, Tow Bar and MG Garage in Sydney.

She is currently a full-time mum, author and co-director in the company MPS Investments Pty Ltd.

1. Firstly thank you so much for stopping by to say hi to all of us here at Burn Bright. Embrace has recently been released into the international market (congrats!) and Entice is also on its way to foreign shores. For readers who haven’t yet met Violet how would you best describe her?

Hi! Thanks so much for having me as a guest. Violet is strong, but flawed. She is just about to celebrate her 17^th birthday at the beginning on Embrace and she is struggling to hold a tight control over her life. She has a difficult past and it is very important to her to be strong and not to have to rely on other people. The problem is, that makes everything ten times worse when she discovers one of the few people she has allowed herself to get close to has actually lied to her and let her down. Ultimately, Violet is a fighter, even if she has to reach that conclusion whilst kicking and screaming! J

2. Throughout the series you have constantly kept me on my toes with each shock revelation and cliff-hanger ending. Have you ever surprised yourself by what direction her journey has taken?

Yes, my characters and the direction they steer the story constantly surprises me. I think as a writer the best thing you can do, is create characters that take on a life of their own and then it is our job to give them direction whilst allowing for their personality to shift the way they get there. In Entice especially, a few of the scenes were quite a surprise for me.

3. You’re currently working on book 4 in the series and I’m certainly on tenterhooks waiting to see what happens next. Is there a release date set and will there be more in Violet’s story to come?

The release will be in September, as far as I am aware. The final date is still to be announced. As for if there is more, I would like to think so. For me, I have always hoped that there will be a total of 6 books in the series, but we’ll see. Definitely if it continues on after book 4, it will take a slightly new approach and, as an author, I’m very excited about the potential.

4. Which of your fictional characters burns brightest in your mind and why?

Of my own characters, I think it would be Phoenix. He is so tormented and such a tormentor of others. He is one of those characters that you just want to fix, but at the same time, never want to change…

Ambelin Kwaymullina loves reading sci-fi/fantasy books, and has wanted to write a novel since she was six years old. She comes from the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. When not writing or reading she teaches law, illustrates picture books, and hangs out with her dogs. She has previously written a number of children’s books, both alone and with other members of her family. The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf is her first novel.

1.    Your first novel, The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (The Tribe #1) was released this year. Prior to that, you wrote and illustrated a number of acclaimed children’s books. What prompted your shift to YA fiction, and the novel format, and which do you most enjoy writing?

I suppose I don’t really think of moving to YA fiction as being a shift, because I have wanted to write a novel since I was six years old, it just took a while to get there! I’m not sure I could even say I enjoyed much of the writing process for the novel, because it involved a lot of long, long nights and thousands of cups of coffee – I did actually wonder if I should thank my coffee machine in the acknowledgements section of the book. But I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. In many ways writing a novel is a lonely process, but in others I was never alone. I was with Ashala – sharing her experiences as she fought to escape the detention centre and protect her Tribe from the government. It was often a shock to look up from the computer screen and see the furniture of my lounge room instead of the crisp white walls of the detention centre, or the tuart trees of the Firstwood.

2.   Ambelin, you get to showcase two creative talents, as a writer and illustrator. Which interest came first and what are your earliest memories of engaging in creative activity?

My earliest memories are of writing. Art came later, in my teens. I wrote stories from a very young age, and they tended to fall into one of two categories – either fantasy stories, or stories based on the antics of my brothers. My little brothers were pretty much always up to something, so there was never a shortage of things to write about.  The behavior of one character in The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf in particular is influenced by the kinds of tricks my brothers liked to play when they were young. I think anyone who’s ever had a totally irrepressible younger sibling will probably identify with the character of Jaz.

3.   What were some of your favourite stories growing up, and how do you think they have influenced your writing?

I loved any story where people travelled to, or lived in, another world – so picture books like Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, fantasy stories by Tamora Pierce and, later, the post-apocalyptic Obernewtyn series by Isobelle Carmody.

I always knew I wanted to write about other worlds too, about the possibilities of different realities, different futures. What has always really inspired me about speculative fiction is the way that it explores problems we have in this world and brings us face to face with the great failings and the great promise of humanity, even though it’s set in times and places so far removed from ours (or perhaps not so far removed!).  Ashala is a sixteen year old girl who has to deal with the systemic discrimination of a society that views people with abilities as a threat. Although there’s nowhere in the ‘real’ world where people get locked away for having abilities (at least not as far as I know), Ashala is far from the only teenager ever to experience injustice or discrimination. Ashala fights against her oppressors and eventually triumphs over them, and I like to think that we could all eventually triumph over injustice too, in whatever form or time or place it exists.

