What book made you want to become an author?
I actually never thought about being an author. I loved telling stories, but for me the act of storytelling and being an author where not the same thing. One involved writing, the other only my ability to talk and I was good at talking! It was in my early thirties that a very gifted counsellor called out the writer in me. She asked me, ‘What does the pain look like?’ and I began to think of how to give my pain voice. I played around with character and emotions on the page for the first time. I sent that writing to her by email and she encouraged me to keep expressing myself. A whole book grew out of that original question!
What is your writing kryptonite? What sucks the most time away from actually writing?
My children! ‘Mum, can I…?’
And why, oh why, does dinner need to be cooked every night? I am waiting for the advance in technology where I can just tell the oven to make something and it willingly complies!
How much time did it take to write your current book?
This book took about ten years to write because it began as a memoir. Once I realized that I not only never read memoir, but I wasn’t overly drawn to the genre, I felt free to branch out into fiction. I immediately fell in love with magical realism and used the emotional truth of my own story as a starting point for the book that is now to be published. The more recent fictional story took about three years to hone before I felt ready to query agents with it.
What was the process behind getting published with Penguin Australia?
I have always been a big supporter of The Manuscript Academy, which is an online site for writers to receive professional feedback from agents and editors. One day I received an email from The Manuscript Academy asking if I would be interested in a phone call with a new editor that was coming on board. I said I most definitely was. The new editor was none other than Kimberly Atkins (former acquisitions editor with Penguin Random House Australia, but she has since moved to Hodder Books, UK). Kimberly was only supposed to read the first ten pages of my work and then give me some feedback in a ten-minute phone call, but instead she emailed to say she loved what she was reading and could I please send the whole manuscript? Of course, I did (with much excited jumping up and down in the back ground).
By the time we spoke on the phone a few days later, Kimberly had read the first 50 pages and was still loving the book. During our phone call (which lasted closer to 40 minutes!) she had such wonderful things to say about the book and my writing! I could hardly believe what I was hearing but was of course very thrilled. A week or so later she emailed to ask if she could take the book to an acquisitions meeting, which is where decisions about offers of publication are made, and I was beside myself! A few weeks later I received the email that all writers dream of with an offer of publication on my book. I called my husband and we jumped around the house like little kids hugging each other!
How was the editing process for you?
Editing a book with publishing professionals is really a master class in writing. The editorial letter was sheer brilliance and the team at Penguin have been 100% supportive of my book every step of the way.
Your debut novel is about time travel, so if you could travel back in time and give words of wisdom to yourself at a pivotal time in your past, what would you say?
I’d tell my 30-year-old self not to try to rush, to give herself grace because healing takes time. I’d tell her that even in her darkest of moments she is seen, known, and held. I’d tell her to hold on. And when you do it’s so much better than your wildest dreams.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors? What are some common traps and pitfalls for them to avoid?
I’d ask them how bad do they want to be a writers and what are their reasons for wanting to be published? Write those on a card and stick them up somewhere that you can refer to over and over again, because you will need them! Also, remember that rejection is really redirection. Every time you get a no it’s because there is something better out there for you and that was not your path. Trust your own path. Keep going!
For your next projects, do you want your novels to be more stand alone or series based?
At this stage, I don’t have any series planned. The next two books are filled with quirky characters who like their own stage
If you could choose a writing mascot what would it be and why?
I’d choose my Chihuahua, Lion. She has been there for every word I have every written and for every dark day during my healing and all the bright ones thereafter. She has so much heart she really thinks she is twenty times bigger than what she is and so her name suits her well.
What have you found is the best way to market your current book?
Much of the marketing in a big traditional publishing house is taken on by the publisher, but authors can help a lot. Social media has been really important for me, but I think writers should be building connections on these platforms long before they have a publishing deal. It takes time to really connect with others and build a following. Also, just support other authors. Promote their books, go to their launches. Buy their books if you can. And don’t do it because you expect something in return, do it because you are a book person and you love books and other book people. I have met so many fabulous authors this way.
What does literary success look like to you?
This is a really important question. For me it has to be a goal where the outcome is within my control. Selling X many copies is not success to me because I can’t control sales. What I can control is me and my efforts. I have decided that success with this novel was being vulnerable and present enough to show up and be real with my readers as I wrote the book. There were many fears and past traumas I had to work through to be able to write this emotionally true and totally made up novel.Once the book is published, success will be wholeheartedly engaging with readers and supporting and talking about my book. If I do these things well, I will consider myself successful.
Finally, what inspired you to write your current book, and are there any secrets within it that only a select few who are close to you will understand?
I adore magical realism and wanted to use it to present to the reader a different way to see their world, to see the ‘magic of hope.’ In my story 33-year-old Middle Willa meets her 93 and 8-year-old selves. I would often say to my counsellor how much I wished I could go back and love the little girl that I was. How sorry I was for hating her and how I wanted to embrace her. The ‘Little Girl’ in my book is Super gumboots Willa when she was 8 years-old. We see the power abusers have and how their victims learn to hate who they are and to reject themselves and blame themselves. I used magical realism here to have these characters meet and to let readers see how I went from self-rejection to self-love. How I ‘grew up’ and mothered the child I was inside and how much my ‘younger self’ still lived within me and wanted nothing more than to be loved.
Silver Willa is the 93-year-old character. I wanted to explore how much our future self might really care about the outcomes of our healing. I wanted to show what might be at stake if ‘present day self’ never heals and keeps running from the pain of the past. Once again, magical realism was used to have Willa at three different ages meet and play out on the page the fight for Willa to heal and to save herself, to take back her power, to confront her abuser and to create a future she is proud of. I often wanted to be ‘mothered’ by older me and cheered on by older me when I was healing. This story was my way of doing that. This story is my emotional truth, hope and the fight for self-love presented a totally fictional world.
Tabitha's Website: www.tabithaannbird.com
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Beaudesert Times: Wednesday 5th December, 2018