Firstly, how did you
come to be interested in all things Italian? My introduction to Italy
How lucky that an Italian teacher came into your life at
such a formative age. But you must have had some inclination in that direction
to have chosen to do his optional extra? Or was he just as incredibly dashing
as ‘Lorenzo Chiarotti’ sounds?
I loved languages and was good at them. I'd have opted for any language that was offered, I think!
My background is Serbian Irish Australian. I was never given
a chance to study Italian at school, though I loved Latin. I was like Byron in
that Italy , and particularly
Venice , was
‘the greenest island in my imagination’ even before seeing the place. (In no
other way am I like Byron, however. In fact, I intensely dislike his poetry,
though his letters are fun – if you like cruelty and exaggeration). When I was
able to travel, Venice
was the first place I went, and I immediately signed an invisible contract for
life.
I learned Italian ‘per
la strada’, as they say. I did start to have private lessons with Ornella
Tarantola from the Italian Bookshop in London ,
but after six weeks I had enough vocabulary to chat about life, Venice , men, clothes and
food. The lessons promptly stopped and we became close friends instead. We
still are. I began to read in Italian, and to speak it regularly. I learned a
great deal more Italian dealing with plumbers, librarians and books in the
Marciana library. Then I had to give a couple of lectures in Italian when I was
trying to save the column
of infamy of Bajamonte Tiepolo, the villain of my first two children’s
novels, from the dusty room in the Palazzo Ducale where it still lies … sadly. And
when The Undrowned Child was
published in Italian, I had to present it to a conference of booksellers. I’m
still learning all the time, and speaking it every day.
I really enjoyed
reading The Fate in the Box (as did my eldest daughter - 14 - who fancied it
after seeing me with it!). One of the things I found most intriguing was all
the automata. I love the idea that automating everything made people lazy and
unable to do things for themselves any more - a great form of social control!
But I really wanted to ask where that initial spark of an idea came from. Were
you consciously thinking of a way to mirror our computerised world without
using computers as such? Was it a steampunky thing?
I am so glad you enjoyed The
Fate and thank you for the lovely review.
I’m a little unsure about Steampunk, and had to get my
god-daughter to explain it to me, at least in fashion terms. As far as I
understand it, I am proto-Steampunking in the book.
So it was not a race to join a genre that inspired The Fate. I was thinking about how
little we use our bodies these days, except in order to beautify and display
them, and about how idleness has become prized as something in which the spoilt
and rich can indulge. Some people pamper themselves in passive ways – massages,
facials, spas. Most of all, the rich have the luxury of time, as well as
financial wealth.
But all that idleness always costs someone ... whether it is
a child working in a dangerous factory in Pakistan
to create a designer spa dressing gown or a subsistence farmer in Morocco
grinding Argan nuts for oil. And somehow all the pleasure seems to accumulate
at the top of the pyramid, with very little down below, where the work is done.
I wanted to remind young readers that luxury always costs
more than money and frequently costs human misery. So I personified that issue in
my child characters: Amneris, Tockle and Biri are respectively poor, very poor
and starving. Meanwhile Latenia and her brother Maffeo are rich. Yet all their
privileges and treats only partially hide the fact that their father does not
care about them except as pawns in his ambitious games. Meanwhile Latenia and
Maffeo are indulged with revolving cake stands and mechanical toys.
The automata of The
Fate in the Box are meant to be both a little menacing and a little
ridiculous. The need to wind them up creates a slave race of Winder Uppers. And
my young characters soon realize that they must liberate the slaves in order to
make Venice a
decent place again.
I've read and enjoyed
others of your books (must read your adult novels!) and always appreciate the
historical notes you include in the children's books. I think they add a lot to
our enjoyment of the book, and it's natural to be curious about the reality
behind the story after reading. But which comes first for you: the history you
want to include, or the plot?
I am so glad you like the historical notes. I do them in all
my novels and I’ve only ever had one person sneer about it in a review; mostly
people are happy and interested. I know that schools make use of them too.
