Fiona Palmer – Beloved Storyteller

Fiona Palmer is a natural born storyteller who chanced into writing because she wanted to create something that she’d like to read – never thinking it might be published. Nearly twenty books later, she’s one of Australia’s most popular – and beloved – rural fiction authors. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and in today’s Binge Reading episode Fiona talks about her typical year – combining writing with farming – and a family heritage that taught her there’s no such thing as failure, just more practice. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Fiona’s remarkable story of publication The most ‘rural’ of Australia’s rural authors Relatable stories about real life issues Combining writing with a farming life Being a third generation Speedway driver Australia’s remarkable beauty Where to find Fiona Palmer:  Website: www.fionapalmer.com Facebook: @FionaPalmerAuthor Twitter: @fiona_palmer Instagram: @fipalmer Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3179597. What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny Wheeler: But now, here’s Fiona. Hello there, Fiona, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Tell us, how did you get into writing and was there some moment when you thought, I’ve just got to do this? Introducing author Fiona Palmer Fiona Palmer: I can honestly say that being an author that never, ever entered my mind. I was terrible at school. English was probably one of my worst subjects. I remember being in Year 11. I loved the creativity side of English, I can remember for a test, we had to write a story of a picture and I loved that and I remember writing this story and my friends said, it’s amazing, but when it came time for marking I nearly failed because of my spelling and grammar and everything like that. I was never marked on the storytelling ability side of English. Fiona Palmer – Australian stories For that reason alone, storytelling, writing books, was never on my radar. I happened into writing by chance. Jenny Wheeler: How did that happen? We mentioned before you came on air that the little town you live in is tiny. Tell us a bit about where you’re speaking from so people can get a picture of what your childhood might have been like. Fiona Palmer: I was born and raised in Pingaring. It’s a tiny, tiny little town about three and a half hours southeast from Perth. There are four houses in the town, and one belongs to my parents and the other is ours, so you can almost say we own half the town. I have a big history here. My nana used to run the shop once, my granddad had the mechanic shop once. Born and raised here. Authentic Aussie farming life I did primary school here and then went away to boarding school for Year 8. Our primary school shut down in 1998 so our town shrank from then on. We might be lucky to say there are 30 in the district. Our little one street has our four houses and a shop. We do have a hall, it gets used once a year, and there’s a tiny CWA (Country Womens Association) that doesn’t get used anymore, but the surrounding area is all farmland. If I step out my back door, there’s a paddock and we have these great big wheat bins across the road so at harvest, all the grain goes there. Pingaring scene – Western Australia It’s predominantly sheep and cropping, mainly wheat and barley, some canola and some lupins and bits and pieces. So I grew up in a small country town and my uncle had a farm out the road and I spent every weekend there, so I’m very much born and raised a country farm kid, I suppose you could say. I went away to boarding school, got to Year 11 and I knew school wasn’t for me. I wanted to come home and be hands on. I’m very much an outside person. I left school after Year 11, came back and I did all sorts of jobs – rousing, working on the crutching cradle, driving tractors. I worked for a company called CBH (a large grain retrieval agricultural business in WA) and from there I ended up in the office and enjoyed it. Discovering the joy of storytelling One job I knew I didn’t want to do was be stuck in an office, I’m an outside person, but here I was in the office, and I was quite good at it. So I went away to college in Perth and did secretarial skills, learned to touch type. Who knew that would come in handy later on? From college I came back and worked as a CO secretary at the Shire for three years, got sick of the rate complaints and thought, there’s got to be a better job than this so then I went and worked as a teacher’s aide and did my cert three through TAFE and did my study at home, which was great. I really enjoyed that. I got married and pregnant, stayed home for a year, and the year after that I got a bit sick of sitting around watching daytime soaps. I like to stay busy, I suppose. My mum and I went into a partnership and we took on the local general store and I managed the liquor license and the bookwork and together we were very busy. At this point I had a toddler and a newborn baby and life couldn’t get busier, but that’s when I started creating a story. I never set out to write a book. My point at this time was I was so busy, I had no time to read a book, so I started creating one in my mind while I was cleaning or doing all my jobs. It got to the point that this story I created, which encompassed everything I love about living in the country, then became The Family Farm, which was my first book. Putting her experience into fiction I was really going off my inspiration and my desires