I have known Elisabeth Rose for some years now and I am thrilled to have a chance to get to know her better. So settle yourself down, grab a nice ginger biscuit for dunking and let's have a chat with Elisabeth Rose...
My dear Ms. Rose, do
you take tea? If so what is your preference?
I’m partial to a cup of tea with milk, thank you. I’m
delighted to see you have a very attractive teapot. At home I use leaf tea made
in a pot and only occasionally use teabags—Twinings Irish Breakfast. My Mum
used to say they swept up the dust from the factory floor to put into tea bags.
I always find it disappointing in a restaurant or café to be presented with a
tea pot with tea bags in it. I do like Chinese jasmine tea and have several
mugs with their own infuser insert for green leaf tea.
(Thank heavens you didn't mention Earl Grey...AS)
I had a short lived
career playing the clarinet. My father complained I sounded like a “Nadi war
horn” (a Kenyan joke, I suspect) and on my last exam, the examiner wrote in
block letters “CANDIDATE MUST LEARN TO COUNT”.
As I obviously lacked any sense of rhythm, that was the end of me
playing a musical instrument. However for you the clarinet is a part of your
life. I would love to know more about your career as a musician and the
importance of music in your writing?
Gosh, I’ve had students like you! It’s amazing the sounds an
inept player can produce from a clarinet — from a ship’s foghorn through a duck
to your Dad’s war horn. And teaching someone who has no sense of rhythm is one
of the most difficult things of all. (Thanks! AS)
I did a performance degree on clarinet after I left school.
I was a member of the 1975 Australian Youth Orchestra and toured Asia with them
plus we gave a concert in the Opera House. I never worked in a professional
orchestra on a long term basis but I’ve done a lot of freelance playing in pit
orchestras for local opera companies over the years. Now I play in a wind trio
and we do weddings and functions. I used all that experience in my earlier
books because it was the most natural area to start writing in. I invented a
fictional orchestra as a basis for different stories — The Right Chord, The
Tangled Web, Love On the North Shore Line and Trouble In Nirvana. Strings
Attached and Coming Home share a couple of musician characters, Instant Family
and Outback Hero feature a guitarist and pop singer respectively. I always try to incorporate some music into
my character’s lives, mostly as listeners in my later books.
Your other great
passion is Tai Chi. In the public gardens of Asia I have been continually
struck by the beauty and grace of this practice. What drew you to Tai Chi and
do you think it could help writers?
I’ve always been interested in wholistic exercise styles. I
did yoga for about ten years on and off from about the age of nineteen but
stopped when I was pregnant with number two. I enjoyed the stretching and the
meditation aspect. A friend showed me some Tai Chi movements. I signed up for
classes in 1987 and haven’t stopped practising since then. I was immediately
hooked. I loved the flowing movement as opposed to the static postures of yoga
and the fact that taught correctly, all the movements have self defense
applications which give them purpose and meaning. And meditation or Qi Gong is
an integral part of Tai Chi as well.
I think I can safely say I’ve retained joint flexibility,
have good leg strength and balance and in my early sixties have no back, hip or
shoulder problems because of the length of time I’ve been practicing Tai Chi
and before that the yoga. I know a range of simple but effective exercises to
alleviate writer’s issues — tightness in my back, neck, wrists and shoulders
and add those to my daily routine if I feel I need to. Tai Chi has a slow building
cumulative effect which comes from regular practice over a long period of time.
Short term benefits can be achieved quite quickly but maintaining that routine
is most important. Same as writing and musical instrument practice. Do a bit
every day.
My husband and I love travel, so there are photos of me practicing in all sorts of
places in the world.
(The Tai Ci and Chi Kung Academy has a range of dvds with
sets of beneficial Chinese exercises and meditation techniques you can learn
without an instructor. www.taichiacademy.com.au)
I would call you one
of the quiet achievers of the writing world. Your books have done tremendously
well in prestigious contests and you are now writing for several different
publishers at the same time. What is a typical writing day like for you?
Thank you for that lovely compliment, Alison. When I wrote
for Avalon there wasn’t much Australian reader feedback because the books went
into libraries in the US, were hardcover and thus very expensive to buy and
ship. I loved writing for Avalon and they seemed to like my style because they
bought eight titles. When, in 2012, the publisher sold to Amazon all the Avalon
authors had a sudden whole new exposure with the rerelease of our books in e
and paperback format. With Amazon’s promotional
department behind us we are all reaching a vastly bigger audience.
I was thrilled to sell to HM&B at last, through the new
Escape Publishing imprint. The Ripple Effect came out in April and I’ve just
contracted Mango Kisses for a November 1st release.
Listen to me—talk, talk, talk and not answering the
question! My days are fairly free flowing time wise so I write any time I’m
free but I find I can’t write at night. I always reread what I’ve done
previously and go back to layer in emotion and context. I write cleanly as far
as grammar and spelling goes. I tend to get dialogue down first then fill in
around it. I’m not a plotter but once the story starts moving I spend a fair
bit of time thinking about what’s going to happen in a story and character arc
sense. Characters constantly surprise me.
(And you always seemed like such a quiet person! AS)
I shall pour us
another cup of tea and raise my cup to the success of your latest book, E for
England, which was released on 1 August. What was the inspiration behind this
story?
My daughter often says ‘Mum, you should write a book about
this . . .' . Love On the North Shore Line came from one of her ideas and so
did E For England. She lives on the seventh floor of a harbourside apartment
block in Sydney. It has a balcony, handy for drying underwear on a clothes
rack. Trouble is items sometimes blow off and end up down on the ground. This
particular time her favourite Victoria’s Secret knickers —bought in the VS store
in Washington — disappeared. She went down in the dark to search for them but
they were stuck in the oleander bushes out of reach. She proceeded to clamber into the shrubbery
and try to shake them down. (‘I wasn’t losing them, they cost a fortune!’)
Neighbours on the ground floor had a conversation with their window open about
what was making such a commotion outside — a cat? possum? Daughter realized
they were talking about her and yelled ‘It’s me!’
My heroine Annie has the same experience right at the start
of the book but her assistant is, of course, the hero, whereas my daughter’s
was a young married couple with a broom.
(Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction! AS)
To find out more about Elisabeth Rose and her books visit her WEBSITE.
E For England can be purchased directly from ESCAPE or from all good online shops
Annie never thought to use underwear to meet a man, but the
trick works on her downstairs neighbour, Hugh. Though he’s a handsome English
doctor, Annie wants nothing more than friendship. Luckily, neither does Hugh.But their friendship is shaken and their resolve tested when Annie’s flatmate, sexy and voracious Leonie, meets Hugh. Annie has no claim on Hugh’s nights, but can she bear to lose him to Leonie? And when Annie’s husband suddenly reappears, will Hugh fight for the family he didn’t know he needed?
