Interview with Pamela Rushby

Pamela Rushby is the author of over 200 books for children and young adults, as well as children's TV scripts, documentaries, short stories and freelance journalism. Pam has been an advertising copywriter, pre-school teacher, and producer of educational television, audio and multimedia. She has won several awards, including the NSW Premier's Ethel Turner Prize, four CBCA Notable Books – and a bag of gold coins at a film festival in Iran! Pam believes the strangest, most riveting, heart-breaking, laugh-out-loud stories aren't fiction. They're real. They come from history. And she loves tripping over unusual incidents from history – and then writing about them. You can connect with Pamela via Facebook or her website.

What or who inspired you to first write?

I blush to admit, Enid Blyton. Well, she was about all that was available when I was a kid.  I used to get a magazine of hers (Sunny Stories?) and there’d be a pic and message from her at Green Hedges, at her desk, with a dog or two hanging about. Looked pretty good to me.

What is the inspiration for your current book?

My daughter (also a writer, Allison Rushby) was doing some research for her current WIP and mentioned Mummy Unwrapping Parties in 1800s London. Who could resist?  Lots of research, a residential in Britain and 65,000 words later, it’s about done.   Next year, I have been awarded a Queensland Writers Fellowship to write a historical novel based on the experiences of young women who joined the Australian Womens Land Army in WW2.  I’ve been interested in this topic for some time, and have done considerable research, so I’m very pleased to be given the time to write it.

Is there a particular theme you are exploring in this book?

The courage and resiliency of the girls. They took on this very tough physical work, previously regarded as ‘men’s work’ and they did it damn well.

Which period of history particularly inspires or interests you? Why?

Any period. Wherever there’s a good story. Lots are set in war time – this is not intentional, but war leads to ordinary people doing extraordinary things.  I’ve written about ancient Egypt, the British Iron Age, WW1, WW2, Vietnam War, Shearers Strike ...

What resources do you use to research your book?

Libraries. Archives. The internet. Other books, fiction and non-fiction. Face-to-face interviews. Diaries. Letters. Documents. Travel overseas.

Which authors have influenced you?

Oh, so many ... Easier to say the ones I love. Jane Austen. Dodie Smith. Elizabeth Goudge. Karen Foxlee. Sheryl Gwyther. Antonia Forest. The Borrowers author.

Which methods/ strategies do you employ to write?

When an idea strikes, first I think about it.  A lot. Eventually I develop a LONG outline (I’m a plotter, not a pantser.)Then eventually I get my backside on the chair and WRITE.

Is there anything unusual or even quirky that you would like to share about your writing?

Ooooh ... not really. Except I do a lot of thinking while swimming laps in the pool.

How long does it generally take you to write a book?

Years from the first idea to the finished ms  if it’s a self-initiated project and I have no deadline. If it’s commissioned work, the deadline dictates.

What advice would you give an aspiring author?

Keep going. Just keep going. Everyone has to serve an apprenticeship. Everyone gets rejections. Everyone gets dud reviews. But if you really believe in what you’re doing, sooner or later you will come across that publisher, or editor, or agent, who Gets you. And you’ll live happily ever after.  (No, you won’t. But it seemed a good way to end!)

London 1940. Bombs are falling. Ten-year-old Margaret Rose survives a deadly raid, but her home is destroyed. Her parents are gone. In faraway Townsville in Australia, her aunt and her family are ready to take Margaret Rose in, although eleven-year-old cousin Lizzie is not so sure.

But first there is a long and dangerous voyage to a strange country. Margaret Rose knows it’s not going to be easy. And Lizzie is not about to make it any easier.

HNSA 2017 Melbourne Conference

The HNSA 2017 Conference in Melbourne is being held on 8-10 September 2017 at Swinburne University, Hawthorn. Pamela Rushby will be appearing on the following panel in Session 1 on Sunday 10th September at 9-10 am.

How difficult can it be? Is Writing Children and Young Adult Fiction an easy option?

Writing historical fiction for children and young adults (CYA) takes skills that are often underrated. Gabrielle Wang, Wendy Orr, Pamela Rushby and Alan Tucker discuss with Felicity Pulman why CYA novels pose challenges not faced by authors of adult historical fiction.

