Joy Dettman, author of Henry’s Daughter (Pan Macmillan) the Great Read in the July issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Part family saga, part darkly funny fairy-tale that has everything – tragedy, a gorgeous, dusty Australian country town setting, audaciousness, power, life, secrets, heart and one of fiction’s most wicked mothers, although by the end, you understand and forgive her. A magnificent accomplishment by a very gifted Australian writer, whose previous books include Mallawindy and Jacaranda Blue.

**Q I haven’t read any of your other books, but you seem drawn to family dramas set in the country?

A** I have four children and until 1998, when required to state my occupation I normally wrote wife and mother – so that’s my experience. And obviously I draw from families. Although mine wasn’t quite as sad as Henry’s.

**Q Henry’s is an outrageously dysfunctional family isn’t it?

A** Yes I really let my head go there. It’s the greatest fun I’ve had writing a book and I really enjoyed writing this one.

**Q Even though Mavis is a shocking mother, she somehow doesn’t depress you?

A** She evolved and became as bad as I required her to be and perhaps I pulled back from letting her go a bit over the top. I start off with an idea and the characters evolve from there.

**Q Was it the idea of a flawed mother that you started with?

A** It began with the children I think and we required a particular type of father so I decided to strike him out of balance with Mavis. I find the characters, put a bit of thought about what they’re going to be like before I begin, and so I have an idea of them in my head before I put them on paper and I know where they’re going. I always know where I’m heading so it’s just a case of letting them run amok until I get there.

**Q The story’s told through the eyes of Lori an adolescent who looks after the family when everything goes wrong – do you think this often happens in real life?

A** I definitely do, I think that a lot of children with dysfunctional parents can and do step in and fill that void.

**Q I loved the twins in the book – do you have any in your family?

A** No, but I lean towards twins, they’ve always intrigued me, especially identical twins. I knew a pair at school and it amazed me, I could never tell them apart. I became a little obsessed with them, I think.

**Q Do twins feature in any of your other books?

A** Yes, in Mallawindy.

**Q I’ve read that a creative writing course you did turned things around for you?

A** Oh, this creative writing course has been blown out of all proportion. What really happened is this: My husband and I inherited his family’s home in Echuca. And we decided we’d go up there for 12 months and renovate the old place before selling it so we commuted for that year. While I was up there I found all these old newspapers underneath the lino of the laundry. It took me back years and years and I remembered bits and pieces I’d read in them. Mallawindy came out of that. I wrote it very, very quickly. The very rough first draft took me about seven weeks. I was a closet writer and my younger sister was the only one who’d always read what I wrote. She read Mallawindy and was very positive about it. ‘Write it again,’ she said. But nothing I’d ever done had had a second draft. Anyhow, we returned to Echuca and fate stepped in. There was a writers workshop on so I decided I’d go along and I read some of my work for the very first time to strangers. That’s about the only impact that creative writing course had on my life. It clawed me out of the closet. O got a very good response so I thought I’d do a second draft and I did a third and I probably did a sixth too. It w as written initially in 1989 and it took 10 years until 1998 before it was published.

**Q So it became an obsession?

A** Yes, a huge obsession.

**Q Did the murder mystery of Mallawindy come from a case you read in the old newspapers?

A** There were probably lots of murders – they were the stories I concentrated on. There always seems to be a child in my writing. I don’t know why. Spent too much time with kids perhaps.

**Q You grew up and were born in Echuca?

A** Yes it’s a very go-ahead place these days. Every time I go there, there’s some new building going on. Spent half my childhood swimming back and across that river (Murray).

**Q The town in Henry’s Daughter is a river town, so there are echoes of Echuca?

A** All my towns are fictional but obviously rivers have played a huge part in my life. I suppose I visualise the Murray, I don’t know.

**Q What was your childhood like there.

A** Very average. I’m one of seven so I come from a big family and lived in a couple of country towns when I was a child. Dad was a bit of a Jack of all trades, he tried everything, I remember(laughing) he was burning charcoal and he had God knows how many of these great kilns making charcoal for some company in Melbourne. He’d come home(laughing) black. My Mum was just a typical Mum for those days – stayed at home. She was always there when we came home from school and was a great pastry and cake cook. But she used to make the most tasteless gravy I ever had(laughing)!

