From Historical Fact to Fiction with Julie Bennett
In this episode…
In this episode, guest host Mary Lou Stevens interviews Julie Bennett about her new novel, "The Lost Letters of Rose Carey," exploring the fascinating life of Annette Kellerman, a groundbreaking Australian film star. Dive into their conversation for inspiring insights on blending real-life characters with fiction, perfect for historical fiction enthusiasts.
Key Takeaways
- (00:00:00) - Celebrating Women Writers: An Intro to Writes4Women Podcast
- (00:03:27) - From Libraries to Novels: Julie Bennett's Path to Becoming an Author
- (00:14:00) - Historical Inspiration: Julie Bennett on Researching Annette Kellerman
- (00:27:32) - Writing Dual Timelines: Techniques for Blending Past and Present
- (00:32:53) - Connecting Through Stories: Julie Bennett Shares Her Writing Passion
Transcript
[00:00:00] Pamela: Welcome to Writes4Women, a podcast all about celebrating women's voices and supporting women writers. I'm Pamela Cook, women's fiction, author, writing teacher, mentor, and podcaster. Before beginning today's chat, I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Dal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is being recorded, along with the traditional owners of the land throughout Australia and a quick reminder that there could be strong language and adult concepts discussed in this podcast. So please be aware of this if you have children around. Let's relax on the convo couch and chat to this week's guest.
[00:00:45] Hello everyone. And welcome to a brand new episode of Writes4Women. We're back after a two week hiatus. How are you say that? Two week break. During which I had a fantastic retreat called the next chapter writing retreat, which I'm going to tell you a little bit about in a minute. But we took a break from the recording and editing and all that sort of thing of the podcast. Also, so you could catch up, hopefully on some episodes, we did a little bit of a promo on the Rebecca Saunders episode that I recorded.
[00:01:16] I can't even remember if it was last year or the year before, but anyway it, there was some great publishing tips there. And lots of insight, Intel on the publishing industry. And of course fabulous any Bucknall. My VA has been putting out plenty of great reels and lots of tips in those on Instagram.
[00:01:34] So hopefully you're catching up with that. And I've also been doing the diary of a procrastinator video posts, blogs, I guess for my Patrion family supporters. They go out about three times a week, roughly there's no definite day that they go. But while it's called diary for procrastinator, it's really just about my writing process.
[00:01:53] Any writing tips or thoughts that I have on writing and things that I can share with you that I feel might be useful. And I also answer questions that anybody has, and we have conversations about those on the Patrion comment page. If you're interested, head to rights for women.com/patrion, and you can sign up for the price of a cup of coffee, really $5 per month to be part of the Patrion family and to also support rights for women. Thank you very much to those people who have sent me emails recently telling me how much they're enjoying the episodes of rights for women.
[00:02:25] I'm so glad that it is. Is resonating with. People and that the posts that go up on Instagram are helpful as well. It is a little bit tricky because while you get kind of stats on downloads and things, they're not always a hundred percent accurate, you don't know who's listening where you don't know if anyone's listening. So it's wonderful to know that I'm not sitting here recording into a void and that nobody is listening.
[00:02:47] Another great way that you can show your love for rights for women is too. Write a review of particular episodes. So when you go to your episode, You know if, for instance, you're on apple podcasts, you might scroll right down to the bottom of that episode page. Find the episode page. Which will come up.
[00:03:05] If you're on your phone, generally listening, you can click go to episode, website or episode page. Let's go right down to the bottom. And you can. At a review or a writing and what that does, it allows other people to find the podcast more easily.
[00:03:18] It gives them some ideas on what people are loving about the podcast and it pushes us up in the ranking. So would have really appreciated if you can take the time to do that. So
[00:03:27] today's episode is a chat between Mary Lou Stevens, who has recently. Really been on the podcast, talking about her second novel, the chocolate factory. And today, Mary Lou is the guest host and she's talking to Julie. Bennett about her second novel, the last letters of rose Carrie.
[00:03:44] I haven't had the opportunity. To read it yet. But listening to this chat between Mary Lou and Julie, it sounds really fascinating. And there's a whole lot of stuff in here about taking a real life, character and fictionalizing their life, or using that as inspiration for your story.
