Summary:
Why do you think illustrations are important in books for children?
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Corli-Anne Brebner: Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed today.
Alison Lester: It's a pleasure.
Corli-Anne: You began your career as an illustrator. What prompted you to make the transition to writing and illustrating your own books?
Alison: When I started illustrating I had no idea that I would ever be an author and I didn't have that sort of confidence even though at school
I'd always loved writing, like composition as we called it then was one of my favourite subjects.
But I illustrated other people's books for about five years and it was actually two authors who really got up my nose.
One of them was really stingy about sharing the royalties.
Usually, you split it 50/50 between an author and an illustrator and he thought he should get 70 percent and I should get 30 percent.
And then just after that book I worked with someone who was really bossy and kept telling me how to draw like what people should look like and what the
dog should look like and what they should be doing.
So, I was actually complaining to my editor one day and she said look why don't you write your own story if you don't like illustrating other people's.
Corli-Anne: Where do you get your ideas?
Alison: They really come from ever. I think I'm quite stuck in the young section of my childhood.
I grew up on a farm right down the southern part of Victoria on the coast.
And until I was a teenager that was, I mean we weren't hillbillies but life centred around the farm very much and that very complete section of my
childhood has stayed with me so that freedom and adventure and riding horses and all that sort of stuff is a big part of my imagination.
But often it's things like dreams. I once got an idea for a book out of a label on a jumper.
The label was called 'Kissed by the moon', and I thought 'Wow, what a lovely title for a children's book'.
So I came up with this sort of a ballad to a new born baby that they would be kissed by the moon and warmed by the sun and washed in the river so they
do really come from all over the place.
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Summary:
Think about things you are really interested in. Which of these could you write a story about?
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Corli-Anne Brebner: When starting a new book, where do you begin the writing process?
Alison Lester: Usually, I have this bright idea. I think, 'Hey, wow. That could really be a nice idea'.
Like, just last week in the paper there was an article about a Tasmanian man, an Indigenous man who had been orphaned when he was really little
and had grown up in an orphanage in Tasmania and ended up playing AFL football.
He was one of the first Indigenous players to play in Melbourne.
And he described going back to Cape Barron Island which was where he had been born and he hadn't been since he'd been taken away as a little boy.
And his only memory of his childhood was kicking a football at a big pine tree and he found that pine tree.
And things like that often will just trigger and you think 'Gosh, you could turn that somehow into a beautiful book'.
So, I start off with the idea and then can usually see what the book is going to look like well before I've written any words.
I can see the pictures and the size of the book and how it will fit together but then before I actually start drawing I will write it out
and put into some sort of form.
Corli-Anne: How much research goes into developing your work?
Alison: 'Imagine', for example which is a book about animals I did a long time ago but I had massive piles of animal encyclopaedias
and National Geographics to figure out which animals lived in which places and to make sure that I actually got it right.
But quite often a book will come after I've become interested in something, like after I went to Antarctica in 2005 and visited Macquarie Island
I became really interested in that island so just by learning more about it has then made me think about doing a book about it.
So sometimes the research comes before I even think that I might turn it into a book.
Corli-Anne: Who else contributes to and influences your work?
Alison: My editor is really important.
I've probably got two main editors that I've worked with for a long time and they're friends as well and I really trust them.
If I work with an editor that I don't like their judgement it's almost impossible because everything they say I think, 'Oh, that's a bad idea'.
Like, it's like, you know sometimes when you talk to people and you speak to them and it seems to shoot past them and when they speak to you and
you actually need someone who can really connect with.
And Ros Price is one. She's my editor at Allen and Unwin and she was the first person who interviewed me when I went to get some work as an illustrator
nearly thirty years ago.
So, that was a nice connection that has stayed over all these years.
When she became a good enough friend she told me that she actually didn't like my work very much that I showed her that day but she and I got on
really well and she thought she could get me to do the sort of work that she wanted.
So, that was a nice one.
And Rita Hart who is my other editor actually lives in the United States so we do all our work via phone and email.
I'll email her stuff and she'll ring me up and we'll talk about it and we'll work that way.
And the distance doesn't seem to matter at all because we really understand and trust each other.
My family all put their two bobs worth in but they always say ridiculous things and it's almost like the opposite is true.
If they something is good I know it's bad and vica versa.
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Summary:
How do you think that reading books might help you with your own writing?
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Corli-Anne Brebner: What do you draw on for the characters and events in your work?
Alison Lester: Pretty much from people around me.
Often, I don't realise until well after the book's come out that a character I've drawn is actually somebody I know.
