INTERVIEW - EDEL WIGNELL
published in the Fellowship of Australia Writers (Victorian Branch) journal, The Australian Writer, April/May 2004.

Your earlier career was in teaching - what lead you to becoming a writer?
In my last two years of teaching I was invited to write a column for the monthly magazine, 'Australian Grade Teacher'. When I left to try some of the arts (drawing, painting, gold and silver-smithing), I wrote a column for the monthly 'Primary Education' Magazine for several years. A friend suggested that I try writing fiction, so I started with the Victorian and NSW school magazines. I have been writing for both children and adults full time since 1979.

You are a very prolific writer - do you have a particular style or pattern of writing which allows you to be so productive?
'Being prolific' was once regarded as a somewhat insulting term but several splendid writers have made it respectable. I have a large number of titles, many of them being slim ones and not regarded by some people as books. But a 16-page book earns PLR and ELR. Ideas queue up in my head and jostle. 'Me next!' (See reply to research question, below). Being a touch typist and having had secretarial training is a positive for me.

What helps you to stay 'motivated' as a writer?
I write for three reasons: I like making a living, I enjoy writing and I'm never short of ideas. I rush through domestic and administrative tasks to get to my desk. I can't think of anything else I would rather do. Many of my publishers co-publish overseas in huge numbers, so there is great satisfaction in the thought that thousands of children read my works. As I am constantly fascinated by the English language, the way it is used and abused and its madness. One of my pleasures is to play with it by writing humorous and nonsense verse.

Do you tend to do a lot of research in writing your work?
Research is the key to my work. My three main interests are history, folklore and fantasy, so research in these areas provides material for writing a particular work and sparks ideas for new ones. For example, research for my first children's book, a collection, A Boggle of Bunyips, led, during the next ten years, to the writing of several newspaper articles, a short story which eventually expanded into the novel, Escape by Deluge, an excursion published in a teachers' journal, a poem, and two more short stories, both of which I expanded to junior novel length.

How do you go about finding and developing ideas for new works?
I don't look for them; they come to me, and they may be written for children (short stories, articles, verse, scripts, a television serial and longer works) or for adults (features, verse, short stories). Research in the early 1980s for the collection, A Bluey of Swaggies, led to many new works including a junior historical novel, The Long, Sticky Walk. I found an open-ended anecdote from the oral tradition of the 1880s, which I couldn't verify from extensive research in 'The Narrabri Herald', so I fleshed it out and gave it an ending satisfying to children.

I enjoy researching in libraries and on the Internet. The State Library is an especially wonderful place where many librarians are a fount of knowledge. When I was looking for bunyips, one librarian suggested that I check 'unexplained phenomena'. I found a wealth of fascinating information, including details about Australian ghosts.

This inspired the writing of several works for adults and children, including an open-ended junior horror novel, Ghost Dog - the only work from which I receive regular feedback. As the publisher markets widely, I receive packages of letters from Australian and overseas classes (many writing in anger!) saying that they don't like the story and asking when I am going to finish it. I reply saying that, if they follow the clues in the story, they will know the ending. Many create their own endings and send them.

Who would you describe as your favorite author/s and why?
I regard Patricia Wrightson as Australia's greatest writer for children. I have learnt a great deal by studying her works, especially noting the way in which she appeals to all the senses to evoke atmosphere and involve the reader. In 1980 I attended the 'Fantasy and Folklore Writing Workshop' at Armidale University where Patricia Wrightson, Patricia Scott and Bill Scott were tutors. It was a great privilege to have Patricia Wrightson as my tutor, reading the second draft of Escape by Deluge, chapter by chapter every day as I wrote it, for three weeks. She warned me that, as it was set so firmly in the heart of Melbourne and the Yarra Valley, it would be difficult to find a publisher, and suggested that I could avoid this problem by changing the place names, but the setting was so important to me, I couldn't do it.

Many publishers rejected the novel, some saying that, because it had a specific setting, it would be of little interest interstate and certainly not internationally. Knowing that Australian children read many splendid books set in real places overseas, I ignored these comments. Meanwhile, librarian and lecturer Walter McVitty set up his own publishing house and, in 1987, I sent the ms to him. He published it in 1989 and sold rights to the UK, USA and Sweden.

What factors do you think are necessary for writing a 'successful' work for children?
It depends on what is meant by 'successful'. Ideally, I think it means a well-written book appreciated by both adults and children for the quality of the writing, the values it embraces and the way it nurtures young people by encouraging identification, understanding and a love of literature. A successful work is entertaining, not just educational. If it is sold in huge numbers, and is a publishing success - that's magical. However, increasingly, success is related to sales numbers rather than to quality of writing or ideas.

What one single piece of advice would you give to writers who are just starting out?
Be professional! Don't wait till you're published to join writers' organizations, such as the Australian Society of Authors, the Fellowship of Australian Writers, the Australian Writers' Guild, the Children's Book Council, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. The knowledge and guidance you receive in their newsletters and journals is indispensable - much more helpful than the rumours you hear on the grapevine. Also, subscriptions to 'Bookseller+Publisher' and review journals, such as 'Reading Time' and 'Magpies', will keep you up-to-date with the aspirations of publishers, retailers, writers, illustrators and librarians, and help you to see where your work fits into the great and complex publishing jig-saw puzzle.