**Q And you had a fun childhood?

A** When you‘ve got that many brothers and sisters you run pretty much wild. We had about 5 acres out of town. And walked to school each day. But we had total freedom, only came home to eat and sleep. We chased butterflies and went yabbying.

**Q Sounds idyllic.

A** When you look back on it, yes, it’s a freedom that kids can’t possibly know these days. Dad was just a working man, so we weren’t rich and I wore my hand-me-downs from my two big sisters and rarely got a new dress. But it was a good life.

**Q Where did you come in the family.

A** I’m the middle man. I often used to describe it as the middle position in the family because you’re never big enough to be of much use in the kitchen and you’re too big to be under foot. I headed very early for fiction. I lived in books.

**Q So that was a start of your love of reading and writing?

A** I wrote my first collection of fairytales when I was around about 10 years old for my little sister. She moved into my bedroom when she was about 3 years old and every night she wanted the passage light left on and I wanted it turned off. If I crept out and put it off, even if she was asleep, she would wake up and scream. So I’d cop a bellow from across the passage. I began to bribe her. ‘You let me turn the light out and I’ll tell you a story.’ She became selective and an insomniac. They were the seeds of it all and that’s why she’s read absolutely everything I’ve ever written.

**Q So your sister is the first person to read your manuscripts?

A** Yes she’s very honest. I dedicated my first novel to Cheryl. She LOVED Henry’s Daughter. She and my daughters now are my early readers. And they all loved it, I felt quite good about it.

**Q It’s a very moving story, disturbing in parts but there’s a tremendous spirit that runs through it?

A** Yes, it’s not what you’d call a black tale even though some of the happenings in it are extremely dark. I think the children treat things rather lightly or give the impression they do.

**Q Would you call it a family saga?

A** I told my sister I was writing my black comedy – it’s certainly not a comedy but I’ve attempted to add a little bit of darker humorous lines along the way.

**Q You have four children – can I have their names and ages?

A** I’m not giving their ages.

**Q And I have to ask about your age as well?

A** You’re not going to get it out of me. Sorry. I’m old enough to have four children in their thirties. I met Don when I was 17 and married him when I was 19. My first daughter was born before my 21st birthday. I was 25 when I had my third and we adopted our boy because two of our children were born deaf, and we had moved to Melbourne by then from the country and we wanted a son, so we adopted our Ross. So there’s Donna, Shani, Karli and Ross.

**Q Are you a grandmother yet?

A** I have five and three quarters. My first two daughters have two each and my youngest daughter is expecting her second in late May.

**Q You’ve not had it easy as a parent with two children born deaf?

A** No, I suppose there’s a decade in my life I look back on and it’s a blur. I don’t look back on it very often and they’ve both done extremely well and they’re both oral.

**Q That means that you and your husband helped them realise their potential and saw to it that they had opportunities?

A** We attempted to teach them that there was nothing in the world they couldn’t do.

**Q Were doctors ever able to explain why it happened?

A** They were never able to give us an answer only that it must be genetic and the fact that we had two, meant we had to assume somewhere in the distant past there must have been deafness in the family. But we really have no idea. Q You married young, what were you doing at 17 when you met your husband?

A Selling men’s clothing in a big emporium in Echuca called Carters. It’s still there I think, one of the sons runs the place.

**Q What does your husband Don, do for a living?

A** Don has retired, before that he was with the RACV for 20 years on the technical side. He’s very helpful when I’m writing about cars.

**Q Describe your home office?

A** I have a narrow pathway leading to my computer through this incredible chaos and I dare not clean it up and toss anything out because I invariably toss out something that I am going to look for later. Till it turns yellow and starts to curl at the toes. It’s a black hole – I don’t ever open up the blinds in there because the light shines on my computer and I like dark holes.

**Q As well as all those years working as a mother and wife, did you take on other jobs?

A** I’ve done a couple of part-time jobs and when my youngest, my son, finally went off to school I worked as a receptionist for a time and I went back to my old trade selling fabrics at Lincraft. That was for about five years. Q You’re a full time writer now?

A Yes, have been for about five years. I was always writing constantly but making little cash out of it. Had quite a few short stories published. And I had a couple of plays performed prior to ’98. Won quite a few writing competitions but it wasn’t until 1998 that I was able to say that writing was my full time occupation. Since then I’ve attempted to churn out a book every year. Which one of these days I’m going to have to stop doing or else my neck will give way.