and how much I love the country and the characters and the things we go through, and how Mother Nature has control over how the farms work and prosper. I was trying to put all that into a story. At first I was imagining it as a movie in my mind, and then my head felt like it was going to explode, so I started typing it out. I opened up Word and I started from chapter one and kept writing. Three years later I ended up finishing that story. The Family Farm – Fiona Palmer Jenny Wheeler: The Family Farm, that was the first of what now has become a dozen rural fiction books now, isn’t it? Fiona Palmer: Eight rural books and then I moved onto life lit. I’ve done four of those and also have four YA books, so about 16 all up. Jenny Wheeler: Wonderful. We’ll talk about those as we go along, but The Family Farm sounds like it was the book you wanted to read yourself. Would that be fair to say? Fiona Palmer: Most definitely. I think I wrote what I wanted to read, and it wasn’t until friends and family read it and said, this book is great, you should try and get it published. It had never crossed my mind and I thought, okay, so I got on Google and typed in “how to publish a book”. The Australian Society of Authors came up and on their website they were promoting a little competition. First book – The Family Farm If you entered your first three chapters, they judged it and if they thought it had merit, you won a spot with a published author for 20 free hours of mentoring. I was very lucky. I won one of those spots, I think about 200 entered. They said I had a really engaging voice. I like to tell people I didn’t write because I like words, I wrote because I wanted to tell stories. There are quite a few storytellers out in the country. That’s how I ended up into it, and those 20 free hours were great because I got to work with a published author. She told me how to set out my manuscript because I had no idea, I just opened Word and started typing. I did all those changes – double spacing and paragraphing. Rural fiction ‘first’ – Jillaroo At that point my aunt called me up and said, I’ve just read this book and it is so much like yours, I’ll send it down. It was Rachael Treasure’s Jillaroo and I read that and loved it. Here was a rural book, I could relate to it, this is just what I’d written, but a slightly different rural area. I saw that she was published by Penguin and in the acknowledgements she thanked Ali Watts, the publisher, and I thought, I’ll give them a go. Every website you go to says, we do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, et cetera, but I ignored that and I wrote a letter and I sent the first three chapters to them. A few weeks later I had an email from one of the office girls saying my manuscript had made its way to Ali Watts and could I send the rest of it? A few weeks later, Ali emailed me herself saying she loved it and was waiting to see what the publishing house thought. A few more weeks later, I had an offer of contract. So I just fell into being an author. It’s amazing. Blossoming in Australian fiction Jenny Wheeler: That’s fantastic. You probably benefited from the fact that there’s been a huge blossoming in that rural fiction market in the last decade, hasn’t there? Do you think it’s partly because of the hard times some of Australia’s agriculture has been going through? It has made everybody very much aware of the whole rural sector, perhaps in a way that they weren’t before, or they took it for granted before. Fiona Palmer: Rachel Treasure was the first rural book I’d come across. I don’t think there are very many. They might have been dotted through time before but Rachel has really made an impact. In 2009 my The Family Farm came out as well as Fleur McDonald’s Red Dust, I think that was the first book of hers. Fleur McDonald – Red Dust – another rural fiction pioneer Each year after the rural genre became a thing, or rural romance, and it grew and grew. I think that’s because more people had access to these books and read them and thought yes, I can write this too, the same as how it happened for me. You read a book that you loved and you went, this is what I’m writing and this is the life I live or what I enjoy to read, so I’m going to write it. I think that just bred and bred. There are a lot of people who live in small towns or rural areas and they all started writing and it became a genre and grew and got its own life. Jenny Wheeler: You’ve mentioned being a storyteller. Part of the way your publisher promotes your books is to describe you as one of Australia’s best storytellers and you’ve developed a really big following in this area. Is there anything that differs between somebody who’s a storyteller and somebody who’s a general author? What are the things that make a storyteller stand out, do you think? Characters and their journeys Fiona Palmer: I’m not sure. My main focus when I write is on the characters and their journeys. I try to write a page turner, I try to write a book I’d like to read and that means it’s going to be enjoyable, fast. I need to be able to pick it up, read it and put it away because I’m a busy person so I tend to think I’m writing for the busy person. You want to be able to pick up a book – some people read it in a night, lucky them, it takes me maybe two days to get through a book – feeling happy and satisfied once I finish that book and then get back on with life. Personally, I’m a bit like that. I don’t tend to read a lot of literary fiction because it takes too