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

I love them all – but it is Ashala who I feel the closest to. The story is told from her perspective, and she’s the one whose voice guided the story, and whose thoughts and feelings I experienced the most as I was piecing the narrative together. It’s hard not to feel close to someone when you’ve stood by their side at some of the worst and the best moments of their life, when you’ve felt their pain and their joy. The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf is very much Ashala’s story. I just got to tell it, as best as I possibly could.

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.

Juliet Marillier’s novels combine historical fiction, folkloric fantasy, romance and family drama. The strong elements of history and folklore in her work reflect her lifelong interest in both fields. However, her stories focus strongly on human relationships and the personal journeys of the characters. Juliet is a member of the druid order OBOD (The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) and her spiritual values are often reflected in her storytelling – the human characters’ relationship with the natural world plays a significant part.

As well as her books for adult readers, Juliet has written three novels for young adults and has contributed short fiction to several anthologies. She is a regular contributor to genre writing blog Writer Unboxed, where she posts on the first Thursday of the month.

1. Shadowfell, the first book of your new trilogy, has just been released and is already getting great reviews. Congratulations. You’ve described it as a ‘dark, gritty story’. Can you tell us about the central character, Neryn?

Neryn is fifteen when the story begins. She’s alone and destitute, living rough in the forested hills of Alban (think a magical version of ancient Scotland) and running from the king’s Enforcers. And she’s hiding a perilous secret; she has the ability to see and hear the Good Folk, the fey inhabitants of Alban, but any interaction with uncanny people is forbidden by the king’s harsh laws. We meet Neryn at her weakest; she has lost her entire family and has nowhere to turn. Or so it seems, until she remembers the name Shadowfell – a mysterious place where there may just possibly be people prepared to band together and fight for freedom.

Neryn has some strengths she hardly knows about, but as the story progresses she learns how important they could be. Along the way she’s both helped and hindered by the Good Folk and by a mysterious stranger, Flint, who may be friend or enemy. The hardest thing for Neryn, who has grown up in a place where everyone lives in fear, is learning how to trust.

2. Folklore, fairy tales, and mythology influence your writing. Can you tell us some of your favourites and why you love them so much?

Traditional stories have so much to teach us – back in the days of storytelling around the fire, they were used to help people make sense of their world and live their lives well, so they deal with all the major life challenges, from falling in love to getting in trouble of various kinds, learning who you can trust, dealing with monsters, either the ogre/dragon/ troll kind or the kind we meet these days. How to cope with being the youngest sibling; how to break free of people who want to control your life. Everything. And they’re still just as relevant, even though we live in a high-tech, fast-moving world, because the qualities they deal with – love, courage, faith, loyalty, friendship, patience – are still things we need to learn.

I have lots of favourites. What they have in common is a strong female character in the centre, someone who makes her own choices and fights her own battles. In The Six Swans, which I used as the basis of my first novel, Daughter of the Forest, the central character wins her brothers back their human form by knitting shirts from a prickly plant and remaining silent under terrible duress. I love Beauty and the Beast, even though in the old versions Beauty is a character at the mercy of other people’s poor decisions. But I do like a great love story, and this is one of the most romantic.

In my take on the story, a novel called Heart’s Blood, I gave the Beauty character far more freedom of choice and as a result she is both more and less heroic – she makes a heap of mistakes and in her way is as flawed as the Beast character. That’s a great thing about traditional stories: they are always being reworked, changing and evolving. Other favourites: Vasilissa the Wise, which has an almost all-female cast including the wonderful witch Baba Yaga; East of the Sun and West of the Moon, in which the heroine undertakes a gruelling quest to get her man back.

3. Juliet, you’ve written several books since your first work, Daughter of the Forest, in 1999. How have you changed and evolved, as an author, and has  your writing practice changed significantly.

Daughter of the Forest was written as personal therapy as much as anything – I only decided to submit it for publication when it was all finished. These days I write full time and make a living at it, and there are always deadlines to meet. I’ve worked pretty hard on developing my writer’s craft over the fourteen books I’ve written since then, and I’m far more conscious of what I’m doing technically these days. So it does annoy me a bit when some readers tell me that first book was my best!

The influence of traditional stories is certainly present in every one of my books, though only three of my novels are actually based on fairy tales. My writing style owes something to oral storytelling, as well as to my background in music – I’m very aware of rhythm, balance and flow, and how things sound when read aloud. Characters – their development and interaction – are more important to me both as a reader and as a writer than elements such as world-building and magic. Anything I write is going to be built around the emotional journey of the main character(s). In more recent times my stories have become a bit darker; that may relate to my serious illness in 2009, or it may be more a reflection of my changing reading tastes!