History is a starting point for me, but more of a
springboard than anything as I write historical fantasy. I usually find an idea
that intrigues me, and it always comes from real history. Just now, for
example, I have discovered that there several eminent and talented parrots
living on the Grand Canal in the late
nineteenth century, and I do see the beginnings of a possible story in that.
The children’s book I am currently writing was partly inspired by the Treasures
of Heaven exhibition of saintly relics at the British Museum
But an idea is not enough. Then I have to hear a voice in my
head. A little personality starts reaching into the historical setting,
burrowing around and finding a place for itself. Then it finds a problem – for
without problems there would be no drama and without drama, nothing more than
pageantry. And that personality that acquires accoutrements that mean it
belongs to the only person who can possibly disentangle the knotted network of
catastrophe I have carefully constructed to entrap all the characters.
Place is also hugely important in my writing. Venice is always a
character in my books. Venice
is special for me. Well, she’s special for everyone, but my whole writing life
is invested in her. I always write about her, and my entire lifetime will be
too short to explore all the stories she offers me. And of course I have spent
many years restoring a gothic building there, so I am invested in all sorts of
other ways too. I’ve always had a thing
about living in a house with a name rather than a number, and Venice offers lots of joy in that department
too. My forthcoming adult novel is set in a palazzo that rejoices in the name
Ca’ Coccina Tiepolo Papadopoli. When I went there to write it, it was the week
before the builders moved in. Two years later, it has now been restored as a
luxury hotel, with my character’s bedroom heavily featured on the website,
which feels odd.
Rather horribly, I tend to judge people by their sensitivity
to Venice .
There are people who truly are Venice-blind, who don’t see anything special in
the place, who say that she isn’t very different to Manchester . Or they complain that the
Venetians are not very friendly, or that their city has a strange smell. If you
were part of a population of 59000 and shrinking, and you were invaded by 22
million tourists annually, some of them bellowing at you in their language –
might you not be a little withdrawn? And of course Venice smells. She is an urban seaside, an
antique port. She smells of the past, of salt, of seaweed, of crabs, of wet
stone. She smells delicious!
As my blog readers
may know, I write educational textbooks and teaching resources as well as
working on some fiction projects. So for me, it's quite obvious how my career
as a teacher has led me into writing (or at least publishing - writing's always
there). What about you? How do the various pieces of your career(s) slot
together? I know you worked in publishing before (I loved your blog post on window displays for your books), but what led
you to pool all your interests and specialisms into writing?
Yes, I know several teachers who have found their way into
writing and publishing. The urge to share information is common to writers and
teachers, and when one speaks of children, then there must also be the urge
infuse joy and fun into that process.
It is only in the last three years that I have learned that
I like teaching! At least I love teaching one-to-one. I have been teaching
writing skills to art history students at the Courtauld, as one of the Royal
Literary Fund Fellows. Until then, I had no idea that I would enjoy it so much.
From childhood, I was always in a hurry to write, edit,
arrange and generally deal with the written word. I wrote and illustrated my
first picture book at twelve.
I first trained as a journalist. Then I worked in
publishing. I have done just about everything in publishing except sell an
actual book: editorial, design, production, foreign rights. Finally, I became a
packager, which means coming up with ideas for books, selling them to
publishers and then researching, writing, designing and producing them. But all
along I wanted to write fiction. I wrote poetry, and made endless notes for the
novel I would one day find the time to write. My packaging business was a seven
day a week commitment, with many late nights too, so the novel never seemed
about to happen. But finally one of my packaged books became a New York Times bestseller. I was in New York , doing
publicity for Love Letters an Anthology
of Passion, when my publisher dropped the newspaper in my lap. As soon as I
saw my listing, I knew my life could change, and I decided that it would change
in the way in which I wanted … so I took two months off work and wrote my first
novel, Carnevale. I’m now writing my
tenth novel, another one for children …
Thank you so much for
your time in answering my questions.
Thank you so much for asking me!
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