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Meet the Author: Monica McInerney
Australian-born Monica McInerney is the author of the best-selling novels The Faraday Girls, Family Baggage, The Alphabet Sisters, Spin the Bottle, Upside Down Inside Out and A Taste for It, published internationally and in translation. Her articles and short stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines and anthologies in Australia and Ireland.
In 2006, Monica was the main ambassador for the Australian Government's Books Alive national reading campaign, for which she wrote a limited edition novella called Odd One Out.
Monica, 42, grew up in a family of seven children in the Clare Valley wine region of South Australia, where her father was the railway stationmaster and her mother worked in the local library. Since then Monica has lived all around Australia (in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart) in Ireland (in County Meath and Dublin) and in London and also travelled widely.
She was a book publicist for ten years, working in Ireland and Australia and promoting authors such as Roald Dahl, Tim Winton, Edna O'Brien and Max Fatchen and events such as the Dublin International Writers' Festival.
She has also worked as an event manager and organiser of tourism festivals in the Clare Valley; as a freelance writer/editor and in arts marketing in South Australia; a public relations consultant in Tasmania; a record company press officer in Sydney; a barmaid in an Irish music pub in London and as a temp, grapepicker, hotel cleaner, kindergym instructor and waitress. Her first job out of school as a 17-year-old was as wardrobe girl (and later scriptwriter) for the children's TV show Here's Humphrey at Channel 9 in Adelaide. She is now a full-time writer.
For the past sixteen years she and her Irish husband have been moving back and forth between Australia and Ireland. They currently live in Dublin.
Q&A with Monica McInerney
Q: How did you get the idea to write your first novel, A Taste For It?
A: I grew up in the Clare Valley of South Australia, a beautiful winegrowing area originally founded by Irish settlers. I'd had a longtime dream to open an Irish themed winery-café, serving food and the wine that my brother made, and I'd gone so far as to find an old stone cottage that would make the perfect venue. I soon realized I didn't have the right business background to make it happen, but the idea stayed with me - and became the plot of my first novel, which is about a woman in the Clare Valley who runs a winery café and sells her brother's wine… I discovered the wonder of writing fiction - you can make anything happen in your imagination and on the page.
Q: You grew up in a large family, did that inspire the families in your novels at all?
A: I'm sure it did, and my own experiences continue to feed into my novels. I am very careful not to use my own family stories, but I draw on my own emotional history. Families are the greatest sources of life experience - love, hope, sadness, fun, jealousy, grief, disappointment and loyalty.
Q: Do you have a writing routine, or do you write as you're inspired?
A: I'm very disciplined, and I'm sure that comes from having worked in the 'real world' for many years before I began writing full-time. I've written a book a year for the past seven years and I need as many hours of the day as I can find. I start early in the morning, aiming to write at least 2000 words a day, though as the story takes off I find I often write twice as much as that. I write best in the morning and then spend the afternoon revising and researching.
Q: Could you ever see yourself writing anything other than fiction?
A: I've written quite a few non-fiction articles in recent times - memoir pieces and travel stories - and I've enjoyed doing that very much. I've also had an idea for a children's novel, I'd love to co-write a TV series and my husband and I have the beginnings of an idea for a stage play…
Q: What is something your readers would be surprised to know about you?
A: I once worked as a kindergym instructor. It basically involved dragging lots of climbing equipment out of a cupboard, trying not to panic as 20 three-year-olds clambered all over it, then putting all the equipment back in the cupboard. I didn't last very long.
Q: Do you have a favorite book or author? What kinds of books do you read for enjoyment?
A: I have about a hundred favourite books and authors. I'm a voracious reader, and have been since I was a child. I began with Enid Blyton, then moved on to John Wyndham (who wrote The Day of the Triffids) and now I read from every genre, averaging three books a week. My favourite novels include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carre, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani. I have a pile of books beside my bed, including comfort reads like Rosamunde Pilcher's novels, classics like The Railway Children, funny and wise stories like the Lake Wobegon tales by Garrison Keillor…
Q: If you were to give a fledgling writer some advice, what would that be?
A: Read, read, read. It's the best way to learn how to tell a story.
Q: If you could have lunch with anyone, past or present, who would it be, and why?
A: I'd like to be invisible while my mother Mary, my grandmother Maude and my Irish great-grandmother Mary had lunch together, talking, laughing and swapping stories. Families fascinate me, my own especially!
Interview Date: January 2008
Profile and questions compiled by Jessica B., Morrison Regional Library
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