Category Archives: Spotlight on Authors

Betsy Roberts No Lime Ice Cream

What are you reading at the moment?
At the moment, I am reading John Safran’s Murder in Mississippi., a compelling investigation into the killing of a white supremacist leader in the Deep South. Written with the same incisive, brilliant and witty style that characterizes Safran’s TV documentaries, it is not only a murder mystery, but character study and travelogue – everything I love in a book.
What is your connection with the Gold Coast? And favourite place?
My family moved to Tweed Heads in 1952, just as ‘The Gold Coast’ was becoming an idea. (I remember thinking the kidney-shaped pool at El Rancho Motel was the height of luxury). I grew up on a farm in what is now called Bilambil Heights (then Highfields), but Dad always made time for bushwalking and the beach, so I have a soft spot for both the old original O’Reilly’s cabins in Lamington National Park, and for Rainbow Bay. Most of my working life has been with the Gold Coast Public Library Service.
Describe your story in one sentence.
No Lime Ice Cream is a miniature snapshot of teenage angst, framed in a sixties Beach Kiosk.
What atracted you to this particular photograph?
What attracted me to this particular photograph was that it pretty much replicated what could be seen on all the southern beaches on any given weekend back then. Hopefully, No Lime Ice Cream gives an impression of beach life as it was back in the sixties. But of course, pain, embarrassment and desperate crushes did not fade away with The Beach Boys.
What else have you published?
I have had one story published in the Australian Women’s Weekly, another (also inspired by a Gold Coast photo) in the GCAC Gallery Catalogue, and a travel article in Vacations & Travel.
What are you writing now?
I am in the process of polishing/redrafting a novel, set in the local area, that has growing up and leaving home as its main theme.
Anything else to add?
I love reading short stories (particularly Australian and writers of the American South), and most of my writing has been short fiction.

J.S. Choinski Deliver Me

What are you reading at the moment? I just started reading Charles Palliser’s Rustication, a gothic thriller. I’ve also been playing TellTale’s The Wolf Among Us, based on the graphic novel series, Fables.

What’s your connection with the Gold Coast?
I moved to the Gold Coast from overseas, when I was 9 1/2 . It has been my home ever since.
What does your story convey about the Gold Coast? I wanted to explore the Hinterland (a lesser known aspect of the Gold Coast) and touch lightly upon some of corruption that lies beneath its postcard exterior. What attracted you to the photo you selected? It was quite hard choosing between photos – the historical ones were filled with untold stories – but I had an internal vision of these men determinedly rowing to help people, which resonated with all the horrific floods that have happened in Queensland in the last few years.
Tell us about your story in one sentence. Even the smallest evil has consequences and must be atoned for.

Jocelyn Hawes Dear Sam

What are you reading at the moment?
I read books in many different genres including thrillers, romances and family
epics. I enjoy Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher books. Kerry does an amazing amount of research and takes the reader down many interesting paths.
Tell us about your story in one sentence.
Dear Sam is a poignant story about a mother’s love for her son who is serving in the AIF during the dark days of 1942.
What attracted you to the story you selected?
I chose the photograph Forest 3 because The Natural Arch is one of my favourite places in the rain forest hinterland. It is a magical place with easy access down well constructed paths. In my story it is Sam’s special place.
What’s your connection to the Gold Coast?
Members of my family have been visiting the Gold Coast for five generations since my great grandparents built two house on the waterfront at Labrador.
What else have you published?
I have some small successes in writing competitions as well as having a number of short stories published in other anthologies. In conjunction with a committee of cousins we have self-published two family history books. One children’s book was published in 1997 called The Clancy Kite.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I write in many different genres including plays and stories for children. I am currently working on two picture books for children about the environment.

Elli Housden Snapper Rocks

What are you reading at the moment?
I’m reading 10 Short Stories You Must Read in 2011 (a bit late) which features Australian writers like Cate Kennedy and John Birmingham as well as some newer writers.
What’s your favourite place on the Gold Coast, and why?
My favourite place on the Gold Coast is the Broadwater. I love to see the dolphins swimming up and down this stretch of water as well as watching the sun come up behind South Stradbroke Island.
What’s your connection to the Gold Coast?
I’m a new resident of the northern end of the Gold Coast, and I’m loving the relaxing pace and lack of traffic snarls that I left behind in Brisbane.
What attracted you to the story you selected?
The photo I selected matched the title and plot of my story perfectly.
Tell us about your story in one sentence.
‘Snapper Rocks’ involves the misadventure of two young children who are lured onto the beach by a fisherman with the promise that they will see a whale.
What else have you published?
I love reading and writing short stories. I’ve edited two anthologies, A Stack of Stories and Five Senses, containing some of my stories and some by other Australian authors, for the educational market. I work for an international educational publisher, based in Melbourne and have written and edited about half a dozen other titles for secondary schools. In the future, I hope to publish a trilogy of YA novels, two of which are awaiting editing and the third, to be set on the Gold Coast during Schoolies Week, is germinating in my over active imagination. I also review YA books for Saturday edition of The Courier Mail.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Since my arrival on the Gold Coast nearly two years ago, I have started a book group for ladies who also like to lunch. With the help of the wonderful local library service providing book bundles, it has been a huge success and I’ve met some great locals and some very nice other ‘newbies’. Reading and talking about books is a great way to socialise. At the moment we’re reading The Dinner by Herman Koch.