much mental focus and being such a busy person with so many jobs and things happening and kids, I don’t have that time to give some of those books so I tend to read young adult or fantasy as a break, fast paced, and a lot of life lit books. Jenny Wheeler: Tiny White Lies, that’s your most recently published book and we’ll get on to talking about that now. Would you consider Tiny White Lies to be in the life lit category? Fiona Palmer: I think so. It’s more focused on the characters and their lives. A while ago someone had reviewed the book and they said something about the way I describe characters. They could be anyone, any normal person, and yet they were really invested in their life, and I tend to think that’s what life lit is. It’s like a relatable story. Australian landscape important Of course, I’ve thrown in the rural coastal retreat, another way for me to describe some of the landscape. I love showcasing what we have in our own State or places I’ve been. People love to read about places they’ve been, and being able to write gives me that platform. Jenny Wheeler: The tagline for that book, you use the word ‘relatable’ and it certainly is relatable. It says “for three weeks two families escape the rat race in a remote coastal camp with no phone reception.” The kids, I might add, are teenagers who are mad on social media, so I’m sure you’ve caught a lot of readers with that one sentence because people immediately have a sense of what that situation might entail. Fiona Palmer: Yes, definitely. People say, where do you get your inspiration? My two teenage children inspired this book. They went away to boarding school in Year 7 and had phones from an early age so that we could access them and chat to them. Bremer Bay – a coastal retreat – location for Tiny White Lies I felt like I was opening them up to the whole wide scary world back then, how life sort of morphed with technology. This book came out of my own fears. Every January we go to Bremer Bay for a holiday for about three weeks and I take the kids down there and it’s the one time I feel I connect with my kids. I feel like I get them back. Their devices aren’t the most important things in their life. Down there we sit around the fire, we chat, we talk, we sing, we play board games and card games and we go 4-wheel driving and surfing and they barely look at their phones. That is most precious time of the year for me and that’s why that all got morphed into the book as well. Relatable stories about real lives Jenny Wheeler: I’m not going to have any spoilers because it doesn’t come out until halfway through the book, but there’s a health scare that is common for many women that one of your characters has to face, and so you’re covering a lot of emotional issues that people have to face up to in real life. One of the characters, it’s revealed very early on, her husband’s committed suicide. That’s part of the story right at the beginning so I’m not giving anything away, but they are dealing with very big issues as well. You cover a lot of things apart from romance. Fiona Palmer: Definitely. People have always pegged us in the romance genre but even my rural stories were always tackling hard issues – rural depression and suicide. There have been so many in-depth topics, they’re not just light and fluffy. Jane Austen in Aussie wheatlands I love a romantic thread. In all my books I try to put in a romantic thread because it’s one of those things I love to read and I love writing. But also, I love writing about everyday hardships that people have to endure, whether it is from losing your husband to suicide or anxiety and depression and cancers and health problems. Mr Darcy in Australia It’s all the things we deal with day in, day out, whether ourselves, family members, loved ones. They work their way naturally into my storylines. Jenny Wheeler: The book before Tiny White Lies, Matters of the Heart, I must say I loved that book because it’s got a really terrific premise. You re-imagine Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in the Australian wheatlands and you have Charles Bingley and Mr Darcy pretty much driving combine harvesters. The more I thought about it, I thought what a fantastic movie it would make. A slightly satirical movie having Charles Bingham, Wickham and Darcy all in the middle of an Australian wheat field. Have you had a good response to that book? Fiona Palmer: Definitely. You’re always scared of what the Jane Austen fans will think, but I went on how much I wanted to write this story. For years and years I thought about writing this because I could imagine this Pride and Prejudice book set in the country. In my mind it worked perfectly. Poor farmer, rich farmer We grew up with cabarets, dances and all these things. You’ve got the poor farmer and the rich farmer, and it would gel so well. I had an absolute ball writing this and I think it would be amazing on the big screen. Jenny Wheeler: You would have to get somebody like Chris Hemsworth or one of those to play it. Fiona Palmer: Yes, I know. Try to get them interested. That would be good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfySIkxdBDw Chris Hemsworth for Aussie Darcy? Or Bingley? You decide. Jenny Wheeler: Lizzie in Matters of the Heart is a terrific character and she’s fighting to save the family farm. It sounds like this is quite a theme of your work because in the first book, The Family Farm, the young woman was fighting to save the family farm. There are a lot of agricultural