**Q It must have been a huge thrill to get that first book published after waiting ten years?

A** It was unbelievable to hold that first published book in my hand – indescribable.I remember receiving the box of free copies, ripping it open , breaking my nails as I ripped it, then being hardly brave enough to touch one. It had been such a long battle and many, many times I had just about given up on it. ’Stop wasting your time, go out and get a paying job,’ I’d say to myself. The greatest highlight was the day I ran into the local K-Mart and I saw one of my books picked up from the pile and I stood there mesmerised – what was she going to do? And then she walked off to the cash register. Oh my God, the end result of my labour.

**Q Would your parents be surprised to know they have a published author in the family?

A** No, I wish my Mum was alive because she would be just SO over the moon. She was a reader too and I imagine she would have been very proud. My Dad, is still alive but I recall when I gave him a copy and I think he looked at all the bad language in it and he said, ‘why can’ you write something decent?” (laughing). But he was very proud and has said so since. Until I had my first story published, I don’t think Don really took it seriously. I think he thought ‘give her enough time to get this writing bug out of her system.’ (laughing). But I suppose when the kids started growing up I was still young enough to do something…to do what I’d wanted to do with my life rather than just raising kids. I put my whole self into it and refused to give up.

**Q What year it was when you had your first story published?

A** 1993. It was an anthology published in New Zealand by Random House. I had heard about them looking for stories on food. I had pretty much given up on having Mallawindy published by that stage. So I chopped it up for short stories. And I whipped out this chapter about Malcolm Fletcher, who’s this big guy who loves his food, cut it a bit, posted it and they replied they’d like to publish it and they actually PAID me for it.

**Q What led to your breakthrough with Mallawindy?

A** I tried on three occasions to secure the services of an agent but they were not interested until I had the publisher’s contract in my hand. And so I decided okay, after I’d won a certain amount of competitions and had a certain amount published, I compiled a resume and wrote to four of the biggest publishing houses in Australia, including a thumb-nail synopsis of Mallawindy and Jacaranda Blue, which was then a work in progress and I heard back from Random House about a week later. Six weeks later I heard from Pan Macmillan. So those two novels more or less toddled between the two publishers for around about 12 months while I continued to work on them. Finally Macmillan rang me to say they wanted my book.

**Q Did you celebrate?

A** I’d been out with my daughter and granddaughter – I saw this yellowed envelope hanging out of my letterbox and it was an express paid envelope and I knew in my heart what it was and I remember grabbing my daughter and grand-daughter and dancing up and down the driveway (laughing). Then I went out and had the letter laminated and stuck it on the office wall. It’s still there.

**Q Your story says never give up, doesn’t it?

A** It does if you want something and you hang out for it for long enough – and continue to learn along the way. Don’t settle for what you wrote 10 years ago and say that’s good enough – you have to keep on improving. The first novel is an apprenticeship and you must treat it as such. It’s a learning curve. We learn so much from that first novel. Mallawindy was originally almost twice the size it ended up. I just kept cutting. I suppose I learned from that chapter I sent to New Zealand. Because I had to cut it severely. I had several chapters of the book published as stories and I thought, ‘yes, well, people seem to like the chapters, why don’t publishers like the book?’ It told me that it was over-written and that’s when I began to cut it back to basics.

**Q And that’s when the book emerged?

A** Yes, that’s true, in attempting to impress the Gods of the literary world, rather than write my novel, the story had become a little blurred.

**Q Do you write every day?

A** I write when I feel the urge. I get an idea and it starts to boil and bubble in my head, for months perhaps, before I sit at the computer and then I almost cripple myself writing ridiculous hours every day. I call It a house and I’m taking it to lock-up stage. There’s very little inside, but it’s there and it’s safe and I can come back to it when I’m ready. I’ve got a few of those still on file and one of those days when something moves me to it, then the characters will start to come out of the woodwork and I’ll start to flesh it out.

**Q How many drafts do you do?

A** These days a lot less. I don’t print out the first draft these days until it’s pretty close to what it’s going to end up as. Maybe three all up.

**Q Please complete the following sentence: Joy Dettman loves

A** ….spaghetti bolognese (laughing). Family children, grandchildren of course and my dog, called Footrot (a kelpie/border collie ‘X’).The smartest dog I’ve ever known in my life – and I’ve had a few.