Pamela will also be appearing in our HNSA Meet the Author satellite event on 9 April 2017 at the Mail Exchange Hotel, 688 Bourke St, Melbourne with Goldie Alexander, Robyn Bavati and Elizabeth Jane Corbett. Bookings are essential  More details can be found on the HNSA website.

Early bird registration is open for the HNSA 2017 Conference. You will receive 15% off the full price for our weekend programme.  The same discount also applies for tickets to our opening reception. 

This celebration of the historical fiction genre will showcase over 60 speakers discussing our theme, inspiration, writing craft, research, publishing pathways and personal histories. Among the many acclaimed historical novelists participating are Kerry Greenwood, Kate Forsyth, Deborah Challinor, Lucy Treloar, Sophie Masson, Sulari Gentill, Robert Gott and Arnold Zable. The HNSA’s speakers’ list is available on the HNSA website.

In addition to the two stream weekend programme, there will be ten craft based super sessions and two research masterclasses. You won’t want to miss our interactive sessions on armour and historical costumes either! Manuscript assessments will be conducted by industry experts, Alison Arnold and Irina Dunn. And there are two calls for papers in our free extended academic programme.

Our First Pages Pitch Contest offers an opportunity for submissions to be read aloud to a panel of publishers. And we are delighted to announce the introduction of our inaugural HNSA Short Story Contest with a $500 prize!

Visit our website to take advantage of our early bird discounts while tickets are still available.

Subscribe to our newsletter for interviews, reviews and news.

Let’s make a noise about historical fiction!

Pamela Rushby: A few of my favourite things...

The next author in the ‘Few of my favourite things…’ 2015 HNSA Conference interview series is Pamela Rushby. She will on appearing on a panel disucssing whether ‘Can Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Compete with Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies?’ on 21 March 2015.

Pamela Rushby was born in Queensland more years ago than she cares to divulge. She has worked in advertising; as a pre-school teacher; and as a writer and producer of educational television, audio and multimedia.

Pam has written children's books and television scripts; hundreds of radio and TV commercials; multi award-winning documentaries on Queensland dinosaurs, Australian ecosystems, bilbies, the Crown of Thorns starfish and buried Chinese terracotta warriors; short stories; and freelance journalism. She has won several awards, including a Literature Board of the Australia Council grant to work on archaeological excavations in Egypt and Jordan; a Churchill Fellowship to study educational television in Canada; the Ethel Turner Prize in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards; three Notable Books in the Children's Book Council of Australia awards; and a bag of gold coins at a film festival in Iran.

Her historical novels include When the Hipchicks Went to War (Hachette 2009), The Horses Didn't Come Home (HarperCollins 2012), Flora's War (Ford Street Publishing 2013) and The Rat-catcher's Daughter (HarperCollins 2014).

Pam lives in Brisbane with her husband, son and six visiting scrub turkeys. She has two children (plus son-in-law and two gorgeous grandchildren).

She is passionately interested in children's books and television, ancient history and Middle Eastern food.

 

You can visit Pamela Rusby at her website.

Could you please share with us what is or was your favourite:

Book as a child and as a teenager?

I blush to admit a lot of Enid Blyton. Then Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse, anything fantasy, moving on to Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.

Author/authors?

See above for child/teenager. Now, still Jane Austen.

Period of history?

To read about, Victorian. Or ancient Egypt. To write about, it doesn't matter, as long as there's an exciting incident to build a story around. For example, I've written about the last great cavalry charge in history at the Battle of Beersheba in 1917 in The Horses Didn't Come Home.

Sixteen-year-old girls travelling to Vietnam during the Vietnam War as singers and dancers in an entertainment troupe in When the Hipchicks Went to War. 

A girl in Cairo during World War 1 when the city was overwhelmed with wounded from the Dardanelles, in Flora's War. Flora volunteers to drive wounded in her father's motorcar and assist in appallingly overcrowded hospital wards – some of which were housed in the local fun park and race track pavilion. 

1900, when the plague, the Black Death, came to Australia, in The Ratcatcher's Daughter.