[00:04:00] So that's exactly what Julie has done here with the life of Anna Kellerman. Famous movie icon from. Time's gone by and has turned her into rose Carrie in her fiction. If you're a particularly historical fiction author, you might find that really interesting. I know I certainly did, even though I don't write in that particular genre. And it's a great. Interview in terms of finding out what this book is all about as well. Mary Lewis currently living in Uruguay. She's doing her slow travel around the world.
[00:04:28] And if you want to find out more about that, listen back to the recent episode with her, where I chatted to her about that. During the conversation. So she was chatting to Julie from year ago. Y Uruguay, I don't know how you say it properly. Julie was here in Sydney, so there were a few internet glitches.
[00:04:45] So we had to cut a few little bits out of the conversation. So I thought I'd just take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about how the retreat went. So I had. 12 fabulous women writers. Some of him were known to me. Some of whom weren't. And I booked a venue called When a house in Kurrajong at the foot of the blue mountains. It's an absolutely beautiful place.
[00:05:07] Kurrajong it's this gorgeous little village. And particularly at this time of the year with all the autumn leaves falling and the leaves still clinging to the naked branches of the trees. It was just gorgeous. Country rural. So the house itself. Is attached to a few paddocks that had cows and deer in them.
[00:05:24] Now, while that is not really novel to me, because I live on a property with my horses and goats and dogs. It's novel to some people and many people who came were city dwellers. So it was lovely for them to have the opportunity to be out and about in the countryside. And. There were just so many fantastic things about the retreat.
[00:05:44] The thing that really stands out for me is the way that the women writers jelled. So obviously. I'm all about writing for women about supporting women writers through the podcast. I write female characters. Pretty much exclusively in terms of my protagonist. Not that I don't like men. But I think it's really important for women in particular, who often have taken on a lot of mental load as well as physical load in terms of what they're doing their lives.
[00:06:15] And often writing can be pushed to the side for many of us. And of course, there's going to be times in all our lives, when our children are younger and they need us desperately to do things and, we don't want to miss out on those moments either those times are important to have with our family, but I think a lot, so much of the time our creative needs. Creative once get pushed. To the side.
[00:06:37] So finding a time and a space where a group of women can come together and share. They're like-minded passion for writing. Is just an incredible experience. And I was really lucky. I think we're all really lucky that the people that came were so passionate about what they were doing, and keen to learn and improve their craft. And also to share their experiences, to share their wisdom. To be vulnerable with each other to share their writing and in doing so really I think learnt a lot. I've had some great feedback already on the retreat. We were lucky to have it in a beautiful place. Kerwin a house that is just a gorgeous old, I don't know, maybe 19. Twenties or thirties cottage. Encourage wrong.
[00:07:20] And it has a separate accommodation in Bellevue house. And we were super lucky to have the fabulous NJ of me and pantry catering doing all of our meals. So we had full breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We practically rolled out of that place. But it was fantastic to keep keep our nutrition up and there were opportunities to walk into the village, encourage young and to have a great coffee and maybe sneak a little pastry.
[00:07:44] It went really well. And I couldn't be happier with how the retreat went so happy in fact that I am even considering having another retreat this year in the same place. Probably around September, October. So it's just something I'm thinking about. I haven't really looked at my calendar, but if you are someone who might be interested in attending that. Pop onto my Instagram, Pamela Cook riots. And you can have a look at the photos there of what happened at the retreat. There's some videos. You can go into the highlights on my profile.
[00:08:12] I've saved all the stories and things there under highlights next chapter, and have a look. And if you think that's something you would maybe be interested in doing later this year, drop me an email. W@wfourwpodcastatgmail.com or via my pamela@pamelacook.com. Or you email and let me know that you're interested in might start a list of people who are interested. We did a whole lot of craft workshops.
[00:08:36] We looked at openings, we looked at narrative drive. We looked at putting your character on the couch in term of terms of the psychology of your character. And we looked at how to write a blurb and synopsis. And we also did some analysis of our scenes using highlighters. And that was a lot of fun.
[00:08:51] Yeah, hopefully another one later in the year, if not, definitely next year. So watch this space and keep me posted if you're interested. So going to go on now with our chat with Mary Lou and. Julie Bennett. I'm not going to tell you too much about Julie. Mary Lou does that in a very interesting way of introducing her as she unfolds that information in the first few questions that she asks.
