Interview with Aussie Crime Writer Sandy Curtis
Smoke from the commune’s chimney is a shadow against the ochre streaked sky. Fallen leaves and dry twigs crackle and snap underfoot, but the sound is lost beneath the nighttime calls of wildlife as the day’s heat begins to dissipate. I’m here with an Australian crime writer who doesn’t shy away from the dark side of humanity and who has made an outstanding contribution to writing in Queensland (and has the 2012 QWC Jonno Award to prove it!). Join me in welcoming Sandy Curtis as we discuss her latest novel Grievous Harm.
RH: Sandy Curtis, welcome to Writers Block. I thought long and hard about what to recreate for the setting of our interview and have settled upon the camp site Kate set up on her first reconnaissance of the Loving Hand commune in the wilderness beyond Bathurst. I’ve got the billy going over a small fire and a selection of food if you get hungry (or exhausted from all my nosey questions!). *indicates a hamper of fresh fruit, veg, deli meats and fresh-baked bread rolls* It’s as close to natural as I could source out here and I’ve got a selection of herbal teas in case my coffee is too awful to drink. And, of course, I’ve got plenty of water! What can I get you?
SC: I’d love some fresh fruit, thank you. And then I’ll indulge in some ham and tomato on a delicious gluten free seeded bread roll and a peppermint tea. All this tramping through the bush and spying on the commune has given me an appetite.
*We both inhale the aroma of peppermint tea, which surprisingly complements our bush setting*
RH: Congratulations on the release of your latest novel Grievous Harm. It is a fast-paced thrilling ride through some very dark territory and has received excellent early reviews, and certainly a fitting addition to your previous novels all of which rate four stars and above from reviewers!
About the Book
When a child is in danger, every second counts.
In Sydney, Australia, The Loving Hand church understands how children can be a commodity more precious than gold.
When Kate Maclaren flies in from Los Angeles, desperate to find her missing niece, she opens a door into this world, and uncovers a network of corruption and cruelty that stretches across the country.
Agent John Corey, torn by long-buried guilt, and harbouring secrets he must not reveal, joins forces with Kate to expose the sinister cult before more children disappear. He will risk everything, even defying orders, to help Kate uncover the truth and keep her safe.
But when their journey into Australia’s Outback reveals the psychopath at the centre of the network, it is Kate who discovers she will do anything for the people she loves.
‘Thrilling and compelling, Grievous Harm positively pulsates!’
– Kathryn Fox, author of Fatal Impact.
RH: It has been a couple of years since your previous full-length novel, Fatal Flaw, which I loved. Tell us a little about your latest, Grievous Harm, and how it feels to have another novel out now.
SC: Having Grievous Harm finally hit the shelves is like giving birth after a two-year pregnancy. As you said, Rowena, there’s a lot of very dark territory in it and my publisher was wary of how readers would accept one scene in particular. My writing buddies, those wonderful writer friends who read the manuscript before it went to the publisher, said it had to stay because it was essential to show just how bad the villains were, even though it was a confronting scenario. It was also a core turning point in the main characters’ journey together. (I can assure readers that it had nothing to do with the children who feature in the story.)
After some negotiation with my publisher, I agreed to a slight re-write, and she agreed that we would leave the final decision to an editor we both trusted. Another small change at the beginning of the book resulted in a continuity problem that took some time-consuming work to get around, but eventually everything came together.
I’m so glad you loved Fatal Flaw, Rowena, and thank you for letting me know that. John Corey first appears as a minor character in that book and by the end I knew he had to have his own story. In Fatal Flaw you only see a small part of the kind of person he is, but in Grievous Harm he is stripped to his core. I had a very deep affection for him by the end of Grievous Harm—his strength, his vulnerability, his willingness to sacrifice himself for others, and also his humour.
RH: His willingness to sacrifice himself to get to the truth is evident from the very first page. Grievous Harm begins with Agent John Corey undercover on assignment in a brothel where he discovers a young girl, still a child herself, dead from a mid-stage miscarriage. It is a startling opening. The case puts him in conflict with his superiors and sets him on a path that will test his very humanity. That’s quite a load for one character to carry. Can you share with us a little about how you developed John’s character and the relationship between character and story development. What comes first for you—character or story or is it more symbiotic?
SC: Because John first featured as a minor character in Fatal Flaw, I already had a sense of the type of person he was, but even in that book he surprised me with his laconic humour. But I knew there were depths to him that I needed to discover. I do a fair amount of plotting before I start writing, and I like to write a Character CV on my main characters so I know them intimately, but sometimes they surprise me by what they reveal as the story progresses. I knew John had to have a rural background or he would not have survived the ordeal he and Kate have to endure in the Outback, but I didn’t realise the extent of what he had been through in his early life. He has a very keen sense of justice, and it’s partly that that set him on the path of becoming a covert agent, but he’s also a moral person, and this creates a dilemma for him when he and Kate finally find her niece.