And the latest (due out in Oct 2015) set in the Shearer's Strike of 1891, when Australia came very, very close to civil war:  Sing a Rebel Song.

Character in one of your own books?

I'm very fond of Kathy, from When the Hipchicks Went to War. Probably because the 60s is when I was a teenager, and Kathy is a mixture of my friends and me at that time.  Who couldn't like a heroine who's desperate to get into show biz and accepts a job in a touring entertainment troupe – even though the job's in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War?

Scene you enjoyed writing?

I loved writing about the photographer's studio at the funeral director, where Issy gets her first job in The Ratcatcher's Daughter.  Where she discovers the funeral director takes studio portraits of some of his (dead) clients. Memento moris, they were called, very popular in Victorian/Edwardian times.  (Call me macabre … J )

Place to write?

In my study. At my desk. I focus better. But can take advantage of spare moments anywhere – as you do. Always have a notebook and pen for this purpose.

Step in the process of writing? E.g. researching, drafting, editing etc

Researching. Love it, just love it. I find so many utterly amazing things. For example, just this morning I read a first-hand account of a mummy unwrapping party in Victorian times. ( It was quite the Thing to buy an ancient Egyptian mummy and have it unwrapped to amuse a party of your friends.) It's so hard to stop researching and start writing. Having said that, editing is magic. Once I've read the comments from the editor, shrieked in horror, sulked, kicked the cat, I've got over it and of course, she's right, darn her, and the book improves vastly as a result.

Method of writing i.e. longhand or typing?

Longhand first, pretty much scribble with lots of crossing-outs and inserts (I take an example of this to schools to show the kids and horrify them). Then onto the computer, with lots of changes along the way.

TV program /movie?

TV program: Doc Martin. Who Do You Think You Are. I liked The Time of Our lives, but it's gone – sigh. Movie: Roman Holiday. Hatari. They have everything!

Comfort food?

Anything cooked by somebody else is pretty good.

THE RATCATCHER’S DAUGHTER

The year is 1900 and thirteen-year-old Issy McKelvie is forced to leave school and start her first job as a maid in an undertaking establishment. Issy’s entire family is now working and because her father’s job on the wharves is unreliable, he also works with his dogs as a ratcatcher.

In 1900 the plague – the Black Death – arrives in Australia, spread by fleas on rats. As the disease starts to take its human toll, panic grows. The rats must be exterminated.

Issy loathes both rats and her father’s pack of yappy, snappy rat-killing terriers. But when her father becomes ill, Issy must join the battle to rid the city of the plague-carrying rats.

However, many things about the city’s control of the plague are not as they seem. As she discovers and pieces together various clues, Issy comes to realise that the real world is very different from the one she thought she knew.

21 March 12.15 -1.15 pm  Session Four

Can Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Compete with Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies?

In a world where the Twilight and Hunger Games series dominate the CYA shelves, how can historical novelists capture young readers’ imaginations? Sophie Masson explores the issue with Belinda Murrell, Sherryl Clark, Pamela Rushby and Goldie Alexander. 

For more information on all our panels, please visit our site for programme details. And you can buy your tickets here.

You can also sign up to the mailing list to be the first to keep up to date with breaking news on the HNSA conference in 2015. 

Please consider visiting us on Twitter and Facebook to help us spread the word! 

Here’s a tweet you might like to use:

Here’s a few favourite things for Pamela Rusby on #HNSA2015 blog @histnovsoc http://ow.ly/Jflda 

Register now for the #HNSA2015 conference! Let’s make a noise about #historicalfiction http://ow.ly/E9RPZ

And please take a look at our FREE BOOK OFFERS!

The first 30 ticketholders to purchase a ‘Standard’ Whole Conference Ticket will receive a free copy of either The Lace Balcony by Johanna Nicholls, The King’s Shadow by Barbara Gaskell Denvil or The Island House by Posie Graeme-Evans. 

All ticket holders will receive a Momentum ebook bundle in celebration of Felicity Pulman’s launch of Unholy Alliance.

The first 50 fully paid ticket holders will receive a copy of Sherryl Clark’s new book Do You Dare – Jimmy’s War in celebration of her launch.