[00:09:13] So I really hope you enjoyed this episode. And do let us know in the rating or review, if you do. Have a great week.
[00:09:22] Enjoy.
[00:09:23] Mary Lou: Julie Bennett's second novel. The lost letters of Rose Carey cements her style as a writer of Jewel timeline, historical dramas with romance and mystery at their core, her debut novel, the understudy was set in the world of opera.
[00:09:38] Mary Lou: The Lost Letters of Rose Carey has a film icon with a difference at its core. We'll find out more about the novel in a moment here on the Rights for Women Podcast. But first, let's find out a little bit about Julie Bennett, the woman. Hey Julie.
[00:09:58] Julie: Hi Mary Lou. Thanks so much.
[00:10:00] Mary Lou: What would you like
[00:10:00] Julie: to know?
[00:10:01] Mary Lou: I would like to know about your lifelong love of books, and it was this love of books that led you to a career in libraries to start off with.
[00:10:14] Julie: Absolutely. I was a classic bookworm at school. I just really loved reading. I just, I couldn't get enough of it. And when I first started school, I remember the alphabet, learning the alphabet, and I just thought it was art.
[00:10:27] Julie: I thought it was the most beautiful art. And every letter a was my favorite, but. I loved it and I think, that's something that you get from your in my case, my mother and my grandmother who just always gave me books for my birthdays and Christmases and they started with things.
[00:10:46] Julie: I'm sure I had, little golden books. But they also, I firmly remember my mo, my grandmother giving me like children's versions of Charles Dickens and I think I read David Coffer Field first, but then, as you got a little bit older, and certainly as a young teenager, my mother had the Reader's Digest condensed books, and you were able to consume all these fabulous stories.
[00:11:09] Julie: And it would just for me, my life is just synonymous with books. And so when it came time to leave school, I really wanted work in libraries and I really did.
[00:11:22] Mary Lou: But when did your love of writing pick in?
[00:11:27] Julie: I think. Almost the same time. Certainly as a teenager, I, I loved romance novels and I loved gothic romance.
[00:11:35] Julie: Victoria Holt was my all time favorite author. And I started, one thing about mills and booms is they're very easy to digest. And they have, beginning and middle and end. They have romance and there's a plot. And then, so I started writing that sort of thing.
[00:11:50] Julie: But, love and marriage and babies and life got in the way and it, there comes a point in time where you say okay, love life and marriage and careers have happened now. So now it's time for me to go back to what I really love. And I did.
[00:12:07] Mary Lou: Well
[00:12:07] Julie: done you,
[00:12:08] Mary Lou: you're also a journalist for a while.
[00:12:11] Mary Lou: You have your own public relations company, which you started back in 2004, and I've noticed that a lot of journalists do get into public relations. Why do you think that is?
[00:12:24] Julie: I think when you, so I worked in libraries for almost 10 years, perhaps a little longer, and then I decided I really wanted to write for a living, and so I went back to uni.
[00:12:35] Julie: Oh I didn't, it was the first time I'd gone to university, actually. I went as a mature age student and became a journalist and. I worked mostly in finance journalism, and I think I worked in finance journalism for about seven years, something like that. And it comes, there comes a time where you want to do something.
[00:12:54] Julie: It's hard to explain. It's just that you. Work through a lot of stories. You meet a lot of people. And at the time that I left journalism, I remember thinking, I just need some time out to figure what next for me. I need some time off. And I, at that time I thought in, back in 2004 that I might actually have some time to write the great Australian novel.
[00:13:16] Julie: But what happened was people came to me to ask for my help in a public relations sense. And it just snowballed from there. It was. It was not quite accidental, I'd say. Not quite. And it feels wonderful to work in PR and to help people. We do a little bit around crisis management and it feels good to be able to help people at what is sometimes a really vulnerable time of their professional life.
[00:13:42] Julie: Yeah.
[00:13:43] Mary Lou: Both your novels, the understudy and the lost letters of Rose Carey are set in the world of entertainment opera for the understudy. Film. Yeah. Arose. So where does your interest in this world of entertainment come
[00:14:00] Julie: from? My dad. So my dad was an opera singer, and as a child I was an extra, and I was in the operas on stage at the Sydney Opera House.