Di Morris The Clearing

What are you reading at the moment?
Summer of the Hot Tubs by Annie Proulx. I love her short story collection (which includes Brokeback Mountain). It is full of Wyoming characters, written with droll humour, an acute eye for detail encapsulated in brilliant spare prose.
What’s your favourite place on the Gold Coast, and why?
The beach, because the sound soothes and the visual is always changing. Obviously also, the Lamington Plateau and other rainforest places in the Hinterland.
What does your story convey about the Gold Coast?
I hope it conveys the fact that the rainforest is near and that it is a wonderfully replenishing retreat for all kinds of people. Also that we have to cherish the green environments we have left.
What attracted you to the photo you selected?
It fitted a story that was languishing in a bottom drawer.
Tell us about your story in one sentence.
Three very disparate characters meet at a Rainforest Resort, the result of which is a blend of humour, sensuality and empowerment for all three.
What else have you published?
Articles in British magazines and newspapers, two short stories in One Book Many Brisbanes, book reviews in M/C Reviews and TEXT Journal, short story and poem in Idiom 23, Song for Tallebudgera music and lyrics, and an M.A. Creative Memoir entitled ‘Photographs and Stories’.
What are you working on now?
One of five unfinished novels, working title ‘Prep School Story’. It’s set in a small English Preparatory School.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I have just returned from a road journey from Gold Coast down the East Coast of Australia culminating in Phillip Island, Victoria and exploring all the towns and coastal features on the way. I was struck by the fact that each place, whether large or small, had its own particular atmosphere.
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the stories in ‘Undertow’ because I’m interested to see this composite view of Gold Coast over time which I hope the anthology and the archival photographs will provide. The City of Gold Coast has an identity that has been largely subsumed by holiday brochures and its history of corruption that went with the glitz and glam image. I’m glad to see the inception of this celebration of ordinary lives in story.

Thoraiya Dyer Jumpinpin

What are you reading at the moment?
“Heartsick for Country,” edited by Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina.
What’s your favourite place on the Gold Coast, and why?
Probably Tamborine National Park? I can’t resist lyrebirds or rainforest. When I was little, I loved the feeling of lorikeets at Currumbin climbing through my hair. I also loved the taste of that first sweet crunch of a wedge of raw sugar cane. We ate it in the car on the road trips interstate!
What’s your connection with the Gold Coast?
Though we lived in Sydney as kids, my father bought a property on the Gold Coast in the 80s. He loved beaches, skyscrapers and scalding hot, powerful short black coffee, so Surfers was the perfect place for him, but we never did end up living there. Nowadays I have a brother-in-law in Parkwood. He has yet to take me on a boat trip into the Broadwater (Hint, hint ;))
What does your story convey about the Gold Coast?
I hope it conveys the lushness, the heat, the natural beauty and the sense of that beauty being under threat, now and ever since colonisation.
What attracted you to the photo you selected?
The breadfruit trees (note: not actually breadfruit trees, but everyone calls them that, they are pandanus trees). I remember getting smacked by my mum for climbing in them when I was supposed to be putting my shoes back on and getting in the car!
Tell us about your story in one sentence.
A glazier confronts a ghost trapped in a pane of glass.
What else have you published?
Around 40 short fantasy or science fiction stories, appearing in Australian or international online or print magazines, anthologies and collections. Australian-set stories include the award winning “The Wisdom of Ants” at Clarkesworld online (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/dyer_12_12/ ) and “After Hours,” one of four original stories in my collection, “Asymmetry” (http://www.twelfthplanetpress.com/products/paperbacks/asymmetry-2 ).
I also have a time-travelling pirate novella, “The Company Articles of Edward Teach,” about a couple of Australian teenagers who find more than they bargained for in a fancy dress shop!
What’s your main genre?
Speculative fiction, which to me is a bracket for the magical, fantastic, futuristic and high-tech.
What are you working on now?
A fantasy novel set in the canopy of a rainforest (speaking of rainforests!) – I can’t put lyrebirds in it since they live on the ground, haha.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Queensland is pretty awesome but if your state flag gets raised over the Sydney Harbour Bridge one more time post-Origin you will make both a small child and a grown adult cry

Oh, and you can visit my website for free fiction and other info, www.thoraiyadyer.com, or look me up on Goodreads (I am a compulsive bookworm) or Twitter. Cheers!