WELCOME TO GIRLFRIEND FICTION
Melaina Faranda
Years ago, Melaina Faranda washed up on Thursday Island penniless and soaking, with a single change of clothes, only to be loaned an entire new wardrobe and given three jobs on the first day, including working at the local bakery. Someone gave her a house to live in, people took her out fishing and told stories, and a wonderful old islander gave her the same precious gift Edie receives before returning to Cairns. Melaina has since travelled across Australia and around the world, with many elements of these journeys finding their way into her novels, including The Circle series and Big Sky, but she has yet to discover a place where there is more generosity and open-heartedness than that shown by the Thursday Islanders.
How did real life influence the characters in Thirteen Pearls?
'Boys. My trips to Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait many years ago were entirely, shamelessly, to do with chasing boys. Jodie Webster, my wonderful editor, reckons that I write the most 'romantic' Girlfriend Fiction stories but there's a liberal sprinkling of the real in there...
'I still vividly recall the sensory blast of lush tropical rainforest, Ulysses butterflies, the thrill of crocodile country, and a ubiquitous, persistently calling bird that no one could tell me the name of. Running up Mt Whitfield when I was super-fit (pre-kids/ marriage/ mortgage/ being shackled to a laptop and everything else that's fattening!) and hoping I wouldn't meet a Cassowary en route. Sidestepping little orange crabs in an outhouse on Thursday Island. Catching my first coral trout. I wove bits of these real experiences into Edie's journey even though we are nothing alike. In fact, I'm not sure we would have been friends at school, though I admire her stubborn spikiness.
'The choosing between two boys thing (that was made up too!) was a situation I wanted to explore because many of us know that it's possible to like more than one boy at the same time! Choices, choices...'
Where did the detail about life in the Torres Strait come from?
'I lived on Thursday Island for a short while and spent brief time on a pearling island as well (though the people on that island were lovely and welcoming and nothing like horrible Uncle Red) and something about it ingrained itself into my psyche. I loved the Torres Strait Islander people's way of being, loved the relative dagginess of the town (although I'm told it's more modernised and upmarket now) and the prevailing philosophy that life was fundamentally about going fishing.
'Back then I worked in the bakery for a hot-tempered boss people were afraid of. Because I was a vegetarian he particularly delighted in giving me the meat pie pots to scrub out, but I got my revenge by giving away heaps of perfectly good cakes and slices for people to feed to their pigs!'
How did real life influence the characters in Big Sky?
'Skye is very different from me except that we both share a love of the land and a yearning to be our wild selves. Although I'm grateful for the comforts of modern living, I'm not convinced that they're making anyone happier. I would never want to be famous and policed by the media. I know that a lot of girls want to be celebrities - I couldn't imagine anything worse: you'd never have any private space for letting go.'
Where did the detail about life in the Kimberley come from?
'Eva Mills asked me to submit an idea for a Girlfriend Fiction book. After the proposal was accepted I had one of those panicky crap crap crap moments – I don’t know anything about the Kimberly, or mustering and the last time I’d been on a horse aged fifteen (me – not the horse) I fell off and never got back on.
'It’s amazing where panic takes you. For weeks my bedside stack of books included such riveting texts as: Beef Industry Australia, Cattle Kings, Pastoral Homesteads, Fauna of the Northern Territory (that one was quite interesting) and smoke-husky tales from old-time ringers.
'I found me a ringer too. A real one. Walter was working on my parent-in-laws’ biodynamic farm and he’d worked as a stockman for many years. We had long smoke-husky lunches and I plied him with such insightful questions as, ‘If rogue bulls are called mickeys then are rogue cows called minnies?’ Best bit was when he showed me how to throw a bull by throwing my Golden Retriever. Honey wasn’t impressed.'
Embarrassing high school moment?
'Let’s get this clear: I was self-pegged as a semi-nerd. But there was a fleeting moment when I was cool. That shining moment didn’t last and I scuttled back into outersville to real friends. It’s interesting (while I’m on my soapbox) – what I want least for my daughter in her school career, is conventional popularity. Although it seemed oh so desirable at the time, I’ve observed how the really interesting kids are exactly that because they’re not constrained by having to be cool. They often seem to go on to become the most talented and true-hearted individuals who shine in their adult lives.
'But as for my embarrassing moment – in my month of cool (Year 9 hanging with the S-block crowd) I went to a Bluelight disco with fluorescent orange ties around my head and wrists (think Madonna in the dark ages) and a black plastic chain belt (from my local hardware store for hanging pot plants). I had borrowed high heels that were too big for me. Three steps down and I slipped in a puddle of spew and slid from one end of the dance floor to the other. I've never worn heels since.'
What did you like reading when you were a teenager?
'Anything I could get my hands on. I can still remember Mum hassling me to go and make friends when I was in Grade Seven, but I was in paradise – my little country school boasted a couple of shelves of books but at the high school the library consisted of two whole rooms! I devoured The Pydrain Chronicles, The Dark is Rising series, Narnia (again), Nicholas Fisk’s science fiction, Joan Aiken, a book called Which Witch? (In fact, I loved that one so much I stole it.)
'There are some books that still haunt me. One of those was The Silver Crown by Robert O'Brien. I went back to my old high school several years ago to find that one seminal book and they had recently chucked it out. Arggghhh!
' I loved all books with a sense of magic and mystery. Then, from Year Nine on, it was a sudden leap into the Victorian classics and I’d spend entire nights reading Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens or Dostoyevsky while pretending to study (remember that this was in the olden days before msnger or chat rooms).'
Life at school
'I did enjoy learning. Always have. I loved some of my teachers – the passionate ones who jumped on desks and foamed and declaimed and slammed wooden metre rulers down onto the desks of kids who weren’t paying attention (Sharon and Alan who were always pashing up the back).
'My favourite subject was Eskimo Studies. Probably now it would be called Inuit Studies. It was random, curveball (in sub-tropical Australia), and it totally tickled my sense of the eccentric and ridiculous. I learned how to make a sled out of: a caribou skin, a length of reindeer twine and ten frozen fish. We also played a game where we got to spear a harp seal cake. The guts were a twist of lolly snakes and jellybeans. But you know if I was ever stranded in the snow…'
What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?
'I’ve been given such great advice by so many wise people and mostly forget to follow it. Probably the maxim that has been most useful to me in an eventful life of high adventure is that anyone could be a magician in disguise. Just like in the fairytales.'