[00:14:11] Julie: And that was an amazing experience. And what I discovered, because I also have this fascination with genealogy, it's what I. Discovered when I looked back at my family tree, was on my father's side. There's theatrical people almost everywhere I look, and on, on almost every branch of the tree.
[00:14:34] Julie: Not all but a lot. And his grandfather had gone to Broadway and written music. For films not many films that you would know, but he did. And then another family member, I think actually on the other side of the family had been a theater manager. And, all these things that you don't.
[00:14:53] Julie: No for facts, but you discover, explains who you are, and where you came from. Because certainly I knew my father was a performer obviously, and I knew that some of his aunts I think had great singing voices. But you don't, as I think when you're growing up, you don't actually think too much about where did that come from and why, and, but when you start looking you find it.
[00:15:14] Julie: So I think that. That sort of explained to me my fascination with performing arts and arts in general, and even on my mom's side, her sister had a ballet school, just for kids. It, there's a certain. Theme going on there in our family history. Yeah.
[00:15:32] Mary Lou: And it sure is.
[00:15:33] Mary Lou: And you're carrying on that creative legacy with your novels. So your letter song, the Last Letters of Rose Kerry, is inspired by a unique Australian film star.
[00:15:48] Julie: How
[00:15:48] Mary Lou: did you first hear about Annette Keman?
[00:15:52] Julie: So when it came time to write my second novel, all I really knew was I would like to. Continue to write about somebody in the arts.
[00:16:03] Julie: And I knew that I, I wasn't married to a performing artist, but I thought it was a logical place to look. That film was a logical place to look. And I started looking at the history of Australian women in film and you know how the research goes. You read and you read and you read.
[00:16:20] Julie: And there are lots of wonderful women in early Australian film. Lotti Lyle, for example. So Lotti Lyle and Raymond Longford were early filmmakers in Australia, and the Longford Lyle, or the Lyle Longford Award in Australian film is named after them. And there's also, a woman called Louise Lovely, who was.
[00:16:41] Julie: An absolute superstar in movies as well in the early days. And then, there's the McDonough sisters who did their who put together films themselves. The three of them in Australia. So I read about all these wonderful women. And then of course Annette Kelman came up while I was researching, and I remember going to.
[00:17:03] Julie: Talking to my one, my best friend about it and saying, it's, these women are amazing. I'd like to write a novel. Inspired by these wonderful women who were very courageous and very daring and very enthusiastic, and very much involved in their film projects. And she get, she said, Annette Cuman.
[00:17:23] Julie: And I went, oh yeah, I've come across her. But I hadn't done a lot, of research I had done. I'd come across her for sure, and she lived in Pederson, which is around the corner from the Annette Kaman pool aquatic center. And so she talked to me about her first and she goes, she's an amazing woman.
[00:17:40] Julie: She was an amazing woman. I really recommend you do a bit more research on her and see what you think. And of course, when I did the research, I was just hooked.
[00:17:48] Mary Lou: Yeah. So there's a lot of information. You were able to find, a lot of details about her life.
[00:17:55] Julie: I think when you look, when you start looking, you start researching.
[00:18:00] Julie: The more you know yourself, the more you go down the rabbit hole, the more you discover it's not the fact that there's, it's so old you can't know anything. It's the fact that you uncover more and you can't possibly use every single little gem that you find. But. In this case I was fortunate that there was not just snippets of her films, some are lost, not just little snippets of her films, but also audio recordings of interviews with her.
[00:18:27] Julie: And very short, it wasn't so much the information that was in that, those audios, because you can pretty much read whatever you want online and there was a lot of open access material available for Annette. But to hear her, certainly all those qualities came through.
[00:18:42] Julie: She was bold and she was out there and she was, I heard someone describe her as the lady GLE of her time. I don't think that's quite correct. So I don't think that's, I don't think she was quite as out there as Lady Gaga, but she was certainly quite out there in the sense that she challenged the morality of the day and she was by no means a flapper in the sense that we understand it.
[00:19:09] Julie: She was actually quite, wholesome. She didn't have wild party, she didn't drink. She was a vegetarian. She thought the body was something to be em embraced, enjoyed and lived. She wasn't about flaunting, she was about embracing this kind of natural naturalism, if you like, if that's the word.