RH: Kate Maclaren is the headstrong heroine, and don’t we love those! We meet Kate as she steps off the plane from LA and heads to Sydney’s notorious Kings Cross in search of her sister-in-law and beloved niece who seem to have gone missing from their home nearby. Kate seems comfortable in Australia, but with little money, no local knowledge and no friends she faces some difficulties. Why was it important for Kate to be an outsider? How did you go about ensuring Kate retained an outsider’s view of Australia?
SC: With Kate being an outsider, it meant she didn’t have any friends or family in Australia to help with her search. We all sometimes feel like the intruder in a strange world and we can relate to Kate’s feeling of isolation and desperation. She has visited Australia before for her brother’s wedding, and then briefly to help her widowed sister-in-law out of financial difficulties. I put myself in her position as a visitor to Sydney, but it was in remembering my travels to rural New South Wales and Outback Queensland that I was able to give her a true sense of how different it would feel from what she was used to, particularly as she had grown up in cities. This made her less reluctant to accept John’s help, in spite of her initial distrust of him – she knew she would need his bush knowledge and skills in her search.
RH: As mentioned, Grievous Harm navigates some murky terrain which includes child abuse and paedophilia. You treat this topic very sensitively, but don’t shy away from the facts of such cases. It takes a light touch to bring such heinous behaviour into fiction without it becoming preachy or salacious. You manage this beautifully. How much did you draw on contemporary events to inform the story, and how do you decide where to draw the line when it comes to representing situations like this in fiction?
SC: I started to write Grievous Harm because I wanted readers to feel for those men and women who work at trying to stop child abuse and paedophilia. Some years ago I received an emailed photo from someone I didn’t know and it took me a while to work out what I was seeing. I don’t think my mind wanted to acknowledge the horror of the child pornography photo that was the body of the email. I sent the email to Taskforce Argos in Brisbane so they could try to catch the offender. An IT-genius friend of mine also tried to narrow down the origin of the email but said that it had been re-routed many times and a virus on a paedophile’s computer had sent it through numerous other address books until it finally arrived on mine and probably thousands of others.
Some time later I read an article about Taskforce Argos and was saddened to think of what those determined police officers have to go through in their efforts to catch abusers of children. Reading what those poor children have to endure made me sick, and I wondered how the police keep their sanity when dealing with it.
When writing Grievous Harm I decided to focus on Kate and John and their struggle to find not only Kate’s niece but the other children who had been caught in this terrible situation. I believe readers have a good imagination and they don’t need me to spell out what is happening to the children.
RH: Grievous Harm also touches on corruption in high places and John and Kate come up against several bad guys in their search of Kate’s niece Cindy and John’s search for the identity of the dead child he saw in the brothel. For me, though, one of the most hateful characters is that of Nathaniel Bartholomew, the man who under the guise of his ‘church’, the Loving Hand, cultivates and procures children for powerful men. He actively seeks to create the image of himself as Jesus, a man who offers comfort and support to those in desperate need of guidance. We get an insight into his thought processes and those of the other antagonists and you manage to make each one of them different in how they justify their behaviour. Tell us a little about how you develop your antagonists and how you get far enough under their skin to create believable characters.
SC: I’ve always been an observer and questioner. I’ve always wanted to know why people do what they do. I guess this comes from my childhood and the break-ups of my parents’ marriage and the secrets they held and the tension of not knowing what was going to happen next. So characters’ motivations are very important to me.
There’s always the Nature-v-Nurture debate, and I believe most of us are a product of the personality we were born with and the environment we grew up in. I’ve read a lot of books on twins, especially those separated at birth and not meeting again until they are adults and the samenesses and differences with identical twins versus fraternal twins.
Nathaniel fascinated me because of his ability to disassociate himself from the children he knows he is sending into a terrible situation, and I had to work out why he could do this. His personality gave me the clue – the charmer with distant parents, the manipulator who worked out how to ‘play’ his uncle who wanted to ‘love’ him, the seducer who felt he was owed what he wanted in life, and finally the self-absorbed man who had to confront what he had been doing.
Some of the other villains are shallow, but the main villain’s thirst for power (of different kinds) is his driving force.
I’ve always been a storyteller and find getting under my characters’ skins can be easy, but also scary at times. I have to become part of the story and when writing a tense scene I feel my shoulder muscles bunching, my breath quickening. When I write, the scenes are unfolding in my mind like a movie and I’m not just recording it, I’m feeling for those characters like they are in my skin. I find it easy to slip into my characters as I know them so well and they become alive for me. If they didn’t, I doubt I could write them so believably.
RH: I’ve also found it can be scary to get so deep inside a character’s head that you are there, but as a writer, it’s a great place to be—while you’re writing. Grievous Harm unfolds primarily through the eyes of Kate and John, yet at various points in the story there are others who have a point of view. Some viewpoints are only a few paragraphs, while others are longer. Each point of view ads a new piece of information or deepens the story on some level. I’m interested in how you determine whose point of view you use and when, and in how you decide the length of time you’ll spend with each character before switching point of view. Does this emerge as the story progresses or do you need to plan this to ensure the story carries forward?