details in it, which doesn’t make it at all boring, in fact it really beds it down in the world they inhabit. Obviously, you know a lot about this, there is quite a lot of information about farming that I found fascinating. Did you have to do a lot of research for that? Fiona Palmer: I’m living and breathing farming, born and raised on a farm. I like to think I’m one of the most authentic rural writers out there because I’m still living and breathing it. Even now I work as a farm hand so most mornings I’m off at the farm. We’re welding, I’m driving tractors and loaders and trucks and headers. I absolutely love my life on the farm, and it is so easy to slip that into my stories because it’s what I do every day. Jenny Wheeler: That’s amazing. When do you find the time to write? Do you program it into your day somewhere? Fitting writing around farming Fiona Palmer: It gets programmed around farming, quite funnily. I have seeding and harvest in which I give a hundred percent to my bosses. So seeding, mainly because there’s nothing else, you’re doing 12 to 14 hour days, seven days a week, just to get the crop in and the same at harvest to get it off. I don’t have time to do any book work. I save up all my audible books and listen to them while I’m on the tractor and the header and think about my next stories. But after seeding is done, that’s when I write my next book. I have one book a year. That’s where I’m at now. I’ve just finished next year’s book, the first draft, and I’ll do an edit and try and get that sent off before harvest starts. Once harvest is over, I start the editing process and thinking about the next book. It merges really well. I try to write 2,000 words a day, 10,000 words a week, and I often still go out to the farm a couple of days a week. I find that I can work all day at the farm, come home and write 2,000 words after dinner at night. I think the busier I am, the better I write. It’s a bit of a juggle. When the book comes out, I’ve got to throw in driving to Perth for events and meetings. I’m very lucky I’ve got a flexible boss who is quite happy for me to take time off to do my book stuff and then I’ve got to take time off to do kid stuff. Kids need picking up, dropping off, all those things. Life gets pretty busy. Sexy spies and super secrets Jenny Wheeler: As well as this work we’ve been talking about, you’ve developed another area entirely of young adult or new adult fiction with a crossover series about sexy spies and a super-secret agency and the work they do saving the world. Where did that come from? Fiona Palmer:  I have always read young adults, the Vampire Academy and the Throne of Glass. There are all sorts of stories I love reading, fast pace, and they always say, write what you love to read. It is not that big a step for me. Young or new adult fiction – Fiona Palmer But I have a friend who had this amazing life and I wanted him to tell his story, but he’s too busy so I wrote this series based on his journey. He helped me a lot with all the technical details, relating to the drugs and how things work and the secret agency, and I morphed this whole story of Jaz. I love strong female leads. Writing Jaz was a dream, having this young girl who could do karate and she was so smart – it just worked her being recruited into this agency. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and it’s not just for young readers. They are actually my mum’s favorite books of mine. She reads them over and over again. Jenny Wheeler: That leads very nicely onto the next section where we like to talk about your slightly wider life. Your admiration for these spunky females – there’s one fascinating detail on your online biography where you say you were a third generation Speedway driver, driving from the age of 16. Tell us about that passion. (If you’re mad about racing the link will take you to Fiona’s blog about racing cars.) Third generation Speedway Fiona Palmer: My granddad was a Speedway driver and my dad is a Speedway driver. We had a go kart and I was in that at the age of three and in cars the moment I could reach the pedal. I used to spend time as a 14-year-old practicing reverse spins and donuts. Anything with a steering wheel has been my life, I love it, and at the age of 16 I got into Speedway and raced right up until I was pregnant. My two kids, about three years ago, both started racing Speedway and my dad was still racing and I’ve just got back into it. Absolutely love it. It’s a big family thing for us, my dad, myself and my kids and my husband. He’s the chief pit crew and we all go racing and we absolutely love it. Fiona Palmer speedway driver – yes she really is behind that wheel! Jenny Wheeler: Turning to a more career sort of question, is there one thing you’ve done more than any other that’s helped you make a go of it as a writer? What would you consider to be the secret of your success? Fiona Palmer: I think that’s my upbringing. I don’t have a lot of confidence but then again, I have the ability to give things a go. I was always raised to have a go. From a young age, they’d say get in, hop in the truck and have a go or do this and do that. I learned pretty early on that some of the most scary things to attempt can be the most rewarding, so I tend to push past those fears. The authors Fiona likes to read The same with writing this book and sending it off. It’s like, what have I got to lose? You can’t lose when you’re having a go, so one motto is to have a go at anything. There’s no such thing as