Heather Rose is an award winning and best selling Australian author, public speaker and teacher of creativity and imagination. Heather’s work spans literary fiction, magical realism, crime fiction, political fiction and fantasy. Her novels have won numerous prizes including the Stella Prize, the Christina Stead Prize, the Margaret Scott Prize and the ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year. Her work has been published internationally and translated into numerous languages. Heather is a passionate teacher of writing and a mentor for developing novelists. She is also one half of the children’s author Angelica Banks. Heather lives by the sea in Tasmania.
Why do you tell stories?
It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.
Describe Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here in one (or two) sentence(s).
A memoir of the life changing, life affirming and enlivening experiences that have led me to here. It’s a book about courage, grief, love and joy.
One of the most striking things about reading this book was the passion and curiosity you have for the world and your place in it. Are these qualities--passion and curiosity--essential to your writer-self?
Absolutely. I suspect we writers are all rather curious passionate people. Perhaps that’s the definition of being a creative person. One who is passionate and curious.
You write the body onto the page in extraordinary ways and you have lived a life testing the endurance of your body. Was it confronting to revisit some of the memories you explore in this book, in your body?
Writing the memoir was a hallowing experience. It was very difficult to write and re-write many passages, but by the end of the book I felt as if I had been given a rare gift. I had seen into the heart of myself. I say in the book ‘Life is a process of forgiveness for the choices we make in order to be ourselves.” I came to terms with everything it has taken to be here.
In what ways has the natural world saved you? Where is your most favourite place?
My favourite place is with my partner when we are body surfing some wild waves on a remote beach, or camping under the stars with a fire burning. Tasmania, of course, offers us many such places. Just being in nature, experiencing the beauty of this world, nourishes me every day.
Can you tell us about the relationship between solo parenting and creativity, and how this has shaped you as a writer?
I loved my years as a solo parent. It taught me strength and resilience. It also taught me loving care and patience. All those qualities have been useful as a novelist.
When did you know that you wanted to write this memoir, a departure from the fiction that you usually write?
I never really wanted to write it. I began it as a task when I was unwell because my children had asked me to capture the stories. And finally, when I couldn’t do essential research overseas during Covid, I relented and knuckled down to turn it into a book. It was the hardest thing I’ve written.
Were there any strictures/limitations you placed on yourself in revealing your own story, and the story of those you love, to the world? In other words, how did you decide what to reveal and what to protect? (we think your book is stunningly honest and generous, by the way)
Thank you! I felt if I was to do this well, I couldn’t avoid sharing the wild, mystical and inexplicable happenings and events. Those experiences have shaped how I see the world. If I didn’t share them in the memoir, I was failing to give readers the most essential parts of myself.
You write from the seam of childhood trauma and tragedy in such beautiful, hopeful, faithful ways--how do you protect yourself while you're writing/living?
I swim in the mornings. I meditate every day. I always light a candle when I work. I love to walk the beach. I take Cheryl Strayed’s advice: ‘No is the fairy godmother.’ I’m careful about who and what I give my time to. I practice joy. I am grateful for the wonder of every day I get to be alive in this world. I live amongst generous loving people. Somehow all of that has created a sense of flow in my life so even when things are very tough, I can nourish and restore myself.
When and where do you write?
I’m always writing. I take notes throughout any day when I’m not at my desk because ideas and sentences are always arriving. I like to start the day early. Sometimes 5am – sometimes 9am. I like at least a 6 hour run, then a break. Then I may return for another 3 hours or more, depending on where I am in the writing process. I write mostly in my pyjamas and dressing gown – and ugg boots (it’s Tasmania!). My office is filled with books and there are doors opening out into the garden. It is very quiet and I love being undisturbed except for the times tea is slipped onto my desk.
Bonus Question: Name three books that you couldn’t live without OR what happened in the Australian desert :)
1. Jitterbug Perfume by Tim Robbins
2. The Oxford Thesaurus
3. My Moleskine journal with a good gel pen.