[00:19:28] Julie: Probably not, but, she was all about the natural. Things that bodies should be able to do and the one in one interview, I heard her say, I swim naked, and I think every woman should, or every person should. There is nothing wrong with the human body. It's only the way that society constructs the stuff around it.
[00:19:51] Julie: That makes people think there's something wrong with it. So I loved that about her, and she wasn't afraid to say it. And she was also very encouraging of other women, encouraging them to be bold and to, to be themselves and to do enjoy life the way, in a natural. Wholesome way.
[00:20:10] Julie: She's very refreshing. Yeah.
[00:20:13] Mary Lou: I can understand that attitude that she had towards her body. 'cause she was an athlete, really. Yes, she was. Yes. The swimming, the dance diving. Yeah. Dance. Yeah. Any one particular aspect of her career that Fas fascinated you more than any other?
[00:20:34] Mary Lou: She,
[00:20:36] Julie: there's a two-edged sword here, the things that I'm gonna say now, but she was such a publicist.
[00:20:42] Julie: She was not afraid to toot her own horn. And she did it with, I call it daring. Do I saw someone else call it something like, like spunk or it wasn't, that wasn't quite the word, but she actually. She went out there and she just lived her own PR hard. I was asked what questions would I like to put to Annette Kaman if I possibly could?
[00:21:04] Julie: And I guess one of the questions was, did you really get arrested? Or that Boston Beach, because this is story that she went down to a beach, Revere Beach, I think it was in Boston, in her one piece, a costume which actually had leggings sew on into them. Really not too out there. And that she was arrested for indecency other scholar.
[00:21:25] Julie: The more I read, the more research I read, it was researchers saying There is no record of Ms. Kelman being arrested on a Boston Beach. And I thought, did you really, or did you maybe call up the newspaper and say. I wouldn't put it past her. She was just such so out there. And I think this comes from an interesting story.
[00:21:47] Julie: Annette and her family, her mother and father were musicians and her mother was actually quite a celebrated pianist. I. And they ran this music Conservatorium in Sydney. And during the 1890s, or perhaps it was early 19 hundreds, but there was a recession or a deeper, a troubled financial times in Australia.
[00:22:08] Julie: And so they lost their school and her mother had to go and work in a fancy girl school down in Melbourne. And Annette went with her and Annette. Had to be put to work. And the way that she was put to work was she'd won a couple of swimming co competitions and she took on this diving. And so she was an exhibition diver in these aquatic tanks.
[00:22:31] Julie: And she did that in Melbourne for some time. And she was about, I think she was about 16 when she and her father decided to go to England and try and get. A more of a career for her. And they were in England and she tells a story about how they had to cobble together the coins for the boarding house.
[00:22:52] Julie: They just did not have money. And her family was relying on her to become, a celebrated performer. And after struggling for a little while. Between them, whether it was her father or whether it was her just decided that they had to do something to attract attention to themselves. 'cause they weren't getting any work and they weren't, they weren't making any money.
[00:23:14] Julie: They decided they'd make an announcement that that Annette was going to first swim the Thames, which were, I don't think women had done, and then swim the English Channel. And they made, so she started swimming the Thames. And one story I read was her father got into a dinghy or robo to accompany the swim and, he was out there in his top out in tails to attract attention and the papers caught onto it and there were, journalists along the other Thames and they took these photos and finally the, one of the newspapers sponsored her to swim the channel, and that's when it all happened. So it's this kind of out there PR activity.
[00:23:55] Julie: I guess being a PR person myself, then I went, wow. Go girl. So I think it all came from that kind of position of need. She actually needed to be successful. She really needed to be. And she went through difficult times and she helped support the family. And then, off she went, off, she went, well done, girl.
[00:24:16] Julie: Well done.
[00:24:18] Mary Lou: How much of the lost letters of Rose Care is based on the truth? Annette Kellerman's life.
[00:24:24] Julie: It's a very interesting question and I'm sure lots of people are gonna ask me. As I said, it was listening to Annette to be, to hear how who she was and to embrace some of her enthusiasm for life and to attitudes which,
[00:24:41] Julie: for me we're inspirational. But as I think you, you will also understand there comes a point where you've done all the research you can do. There may well be more research, but all you're going to do is find similar stories that demonstrate the similar things that happen what that happened in Annette's life.