failure, there’s only practice. It’s the same on the farm. I’ve learnt to weld, I have learnt to use so many power tools and absolutely love it. I found a new passion there. So having a go is paramount. Jenny Wheeler: We are starting to come to the end of our time together, so turning to the aspect of binge reading, The Joys of Binge Reading is the name of this podcast and we always like to check in with authors to see what books they like to read, if there is a series or something they find almost addictive in terms of their reading. Have you got any authors you can mention that you binge read or find quite addictive and you want to read everything they’ve written? Sarah J Maas – Throne of Glass series a Fiona Palmer favorite Fiona Palmer: Definitely. I stumbled across Sarah J Maas’s books and her Throne of Glass series was to die for. I totally powered through that whole series and it worked its way through my whole family. We all ended up a bit addicted. I highly recommend her, don’t mind a bit of fantasy with some romance. I absolutely loved her books. Jenny Wheeler: Circling around, looking back over the years, at this stage if you were doing it all again, is there anything you would change? Fiona Palmer: I don’t think so, because I think my life’s experience was building me up to this point in my life of being an author. Everything I experienced – the different jobs I did, learning to touch type at college – I think it all played a special part in where I’ve ended up. What’s next for Fiona the writer? Jenny Wheeler: You must have had very definite natural talent to have had such an amazing entree without having years and years of having to submit manuscripts. It says a lot for your natural talent. Fiona Palmer: Yes. People say have you had any study and did you go to uni, and I said no, I’ve read books and I’ve watched movies and it organically happens. I can’t tell people how I write a book. I start at chapter one and I naturally end where the book needs to end with the right word count. It just works out well somehow. Jenny Wheeler: What is next for Fiona the writer in terms of the next 12 months? Where are you in the cycle with the farm at the moment? I’m not quite sure of the seasons for harvesting – harvesting is coming up, is it? Fiona Palmer: It is, about mid-October. I have finished my first draft and I want to give it a read through, The Stolen Memories I’m calling it for the moment, and I’ll send that off to my publisher and she’ll read through, and then I’ll probably have some structural edits right before harvest which I’ll try and get done. Karijini – one of the most beautiful places in Australia…. Then swing into harvest. In January I’ll probably have the book back for some more edits. January through to February will be edits between work. Jenny Wheeler: Have you got any idea what you’ll be starting on after that? Fiona Palmer: I do. We’ve got a trip in April next year way up north, we’re going up past Karijini. We’re actually heading to Karratha because it’s the State title for juniors and my son is going to race in that. We’re going to stop at Karijini on our way. If no one knows what Karijini is, look it up, it’s absolutely magnificent. That’s something special, way up north in our State we’re going to check out and I’m going to set my next book there. The pandemic and book touring Jenny Wheeler: I guess it’s a bit harder to tour with books at the moment. I’m not sure how much the pandemic might be affecting you in Western Australia, but you’ve mentioned that you do like to go to Perth and do some book meetings. You obviously do enjoy having the chance to meet your readers. Tell us about meeting your readers and where they can find you online. Fiona Palmer: Definitely. Being way out in the middle of nowhere, it’s quite a trick, but I’m used to being in a car and that’s why being online is quite important out here. I can access all my readers through social media. I’m very active on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. I still love getting to the city but also regional areas for talks. In WA we’re very lucky. I’ve had some amazing events all through WA because we’re okay over here, so everything feels almost as normal back here. But I’ve missed out on doing some trips over East and doing some events over there, which normally you’d fit in, but I’ve learned some new things, doing a few Zoom meetings and bits and pieces. That’s been great. Jenny Wheeler: For people listening, we will put links to all your social media in the show notes for this that we publish as a blog post with the audio, so people will be able to find those links online in the show notes. Fiona Palmer: That would be awesome. Thanks, Jenny. Jenny Wheeler: How far are you with the Jaz series? Is there another one of those books in the offing somewhere? If you liked Fiona you might like . . . Fiona Palmer: Way back then I did think about writing another one and having a spinoff series, but all my focus is on the mainstream books and farming at the moment. If it took off and went crazy, then yes, I’d probably go back and write some more on it. Jenny Wheeler: It’s been wonderful having a chance to talk, Fiona. Thank you so much for being with us today and I think what you’ve achieved is totally remarkable. Fiona Palmer: Thank you, Jenny. Thanks for a great interview. If you like Fiona’s ‘life lit’ emotional family stories you might also enjoy Alissa Callen’s Aussie outback stories – a Bright Light in Darkness. LISTEN TO ALISSA HERE