Isobel Blackthorn is a prolific novelist of brilliant, original fiction across a range of genres, including dark psychological thrillers, gripping mystery novels, captivating travel fiction, and hilarious dark satire. Isobel holds a PhD in Western Esotericism for her groundbreaking study of the texts of Alice A. Bailey. She carries a lifelong passion for the Canary Islands, Spain. A Londoner originally, Isobel currently lives near Melbourne, Australia, with her little white cat. She kindly agreed to this interview.
Please tell us a little about yourself, when did you begin writing and can you share your process with us? Do you have any particular practices that help you write?
I'm a British-Australian author which is an odd description as straight away I feel I am neither one thing or the other.. I began writing fiction in 2011 after composing two memoirs. I was fortunate to learn the skills needed to write creatively from a very generous author who served as my guide. His mentoring was a fast track and I was hungry to learn. That all seems like ancient history. I remember working very hard on a bunch of short stories and then my first novel. I agonised over every sentence, every paragraph. The process was all consuming. Now, I just write. I write only at home, but home can be anywhere. Right now I am on holiday. In the apartment I am staying in, I can write. Put me in a cafe or on the beach and no words come. I think I am too busy absorbing the surroundings.
If you had to describe your writing style, what words would you use?
I started out writing literary fiction because that is my passion. But my writing style, while carrying some of those elements, is not hard to read. I do lean towards the descriptive. I can employ clean prose. I have written in many genres and learnt the tricks in them all. Thriller writing is very good education for someone who comes out of the literary bag. I think everyone should learn how to write a thriller, just for the challenge of creating an edge of seat experience for the reader.
I am told I have a European style. No one has ever told me my writing style is Australian. Is there an Australian writing style? I have no idea.
Which is your favorite character you wrote, and why?
My favourite character is a little man called Fred Spice. He is short, a bit plump, and he is a typical enthusiastic tourist. He wears tight fitting I Love (insert country of choice) T-shirts and he is the bugbear of one of my protagonists. He pops up in unlikely places and I suppose he has become an integral part of my story world. So far, he appears in four novels and I am giving him a bigger role in the one I am working on now.
As an experienced author, what advice would you give to prospective novelists?
The only advice I can give is strive to hone your skills by mimicking the best writers in your genre. Learn how they write dialogue, craft a scene, depict a character and so on. Treat the works of those authors you aspire to emulate as though they are text books. Also, learn to accept criticism. An aspiring author who cannot take criticism is not going to progress. I remember my writing being ripped to shreds by my mentor. There was more red ink than black. I admit it was a little humiliating. But I took it all on the chin.
What are you doing when you’re not writing?
Time outside of writing and book promo is very sparse. I enjoy long phone calls, coffee with friends. Friends and family are important to me. I like to go for walks in city streets, gaze at the ocean, simple things. My mind is too full and busy for anything complicated.
Can you tell us a little about Cobargo and the struggle your community is facing?
Cobargo is my former home of many years. My grandmother first set up home there in the 1970s. My parents and sister followed. I first lived there in 1981 and the last time I left was 2016, so I have a deep and enduring connection with that part of the world. It breaks my heart to see what has happened. Normally rolling green dairy country and pristine wilderness now razed. The green has come back, the dams are full, but scores of houses are in ruins, many lives are in tatters. There is going to be struggle there for a very long time and the community will be forever scarred. A quaint historic village has had the guts torn out of it and will never be the same. It is the sense of place that has been shaken, the sense of history and people's memories. The community in that region is resilient. Most will bounce back. It is odd being an outsider, an onlooker, as there is no easy way to process the feelings. When you are living in the community, while all the more devastating, you gain a sense of solidarity. What I feel is a complete loss as though part of my life has been erased.
Cobargo for me was a place of refuge, a place I escaped to for solace, for the tranquility. No more. The first book I wrote was a memoir called Voltaire's Garden, and it depicts my sustainable lifestyle project involving me and my then partner building a huge house from the ground up and creating extensive food gardens on a fifteen acre cattle paddock. It was meant to be a statement of resilience against climate change. A place that represented good values, an example for others to follow. The fires on New Year's Eve 2019 razed part of the property and flattened my mother's old farm next door. I wrote the memoir in 2008. I dusted off the manuscript back in January this year and worked like fury to give it a bit of a lift. I felt I had to do something with the distress I was feeling and I wanted to give something back, give the memories back somehow. I knew if I stopped I would lose momentum and shelve the project as I have so much on.
Finally, is there anything you'd like to tell readers?
Without readers, authors have no legitimate existence. Thank you for reading books, and if you can spare the time, always leave a little review wherever you can. A simple show of appreciation goes a long long way in this very tough marketplace, a marketplace which is absolutely swamped. And of course authors are readers too! We are surely cut from the same cloth.
Isobel
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Isobel Blackthorn, PhD.
https://isobelblackthorn.com/
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Voltaire’s Garden is a memoir of creating a sustainable lifestyle, back-to-earth style, on a fifteen-acre cattle paddock in an idyllic pocket of southeast Australia, made famous by the bushfires of New Year’s Eve 2019.
Award-winning author Isobel Blackthorn introduces readers to the wondrous countryside of Cobargo Valley, where in 2005 she bought a parcel of land with spectacular views and built a large villa called Voltaire’s Garden, and surrounded it with swathes of luscious gardens.
With glorious descriptions of gardening, cooking and an exquisite Australian landscape, Voltaire’s Garden will inspire you to reflect on the values formed through a deep connection with the land. Composed in evocative prose, Blackthorn lays bare the hardships, the resilience, and many a hilarious moment in what is a feel-good and at times poignant read.