[00:24:59] Julie: So there reached a point where I said, this story is not Annette, because Rose came to me one day. I'm not sure if I should say, but rose came to me one day in the shower, and I knew her name. I knew her name. I knew who she was. I knew who she looked like, and she wasn't Annette, she's not Annette.
[00:25:18] Julie: But I think some of the challenges that Annette faced Rose faces, some of the, for example, rose is a little bit, scandalous and Annette never was. Never, I can't find any scandal about Annette. There possibly is some, the scandalous things were appearing on the beach, in the costume and the scandalous thing was appearing naked in film.
[00:25:38] Julie: Some of those things helped inform Rose and helped me understand women of that era. But she came to me yeah, as herself. And I think of Rose as, yeah, a little more. Out there a little more, in terms of scandal and yet a little softer. And I don't mean anything unkind to Annette, but Annette was very much, very out there with what she said and very firm about what she said.
[00:26:04] Julie: Whereas Rose is more, yeah, rose is more about I think this is a great thing. I think people should be doing this. Was, I think Annette was a little more did didactic, is that how you say the word? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:17] Mary Lou: Yeah. Rose is different now. As I mentioned at the start, it's a dual timeline.
[00:26:22] Mary Lou: So Rose's story is half the narrative in the lost place. Yes. So can you tell us a bit about the book? Just give us a brief synopsis.
[00:26:32] Julie: So the book opens in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, and it opens with a videographer Emma Quinn, and Emma is there recording an a documentary for the Carrington Hotel, which is an actual hotel and a fabulous one in the Blue Mountains in Ooba.
[00:26:48] Julie: If you have never been and she is very. Sad is the way that I think of Emma. Emma is sad because she, as she's filming with her crew, it's not her company, but with the crew, she is waiting on a call or a message from her wife. And her wife has just undergone another round of treatment for IVF.
[00:27:08] Julie: 'cause they're hoping to start a family. And Emma is going through this. What if it hasn't worked? Again, what are we gonna do? Because we can't really afford another round of IVF. We can't afford to take more time out. We can't afford the emotional toll that it's taking on our marriage. What are we gonna do and how am I gonna look after my wife who's gonna be devastated?
[00:27:32] Julie: So these sorts of thoughts are going through Emma's head as she's filming the documentary in the Carrington. And there comes a break in the filming and she looks at her phone and she's, she just sees one word and it's negative, and so they're not pregnant, so she just, she knows she should call her wife straight away, but she just can't because she just doesn't know how to talk to her.
[00:27:56] Julie: And she knows her wife will be at work anyway, so she goes down to the store room in the Carrington Hotel. She just wants some time out. She just wants, 15 minutes time to herself to gather her thoughts and think about what she's gonna say. And she comes across the rose Carey's trunk of memorabilia.
[00:28:14] Julie: And in it she finds letters and film and photos and so forth, and she becomes interested in it. And so the story is about Emma and her wife Lauren. Going through the process of not being successful with IVF treatment, and Emma, as a sort of coping me mechanism, becomes increasingly interested in Rose, Kerry and her life because of these, this memorabilia she gets to sift through over time.
[00:28:47] Mary Lou: Now there were a couple of delicious twists in this book. Were they were you aware of them right from the start or did they come in through the writing of the book?
[00:29:00] Julie: So I think, what happens with your first novel is that it's a labor of love. And it's such an exciting experience and I was very much a cancer as I wrote the understudy with lost letters. I wanted a, excuse me, I wanted to sketch more of a plot because I just think it helped me to scope the novel.
[00:29:25] Julie: From beginning to logical end. So it's not, I'm not a plotter, but I did do a skeleton and I knew that at certain points there would be a twist. It's what makes the writing worth writing and the, I think the reading worth reading. So I knew that I would have certain twists and then I thought about what they might be.
[00:29:45] Julie: And that's, I guess where some of what. Happened to Annette, helped to inform what happened with Rose, and I was thinking all the way along I plotted out where I thought the twists should be and then I decided what they would be and then I wrote to, to each of those points. So I was still pantsing, but much more plotting this time round.
[00:30:09] Julie: Yeah. So I did know, yes, that there would be twist and I did know what they would be. Yes.