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Louise Limerick is author of Dying For Cake (Pan Macmillan Australia), the Great Read in the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Q You must be thrilled to be having your first book published? A I am – I can’t really believe it is happening. Q I believe your manuscript was picked out of the ‘slush’ pile, so it was a stroke of luck someone read it and you got published? A Someone at Pan Macmillan was telling me they get about a thousand a year. And they take on less than 10. I went about getting published all the wrong way. I had no agent. An unsolicited manuscript and no history of previous publication or of winning any writing prizes or anything like that. Q You are an inspiration then to others? A I hope so. I think it comes down to I always wanted to be a writer. And I always wanted to do this and when you finally get down and do what it is you really wanted to do, what gives you the most joy, then all sorts of possibilities open up to you. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. I wrote my first story at age five and I can remember taking it to school and reading it out to the class. Then when I was about 11 I went through a stage of climbing up onto the pergola roof that was above our courtyard and I’d sit up there and write stories. And poems, where no-one could disturb me. Q Anyone involved in your family in publishing or writing? A No, my eldest sister – I’m the youngest of five children and there’s 18 years difference between my eldest sister and myself – loves reading and she would always give me books for my birthday and Xmas. So she gave me classic books from an early age – Little Women, Seven Little Australians and things like that and I just loved reading and it made me want to tell a story too, one day. I also had a desire to express myself. Because there was such a gap between the other siblings and myself, I was also a bit lonely and I wanted to talk to somebody so I’d write stories and talk to myself. Also, there was an elderly lady who lived next door to us when I was little. She taught me to sing on the piano and also told me lots of stories and would make up stories and we would sit outside on her patio and watch the people going up and down the street and she’d make up stories about them and I would join in that game. She taught me the art of story telling and helped me to live in my imagination. Her name was Dorothy Youlton and I used to call her Aunty Dorrie. She was a wonderful person – she had false teeth and she could click them like a horse. Q After all that you became a teacher and not a writer? A I fell into teaching, I started off in journalism. I did a journalism course but it wasn’t for me because I’m hopeless at spelling and punctuation. And I think my book is written in a very spare style. The editor commented there weren’t many commas and things in my writing – I thought to myself, ‘I actually don’t know how to use them very well!’ (laughing). I kept losing marks for that and I’d go in with a wonderful story and come out with five out of ten. Or less. So then I did Arts, Literature, Psychology, Australian Social History… Q Where at? A University of Queensland and I had a great time. I got a Bachelor of Arts, then Diploma of Education and I’ve also got a Masters of Education in guidance and education. I fell it not teaching and thought maybe I could teach kids how to write and share my love of reading and writing. That was true to an extent but teaching just wasn’t for me. What I really wanted to do was write my own books. The school I was sent too initially was quite a difficult school. Was it a tough school? Yes, it was a poorer school and I had lots of illiterate kids in my class so there was lots of different needs to cater for and I found myself very stretched and by the end of that year I thought ‘I’ll escape and have a baby and then I’ll have time to write.’ But of course that wasn’t really true (laughing). Q What kind of teacher were you? A A secondary high school teacher in English and history and I got married in 1992 – just after I finished university. And then had a baby – my first child – when I was 24. So I was reasonably young. Q And then you had two more? A Yes, Ellen is 8, Peter is 6 and Katie is 14 months old. Q What does your husband, Michael, do for a living? A He is a strategic policy adviser with the Department of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs. He’s a lawyer. Q Writing never happened with the new baby, did it? A No, I thought I’d write while she was sleeping but she didn’t sleep so I had a screaming baby and well, anyway, I gave up my writing for a while and then within 3 years I had another baby and then, after Peter was born I’d just fallen into that whole mothering thing. That was fine but, there was still something I wanted to do just for myself. Michael was very kind, he said I know you’re going crazy just looking after the kids all the time, so you have Saturday morning and I’ll take the kids away. I’ll do something with them and we’ll spend the time together and you do what you want to do. I decided to write. Dying For Cake, the first draft of it was written in nine months of Saturday mornings. So every Saturday morning I’d sit down at my computer and I’d write another chapter. I came up with the title first. I thought, Dying For Cake, that sounds like a really good title. Q That was before you had a plot? A Yes, I thought it expresses the desire to have something more. And I guess that was what I was feeling myself. I came up with the title and then I came up with the first line. I thought, ‘okay.’ Then I wrote the first six chapters and thought, ‘oh, it might be going somewhere.’ So then I decided to draw up a plan, because being an English teacher I knew I had to have a plan, and a climax and resolution. So I gave myself a bit more structure and proceeded to write through to the end. I thought it was finished when I sent it away, but Cate Patterson At Pan Macmillan thought it there was a little bit more to do. She was very kind and willing to take a punt on what was really only half a book, because she loved the book. Before I got a chance to finish it too, I’d become pregnant again with my third baby, and when I’m pregnant I’m so sick all the time I find it very hard to sit down at the computer for long periods, so I got to the climax and basically the book had no resolution and I’d written the last chapter. Q What was your reaction when you received the phone call accepting your book for publication? A I was shaking. Very, very excited. It was a funny thing, in a way I knew she was going to call. Because they’d had the book for six weeks. First I sent them my first six chapters, an outline of the story and a proposal and then they asked for another three chapters. Then they asked for the whole thing, so It was a bit of too-ing and fro-ing and I knew I was gradually going up the ladder. Finally I was actually dealing with the fiction publisher, who is Cate and I thought then, I might be okay. But I hadn’t heard from them in a while. I’d had my baby, she was about 12 weeks old. And I was waiting and I kept checking the post and the answering machine, hoping. I knew it was silly. I kept telling myself ‘why are you doing this to yourself?’ Most people write ten manuscripts before they get published. So…but one day I was really anxious about it and I thought ‘no, I’ll stay at my son’s pre-school and do things around there.’ I stayed longer and longer at pre-school and finally when I got home I listened to the answering machine and Cate’s voice was there saying that she wanted to talk to me about my book. I was shaking and I was too frightened to ring her back, but I did and she told me that she loved my book and wanted to know was if I was going to write any more and would I be open to editing. ‘Yes, of course!” I said. She said she had to go to a meeting where they’d decide whether or not to take my book. I got off the phone and I thought, well, I still don’t really know. I think there was another week of waiting after that. And then it all fell into place. Also she told me I perhaps should get an agent. Funnily enough I had sent my manuscript to the very agent she suggested. She hadn’t got back to me then, but she after that she did, so now I have an agent. The other thing that happened was the night before that phone call I’d been flicking through a book thinking I’ll have to send my book to someone else and I have a big book which has all the publishers in Australia and it had a little excerpt in it by Matthew Reilly who Pan Macmillan also publishes, saying what a great publisher Cate Patterson was and how she’d taken him on. I said to Michael ‘look, this is the person who’s reading my book!’ Q Did you celebrate? A Yes Michael and I went out for dinner, he came home early and he was very, very excited. It’s been his baby too in a way because he’s given me the time to do it and that was what I really needed. Q What gave you the idea to base the story around a group of women who met over coffee every week? A Because it’s something I do, meet other mums over coffee. Locally we have a little café where all the mums seem to end up and if you’ve got small children you drag them along too and you sit down and have a chat. It’s a neutral place and nobody’s home is getting destroyed by the toddlers. It’s just something I do and I thought ‘well, that’s what other women do too.’ And I thought it would be interesting to tell the story from a few different perspectives – I thought, how can I do that? Maybe if they’re all sitting down speaking to you as if you’re having coffee with them, that might be quite nice. I liked writing from each of the perspectives of the women because I found that once I gave them a voice they started to have a life of their own. Q The importance of female friends was central to the book? A Yes, I think women are always here for each other during the day. Also, during the day when we are here with the kids, our husbands are working. And so they come home at 6, 7 o’clock and we might spend a few hours with them, but they’re tired, we’re tired. And I think often the people we speak to about our problems are other women. Because they understand what we’re going through – and they’re there! I think what most people really need is just a good friend. Someone who will listen to them and be there because I think life at home with small children can be lonely. Q The other thing that happens in your book is how a good friend can betray you, too? A (laughing) Oh yes, that character – it was funny because I didn’t intend for her to betray her friend, I just started writing that chapter and I thought, ‘what’s going to happen?” And I thought ‘oh! Yes! They’re going to have an affair (laughing.’ It was unplanned. I think after a while a character takes on its own personality and they seem to direct the plot just as much as you. Q I liked the fact that the women made mistakes, it made the book more accessible and human and meant that their personalities resonated? A I didn’t want to ever create perfect people – and I didn’t want to make them horrible, because they would lose their integrity then. And they would just be stereo-types. Q I liked the way your story shows that not every woman is cracked up to be the perfect mother? A I think that’s true. I didn’t want to denigrate the choices that women make in any way – whatever they choose to do, if they choose to be a mother and they enjoy that, that’s wonderful because it’s a really wonderful thing to do. But if they make other choices for the sake of their happiness then that’s okay too. Because you’ve got to live as the person you are, you can’t try and be what society expects you to be or what you expect yourself to be. Q It was interesting that the archetypal earth-mother in the book, Joanna, is a bit judgemental? A She is, but she comes around at the end. I like her character because I think she grows a lot, becomes a lot stronger. And feels a lot better about herself because she’s enjoying doing something that the other women are not always enjoying or are having difficulty doing. So I think she emerges as quite a strong in the end and also, at the end there’s some sort of sense that she’s taking one of the other characters under her wing. And becoming a friend again. Q What made you use the device of the missing baby in the plot ? A I’d been thinking about post-natal depression and post-natal psychosis and including that in my book because I thought it was important to betray how someone can get very depressed after they have a baby. Things aren’t all perfect and it’s very difficult to be alone with a baby 24 hours a day. Women in that situation often think they can’t look after the baby. Q id you have a friend suffer from PND? A I’ve known people who have had post-natal depression. Yeah. And I think I’ve experienced depression and I’ve experienced elation after having children so I can understand all the different emotions people go through when they’re mothers. Q I also liked Joanna’s pre-occupation with weight and losing it? A When I was writing the book I was going to Weight-watchers. It was after I had my son and I put on a lot of weight and I needed to lose 10 kgs. So that found it’s way into the writing and I love baking cakes. My son has a peanut allergy and so he can’t eat things from bakeries and I have to do a lot of cooking anyway and I just love it and I just love to eat it. There’s nothing better I like than a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a good book. But I’ve learned that you cannot eat cakes 24 hours a day. I was a bit of a cake addict, but now I’m a social cake eater. I never eat cake alone. Q You lost the weight? A Yes, and then I had another baby and put it back on, but I’ve lost most of it now. Q What’s your favourite cake? A A pumpkin syrup cake and it’s in The Women’s Weekly Best Cakes and Slices. I love that cake. It’s delicious! Q Tell me about the books and authors you like? A The book I read most recently that I really liked was Unless by Carol Shields. It was lovely, so beautifully written and so effortless to read. And I’ve just read The Hours. I started I’m A Believer by Jessica Adams. My favourite book of all time is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee Collins and I love Little Women, Gone With The Wind, Rebecca and I love The Shipping News by Annie Proux and Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet. Q Your star sign? A Aquarius. Q How old are you? I’ve just turned 33. I was born in 1970. Q Louise believes? A In the resilience of women. Q Loves? A Family. Q Wishes? A Apart from world peace – that everybody could find joy or their heart’s desire? Q Who first read your manuscript? A Michael. Q Because he was there or because you trust his opinion? A (laughing) I think he was desperate to know if he was in it, actually. Was I giving away too many personal secrets? I think he wanted power of veto. Q Before you attended University of Queensland where were you educated? A Gap State High School. Q You must feel proud of what you’ve accomplished? A This is so amazing, it’s succeeded way beyond my wildest dreams, this little book! Q Why call it a ‘little book?” A Because it wasn’t as if I sat down and said ‘oh, I’m going to write a really great book.’ I just thought I’d write and see what happens. And it got published and all these wonderful things keep happening. It’s just amazing. I feel like I’ve got a guardian angel or something. I’ve started my 2nd book, I’ve got my title, but I’m not saying what it is. I couldn’t write it – completed three chapters and then threw them away and I thought ‘what’s wrong with this?’ Then I thought, ‘I don’t have the title.’ Q That’s the reverse of the way most writers do it? A I think I need a theme , I need something to write about. The title’s like a feed and everything else forms around that. I hope to get it done – it’s going to be a busy year for me. It’s all new to me, too. This is the first time I’ve been interviewed in my life.

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Bindi Irwin reveals heartbreaking fear for daughter Grace’s future health

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Moana Hope has found her “safe place” in partner Maria Thattil

Kylie Minogue is officially embarking on a world tour in 2025 – and she’s bringing it Down Under

Inside Cyrell Paule & Ian Thorpe’s feud on The Amazing Race Australia 2024

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