You know, someone will go 'Gee that really looks like so and so' and I'll go, 'Oh well, maybe it is, you know'.
I don't think I could just make them up out of thin air.
Like all my characters if I think about it have some sort of start in a real person.
I just put twists and bends on them to make them a bit better or worse.
Corli-Anne: How has your experience as a reader influenced your work?
Alison: I'm just a mad reader. I just read all the time. I can't sit at a table without picking up something to read
whether it's a piece of newspaper, whatever is there, I will read.
And I think it's made me a much harsher editor on myself.
I get really impatient with books when there's just sloppy writing or things need to be tightened up.
So it's been good that way but I think also when you read a lot you just learn a lot about narrative and how to tell a story that you might not
get any other way.
So I think it's a really important thing for young writers to do a lot of reading.
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Summary:
Who do you tell your stories to? How could story telling help you to write stories?
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Corli-Anne Brebner: How do you think creative writing should be taught to young students?
Alison Lester: My bits of advice would be, write about something you know.
And even if you're being really imaginative, base that imaginative work in something that you understand.
Don't write too much, like the shorter the better I think almost.
And even if you start off writing that much, cut it back until it's a third.
Like, quite often I'll do that with a book, I will have written that much and by the time it gets to book stage I'm only using a quarter of it.
So it's like polishing a stone that you start off with a rough stone and just get it as perfect as you can.
I think one really good way of telling a story and being able to write a story is to actually tell it to someone.
So often kids are expected to sit down and just write a story but if you ask them to tell it they go, 'Umm, well uh, we went to the ...'.
You know they actually don't have it in their head yet.
Whereas if you go away and just think about it so you can speak it, it's going to be much easier to write.
But I think it's really important to give your work to someone else to edit.
If you're looking at your own work quite often you can't see the forest for the trees and my editors have saved me from making really embarrassing
mistakes that I just was too involved to see.
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Summary:
Who do you show your writing to? How does sharing your writing help you to improve it?
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Corli-Anne Brebner: What are your work habits when you write?
Alison Lester: They're terrible. They're really, really bad.
Like I, it's my full time job so I really should work nine to five but we live on a little farm and we've got horses and dogs and I like doing things
with my kids who are all adults now.
And my mum's really old so I go and spend time with her and I like working in the garden and I'm always happy to talk on the phone so there's
many, many distractions.
But if I can force myself to sit at my desk, I tend to, there's always interruptions during the day, you know there's always something going on.
So I'm a bit of a night owl I like to kind of work late at night after everyone else has gone to bed and often will still be up at like two o'clock
in the morning when it's quiet and the phone's not ringing.
It frustrates me like crazy cause nothing makes me happy than actually getting work done but on the other hand it's always last in the queue
of things to be done.
So it's a bit of a catch 22.
At the moment I've probably got about three years worth of work contracted work waiting for me to do so it's kind of frustrating.
Corli-Anne: That would keep you busy.
Alison: Yeah.
Corli-Anne: What tips would you give to young students who want to write professionally?
Alison: Really be persistent. Like don't, don't write, you kind of have to be thick-skinned.
You have to be imaginative and hard working and thick-skinned.
Like people will say hurtful things to you about your work and often they're people who don't what they are talking about.
But sometimes they're people who are, so you have to be prepared to write something and polish it until it's as good as you can get it.
And then you have to be brave enough to show it to someone.
There's many people who have written things that they've never shown anyone because they might say that's terrible you know, and
then your dreams are dashed.
So, it's really important to be strong enough to show it to someone and then do whatever you like with their criticism.
If you think it's worthy take it on board and change what you have done or it might just make you clear about what you want to do.
But you do have to really keep your nose to the grindstone and work at it.
Corli-Anne: What message do you want young readers to take from your books?
Alison: I guess I never actually think of a message when I'm writing the story but when I look at them as a whole they're generally very happy books
like I'm not a kind of a sad sack.
And I'm not really interested in reading books about sad things.
And lots of kids' books I find, like, I look at them and think, 'Who would want to give that to their child?'
Like I know they have their place in the world but they don't interest me.
I always like to see a book where kids are really being adventurous and doing exciting things and somehow forcing themselves to do stuff that they might
be a bit scared of but winning.
Like, books that are happy and entertaining and I guess some of those picture books like that 'Clive Eats Alligators' books that don't really
tell a story they just look at a bunch of kids doing things.
I think they're probably quite nice 'cause they are all about being an individual and following your dreams and that it's okay to be different,
so that's a message in them.
Corli-Anne: Thank you for speaking with me today.
Alison: It's been really nice. Thank you too.
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