Writing practice – that is relatively unchanged. I’ve always been a control freak, so I fit in a lot of work, always meet my deadlines and do similar hours every day, even though I work from home and am my own boss. Though probably one of my dogs is the real boss. I have four of them, all rescues, and my working day is structured around their schedule which includes a lot of walks. Dogs are good for a writer – they make sure you rest your eyes and take exercise instead of sitting at the keyboard all day.

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

It’s usually the character I am currently focussed on in my writing. So right now it’s a character named Tali, who shares the lead role in Raven Flight, the sequel to Shadowfell. I thought I’d never write a warrior woman character, because there have been a lot of them in fantasy recently. Think Buffy and Xena first, followed by a long line of ballsy female protagonists in fantasy novels.

Writers were reacting to the cliché passive princess or wicked witch/stepmother characters of earlier fantasies. I love powerful female characters, but I’ve never thought they need to perform traditionally male roles in order to be strong individuals, so many of my women are both feminine and strong. But this story required a female fighter. Tali is one of the rebels at Shadowfell. She’s the master-at-arms who trains everyone in combat skills, and is a character with great outward strength and some secrets that emerge as the story develops. One of my favourite characters ever, and a fine example of burning bright with selfless courage, not to speak of an enviable level of physical fitness! And she has cool tatts.

Paula Weston is a Brisbane-based author and co-owner of a two-woman writing/design consultancy. She is an avid reader and blogger, a huge fan of Australian literature andfantasy/paranormal stories, a closet comic reader and TV addict and is borderline obsessed with the Foo Fighters. She and her husband share their home with a retired greyhound and a moody cockatiel. Shadows, the first book in the Rephaim series, is her debut novel.

1. Congratulations on the release of Shadows (Rephaim Book 1). This series centres on ‘love, nightmares, angels, & war’. Paula, what was the inspiration behind this theme and what interests you most about creatures from other worlds?

Thank you. The initial idea for Shadows sprang from my interest in exploring the relationship between a girl and guy with a complicated history that only he remembers. I knew there were paranormal elements in how she had lost her memory, and that the two of them were part of a conflict in a much bigger context. As I researched ideas, I realised the best fit for my story was the fallen angel myth. And then as I fleshed out the plot, the themes of ‘love, nightmares, angels and war’ naturally arose.

With creatures from other worlds there are fantastic possibilities of where you can take a story – as well as challenges to make the world you create believable and engaging. But in the end, the paranormal, fantasy, sci fi or dystopian elements only form the broader the context; the thing that will hook and keep readers is the characters and their journeys.

2. Do you believe in angels, and which of the angels from ‘traditional’ lore intrigue you the most?

That’s a deceptively profound question! My thoughts on angels are based on traditional Judeo-Christian concepts (of which warrior angels play a role). When I started researching fallen angel lore, I found the story about Semyaza and the two hundred in the Book of Enoch.

It’s a real document that was considered – and rejected – for inclusion in the official Christian canon. Regardless of whether or not the account of fallen angels is true, it’s a fascinating premise for a story. Why did this group of angels feel so strongly about human women they were prepared to fall from heaven to be with them? Would they regret the decision? How would they feel about any offspring from those relationships? What would happen if they got their freedom back? What would be the consequences of being a child of the Fallen? Fertile ground for a story!

3. What initially attracted you to YA fiction and to what do you attribute your ability to create stories for young adults (not that, as we know, they are read strictly by this demographic).

Interestingly, I didn’t set out to write a YA novel, but was very comfortable when Text Publishing felt the Rephaim series was YA. I read eclectically, but some of my favourite books and writers are YA. I think some of the most creative and innovative writing is happening in YA, where there is often greater freedom to push boundaries and tackle sensitive topics.

As a young adult, I had a wide range of experiences (read: misspent youth), and vividly remember the emotional ups and downs of that time of my life:  the confusion, the freedom, the frustration, the anger and the heartbreak. It’s very easy to slip back into that mindset when writing – and obviously I did just that on a sub-conscious level when I wrote Shadows. 🙂

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

It would be easy to say Gaby because Shadows is told through her eyes, but in truth it’s Rafa. He’s fun to write, but he’s also complex and on a very interesting journey, knowing what he does about his history with Gaby and not being sure how to deal with it – or her. He’s got one of the strongest character arcs in the series, and I’m looking forward to how it unfolds.