He points out there’s nothing wrong with ‘realism’ as a form but that it is just a form. I like what Emmett Stinson says about this, that mainstream AusLit is very conservative in a formal sense though the history of Australian literature isn’t. In Australia, the boundaries of what is considered literary seem more tightly cordoned around a very particular kind of realism than in the US, UK or Europe.
Covers are tricky as publishing wisdom says you can’t do covers that appeal to both men and women. You’d hope all those things would intrigue men and women both. I write about subjects seen sometimes more as the province of male writers and others that are seen as interesting to female writers and readers, such as motherhood, fatherhood, technology, sex, nature, science, love, children, politics, the sublime. Having said that, some of my most generous supporters have been among my male readers so when they come on board, wow do they ever and I’m grateful for that. Men often seem to really grasp what I write so I hope my work isn’t less visible to them because I’m a woman though I can think of some instances where it’s been the case. Someone said that they saw Hostile Takeover, for example, as a European type of story, which was interesting. It does affect me, especially because of the kind of writing I do, but it’s hard to tease out all that means succinctly. The Carmel Bird Long Story Award was open to women writers only – how does the fact that you are a woman writing in contemporary Australia impact on you and your writing?
I like that it allows for a story arc and the exploration of at least one idea. What do you like about the long story form? The words scribbled on the vault door struck me and I used some of them. The other inspiration was a café I visited in northern NSW that had once been a bank. Of course many of our policy discussions revolved around funding, appropriate levels of government debt and so on, so you can see how that drives the story. This was despite the fact Treasury was the only agency that could stand up to us. This tactic was effective: I remember a Treasury official admitting after a meeting how insignificant our offices made him feel. We would make bureaucrats from other agencies meet us there so that they were pressured by the evidence of power that those views conveyed. Our status displays were blunt our offices were just below the Premier’s in Governor Macquarie Tower and we had stunning views over the city and harbour. It was a unique and intensely hierarchical workplace and I wanted to capture the sense of intrigue and behind-the-scenes machinations before my deep understanding of it faded. I’d been working in the NSW Cabinet Office, which provided policy advice to the Premier.
Claire Corbett author of Hostile Takeover What inspired you to write this story?
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