[00:30:14] Mary Lou: And did you write the two stories separately or did you just start at the beginning and write it? The way the novel reads,
[00:30:21] Julie: I wrote it the way it reads. Yeah, I always do.
[00:30:25] Mary Lou: Now you and I met several years ago now at Fiona Macintosh Writing Masterclass.
[00:30:31] Mary Lou: We were both unpublished. Yes. Now we both have books under Yes. Yes. What was your key takeaway from Fiona Macintosh's Masterclass?
[00:30:44] Julie: What was the key takeaway? I suppose it's that when the, when I met Fiona at a reading at Better Read Than Debt, I I heard a mention that she ran these master classes and I was at that.
[00:30:58] Julie: Stage where I decided, if you're gonna write a novel, sweetie, you better get to it. Like I'd always thought of myself as a writer. I always thought I would write books or novels, and here I am in my fifties and I have nothing, right? Not one book. So I said to myself she has these master classes, so I'll go up after the reading and I'll talk to her about them.
[00:31:21] Julie: So I went and talked and she said, oh yeah, sure, no problem. I'll send you the details. And so she sent me the details and she said, unfortunately, there's nothing open this year, but I'll put you on the wait list for next year. And I thought that would be really good to timing because I could, get myself organized.
[00:31:34] Julie: I could think about what I was gonna write. I could, it starts to write a bit and I'd have something and then she. Sent me an email about a month later and said, look, somebody's unable to come so there is a spot for you. All you need is 10 pages of your book. I'm going like, I haven't got 10 words.
[00:31:50] Julie: So I thought, oh grab the bull by the horns girl. You've gotta, if you say you're gonna do this thing. I did this thing and I went down to the masterclass and I think that's. The thing about Fiona's workshop was that masterclass was that it forces you to do, to act, it forces you to act.
[00:32:09] Julie: There was lots of valuable things in the, in that masterclass, of course, but for me it was the, actually the impetus to say you've now, invested your time to come to this masterclass to hear. Some fabulous skill techniques and tips from Fiona. You cannot waste this opportunity.
[00:32:30] Julie: Get to it. Use the information that you have and use the, the skills that you learned and just do it. So that's what I took away. Yeah. Congratulations 'cause you did
[00:32:40] Mary Lou: do it. Second book, the Lost Letters of Rose Carey. We need to wrap up now. But on the Writes4Women podcast, we always finish with this question.
[00:32:53] Mary Lou: Yes. What's the heart of your writing?
[00:32:58] Julie: I. Look, it's actually being able to connect to people who become very real to you, and through those people connect to audiences people that I will be unlikely to ever know. They will come to know me and my characters and so I, I take it as an honor and a privilege.
[00:33:18] Julie: To be able to do that, because I know there's lots of amazing writers out there. There's lots of amazing women writers out there, and I've been lucky enough to realize my dream of expressing things from my heart to their hearts. And that's an enormous privilege. And I don't take it likely.
[00:33:38] Julie: So before I let you go, where can people find you online? Julie Bennett author.com au. I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. I was on Twitter now known as X. But I spend most of my time on Instagram, so I'd love people to follow me. It's just Julie Bennett author.
[00:33:57] Mary Lou: Beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:34:00] Mary Lou: All the best with the lost letters of Rose Carey. I loved it. It's a great read. Historical, thank you. Timeline entertained. Yes. Superstar Hollywood icon, the whole shebang all day. Yes. Congratulations Julie and all of us. Thank you. Thank you. You too.
[00:34:19] Pamela: Thanks for listening to Rights for Women. I hope you've enjoyed my chat with this week's guest. If you did, I'd love it if you could add a quick rating or review wherever you get your podcasts so others can more easily find the episodes. Don't forget to check out the back list on the Rights for Women website, so much.
[00:34:38] Pamela: Great writing advice in the library there. And you can also find the transcript of today's chat on the website too. You can find details on the website on how to support the podcast through Patreon and you can connect with me through the website@rightsforwomen.com on Instagram and Twitter at WW podcast.
[00:34:58] Pamela: The Facebook page writes for women. Or find me and my writing@pamelacook.com au. Thanks for listening. Have a great week. And remember every word you write your one word closer to typing the end.
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.