Q & A with Posie Graeme-Evans, author of The Innocent, selected as the Great Read in the December issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
The Innocent, set in mediaeval Britain, tells the story of a young woman who is caught up in dangerous intrigues within the royal household and falls in love with someone she shouldn’t, after going to work there. For her debut novel, the Australian author who until now has always worked in television – she created and produces McLeod’s Daughters and is co-creater of Hi-5 – has come up with a page turner that breathes life into history and depicts a lusty, deeply fractured, royal family – sound familiar?
Q Throughout your career in TV have you always nurtured a dream to write a novel?
A Not really, I suppose I have written all my life and my mother had two books published before she was 25, so it’s always been a part of my life. One day, I was in the middle of doing something else, and I thought, ‘I wonder if I can do it’?
Q How did you get it published?
A It was serendipity. A friend of mine who is an agent heard I was writing a book. She said, ‘Can I read something’ and I said, ‘yes’, so I showed her the first 100 pages. She said, ‘This is rather good – it’s a book, finish it.’ And I went, ‘Oh!’ So I did! I’m still stunned. It’s sitting here at my desk. I’m 52 and can’t believe it. I’m so thrilled.”
Q This is the first part of a trilogy?
A Yes, I’ve nearly finished the second.
Q How does it compare, writing for TV and writing a novel?
A Television is so structured. As you know, we are making McLeod’s Daughters and there’s a story line and then there’s a script and then there’s a script break-down, blah, blah, blah. Writing a book is a liberation for me. I just sit down and it comes out.
Q Why did you come choose the 15th-century setting?
A I’ve been interested in about 200 years of English history for a long time and I’ve read around it. I have always been interested from about the time of the Black Death to the end of the War of the Roses. For about 20 years, I’ve just gobbled up anything written about it. I’m very moved by all of that and the details of people’s lives, what they wore and what they ate. What they think. I have ramparts of books around my bed with all this stuff, always have. But I’ve always read it for pleasure, never read it with any aim in mind. So when I finally took it (writing the book) seriously, a lot of it was there. It all just poured out.
Q Are your mother’s books of a similar genre?
A No, she’s world famous in Tasmania. Her third book was published when she was 87 and it’s gone through four editions. It’s called From Sara to Sarah. It’s kind of like Gone With the Wind – no, more- Against The Wind. Tasmania has a population of 400,000 and she’s sold 5000 books which is fantastic. Her name is Eleanor Graeme-Evans. And my brother is a historian. He’s written about 10 or 12 histories of different things, like military history. He’s three years older than me and his name is Alex.
Q So writing is in the family genes?
A Yes and I’m the last cab off the rank.
Q You have an international deal for The Innocent?
A I got this up in New York before it happened in Australia. First it landed on the desk of an international film company. The person who read it there used to work in publishing and she rang and said, ‘I have a friend in NY, do you mind if I send it to her?’. The friend turned out to be a publisher. She read it, loved it and wanted to publish the book. It comes out in the US later, because they want to be able to follow up with the second book pretty smartly if the first one is a success.
Q You must be thrilled with the reaction to the book so far?
A This has been one of those years in my life. There are the ones where you can’t get arrested and no-one wants anything you’ve got to offer, then somehow something changes and this year has been like that. The album for McLeod’s Daughters went gold and I wrote the songs. We’re closing the gap between us and Blue Heelers and All Saints. And then Hi-5 has got up in the States. There’s the Oz version screening, plus they’re making an American version which screens from February. And now, the book. It’s been a roller-coaster.
Q Having worked in TV a long time, you would have experienced some lows and highs?
A Heat is a temporary phenomenon – it disappears, like mist in the morning. We’ve been independent producers for 13, 14 years and it’s been a slog. We’ve had times when we thought we were going to lose the lot. But we just had a very fortunate four years. And it’s a lovely thing to experience. I don’t take it for granted.
Q How does success in TV compare with having a book published?
A It’s been the most enormous thrill. I’ve loved each one of the things I’ve done. I love McLeod’s. I love Hi-5 – and various other kids’ shows we’ve made. The thing about film and television is, even if it’s your idea and you’ve fought to get it made and you’ve financed it, it’s a group activity and you cop the blame and the pleasure, naturally. If this thing sparks, it’s truly that I’ve written it, for good or ill. And it’s just me. Just me and the page. And it is a really scary thing to expose yourself that much, especially considering that I’ve written something very salacious. And I swear to you that it wasn’t calculated, it just bloody well happened. If it doesn’t work, I think it will be hard to protect myself from it. But if it works, even modestly, I would just be so thrilled.
Q Now that you’ve raised the issue, I was interested to find that someone who is associated with relatively conservative television programs, has written such erotic scenes?
A Maybe I’m about to destroy myself! And my poor husband, he was seriously concerned about putting my own name on this – he was! And I must admit I thought, ‘Oh God’. There’s aged aunts and my mother, who is 89 now – her eyebrows went up and she said, ‘ You let yourself go a bit there, didn’t you?’ I said to my husband’s aged aunt, ‘Oh gosh, I’d love you to read my book but I really am a bit worried what you’ll think!’ She said indignantly, ‘I’ve been married!’
Q Where did you get the title?
A Via lots of talking, backwards and forwards with the publisher at Simon and Schuster. And I’m really happy with it now. Usually I ask what you set out to achieve when you wrote this book, but the short answer for you, is that you wanted to know if you could do it?
A That’s right. And I actually didn’t know if I could, and I wanted to try and then I wanted to see what happened. That’s honestly how it worked. Where I am with this second book, I seriously, seriously don’t know how it’s going to end.
Q So you had no plot before you began the first one?
A I didn’t even have the characters. I got a first sentence, then when I got the first few pages, it spun forth from there. I promise you I didn’t set out to write an historical book.
Q Over what period did you write it?
A I started it in 1996 when I was shooting the movie pilot of McLeod’s Daughters. I was down in South Australia by myself, my husband was here and I sometimes had weekends free. And after that, the first 100 pages took me a year-and-a-half. I stuffed around for 18 months.
Q On a lap top in hotel rooms?
A Sort of. Some of it I wrote after hours in my office, at the end of a long day. Then when the agent read it and said, ‘Come on do it’, then I committed. And I have a regime, I write on Sunday afternoons. And if I know that I’m going out on Sunday, I write on Saturday afternoons. I sit down at 1 and I get up about 6 or 7, and I try to do 10 pages or about 5000 words. It has to be Sunday, or the weekend, because it’s impossible during the week, I can’t do it. I’d never think coherently and I love to talk on the phone, and I’m a terrible gossip.
Q Do you re-write as you go?
A When I start, I re-read a slab of what I’ve written the previous week and I try not to self-censor. I might polish it up a bit, but I try not to judge it. I read it to remember where I was with the story, but I try not to edit it. Because what I want to do is keep the momentum going. What I worked out with the first one was that I had to write myself to the end. Then when Simon & Schuster came on board in Australia, they teemed me with a woman I just loved working with – editing is such a distinct craft – and she sent me a swag of suggestions. What I delivered to them in the end was a first draft which I’d then gone through myself and cleaned up and edited. And on a famous occasion, the editor came over with two bottles of champagne to talk about grammar – well, ha, ha, ha, we got nowhere, we drank the champagne. So, what S & S got was probably somewhere between the second and third draft. Then they made structural comments and overview type comments which I reckon, 70 per cent of the things the editor said, I went ‘of course’. Then 30 per cent I went ‘I’ll die in a ditch before I change a word’(laughing). She was great – so unfussy. I did appreciate her craftsmanship. Ultimately, (if I am lucky enough) over the next three or five years, there are so many books I want to write. So many, I can’t tell you. It drives me crazy. I just wish! All of these things are in my head that I just can’t wait to get out. I’d love to sit at my desk and make words my work. I have a really strong sense of the next part of my working life, when I finish what I’m doing now.
Q So you’d like writing to be your future?
A I would like it to be it, but if I am going to do it I want to be serious about it and I want to make my living out of it. I’m serious to that extent – that’s what I want to do.
Q You were born in Tasmania?
A No I was born in Britain, in Nottingham, but I’ve lived here for some 15 years. And both my parents are Australian. My dad was a Spitfire Pilot and he ran away to war, and ended up a prisoner of war, the whole horrific thing, but after the war went back into the air force and went on flying. Mum had been brought up in Australia until she was 13. By then she’d had seven governesses – they lived in the country. And my grandfather decided Eleanor needed an education, so the whole family decamped to England so she could go to school. She went to a girls school called Farrington and they called her The Barbarian.
Q Sounds horrible?
A She had a wonderful time. She adored shocking the pants of them. My mother is one of those people who was truly born with an absurd bunch of talents. In another day and age, there were about four things she could have earned her living from.
Q Is Posie a family name?
A It’s my legal name. My christened name is Rosemary, the name I have never used – my brother couldn’t say my name, so Posie is a derivation.
Q You were educated where?
A Because I come from an air force family, my brother went to boarding school, but I ended up travelling with my parents and going to school wherever they were.
Q Which was where?
A England and Europe, and my father’s last posting was Cyrpus. I went to an air force school there and also to an international school there. All up, I went to something like 12 or 14 schools. So I had a very odd education. I used to hate travelling so much, I used to think I’d be so grateful if we’d actually belonged somewhere, which we never did. But the advantage, that I now understand, is if you’re always the outsider, you have to make a way to walk in and you have to make friends quickly and deal with whatever is thrown at you. I really regretted much of it, but I don’t regret it nearly as much now. I’m grateful. I think I was given things I didn’t understand. I consider myself a lucky woman. I’ve been dealt a good hand.
Q You have been married for how long?
A Andrew and I have been married for 12 years, but we have been together for 17. And I was married formerly to a potter. I was a potter’s wife and we were married very young. At 20. I wouldn’t have missed it for quids, but you’re a different person at 35 to 20. I’m very fortunate because I have a daughter and she was born when I was at university and she now has a son. And Andrew, who was married before, has two children and it transpired that he and I both have daughters called Emma who have the same birthday.
Q Are they similar?
A No. My daughter’s four years older, but they are very different people. And Andrew has a son called Julian. They call me The Other Mother which is quite nice.
Q Do you have pets?
A Two cats called Pompey and Teddy.
Q Your star sign is?
A Leo.
Q You love…?
A My family and conversations – I like the human mind most in all the world – and the sensual things in life. I seriously love conversation and food with those I love. I am passionate about the beauty of the Australian landscape.
Q Posie believes…?
A Probably, that it will all be alright. I have faith. I think that altruism is a greater force in human history than greed ever has been. I believe that everybody is capable of good actions. And I think we all feel better when we’re doing good than when we’re doing bad. I believe in the great sense of spirit. I am convinced that big cities divide you and that’s why landscapes are good for you. In a big city, people become indistinguishable. In landscape, you meet someone, you see them, you get some sense of them and when you are connected to another human being you can’t walk away from them. Most people have great hearts. People do want to do their best, they do set out to be honourable – it’s important to me to believe that.
Q Tertiary study?
A Studied drama and fine arts, and an English degree at Flinders University.
Q First job in TV?
A As a standby props person for a show in NZ called A Going Concern, about the life and loves of the folk at a plastics factory. None of us knew what we were doing.
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