SC: This does emerge as the story progresses. There are several points in the story where the niece, Cindy, is the viewpoint character, and although my publisher was dubious about this, I wanted this to stay. When Cindy is the viewpoint character we can learn so much more about her. Otherwise we are just getting what the others say about her. But when we are in her mind, we feel her spirit, her grit, and it lets us believe that this child will act in certain ways throughout the story.
I choose which character has the viewpoint in each scene to enhance the depth of the story and reader involvement. The length of time each viewpoint character has is determined by the needs of the plot.
There is one villain whose viewpoint is not used and there is a good reason for this as readers will realise towards the end.
RH: Oh Yes! I promise not to say a word about that *wink* One of the many strengths of your writing is your ability to use an image or a few words to capture emotion or poignancy and to pass on information. One of my favourite images is the vase of dead flowers in the lounge room of Kate’s sister-in-law. Through this one image Kate knows that all is not well with her family and we get insight into her sister-in-law’s personality. Share with us a little about your writing process and how you’ve honed your craft so that you can paint such spare word-pictures with apparent ease.
SC: You are right, Rowena, it is craft, and even if writers have a natural talent, they still have to learn how to manipulate words to their best advantage (which is craft). I think what I have done over the years is learned how to edit effectively (well, as effectively as I can *laughs* as sometimes I really stuff up). I’m probably quite anal about it, but I do try to make sure that each word is the most effective for the job it needs to do. I struggle when I can’t find the exact word that conveys the image I want the reader to have. When I read a book that has words that don’t exactly do the job it annoys me. Some words are almost right, but they are not exactly right, and so some of the impact is lost because I have been pulled out of the story because of that bump in the flow.
Every writer should ensure that every word they write counts towards pulling the reader into their story and keeping them there.
I love it that you say I paint such spare word-pictures with apparent ease *smile*. Most of the time I’m like a dog gnawing on a bone, trying to get to the marrow of the word to ensure it’s the right one in the right place and doing the work it needs to do.
RH: Grievous Harm is your seventh stand-alone novel. All of your books feature a hero and heroine thrust together in dangerous situations that threaten to spiral out of control, and you often put them in circumstances that seem hopeless and in which they must face their own demons in order to survive. With such well-rounded characters I often find it a pity that we only meet them once. In the fiction world today there is a lot of emphasis on developing series, and crime fiction has a strong tradition of series characters. Have you ever considered writing a series? What do you see are some of the benefits of writing stand-alone novels?
SC: I have considered writing a series, but more of a themed series than ‘the same character in each book’ type of series. Both have advantages – stand-alones can give readers a feeling of completion as they get to the end, but one-character series can let readers bond with that character and look forward to reading about him/her in the next book.
Most of the one-character series that I’ve read haven’t allowed that character much in the way of happiness, and I’m not sure I could keep doing that to a character. Perhaps I should create a male Stephanie Plumb and give him two women to keep him happy (though in conflict) *smiles*
RH: *laughs* It’s worked for Janet Evanovich. What’s she up to now, twenty-one novels and two ‘in-between the series’ tales?
RH: Four of your novels were originally published by Pan Macmillan and you’ve since re-published them with your current publisher, Melbourne-based Clan Destine Press. Can you tell us a little about how you came to find your current publisher? Did you face any difficulties with regaining your rights to your early novels and if so, do you have any lessons you can share from that experience?
SC: Pan Macmillan print published my first five novels when eBooks were just starting to edge into Australian readers’ worlds and like most of the big publishers, they didn’t, at that time, look at e-publishing as viable for them, so when I asked for my rights back they were fine about it. We had parted on excellent terms – if it wasn’t the financial crisis forcing them to not give contracts to many mid-list authors I would still be with them – and I think that probably helped.
Several years ago an author friend was going to be published with Clan Destine Press and she suggested I send my sixth manuscript to them. I did, and they wanted it and the e-rights to the first five.
I think the only lesson I can share is to always be professional in your dealings with publishers. I have found them all to be lovely people, all doing a stressful job in a limited time frame, and writers should respect that editors and publishers have a job to do and we need them as much as they need us.
RH: Thanks for sharing all of that with us today, Sandy. Now, you’d better top up your beverage because it’s time for your
RH: What is your all-time favourite book/movie?
SC: The Answer by Philip Wylie. It’s actually a novella, and I read it when I was a child and it was probably the catalyst for me wanting to be a writer.
RH: What are you reading now?
SC: I’ve just started Jaye Ford’s Blood Secret.
RH: What is your favourite word?
SC: Grandchildren (I have four little ones and it is a source of great pleasure to see how their minds work and how they view the world.
RH: What is your worst writing habit?
SC: Procrastination. Which actually isn’t writing, so it’s definitely the worst.
RH: What is the best bit of advice you ever got (about writing or life in general)?
SC: When I was 15 my mother took me to a cooking show and the chef had written a cookbook and she bought me a copy. In it he wrote for me to “Have a wonderful life!” I’ve tried to live up to that directive *laughs*
RH: I‘m thrilled to read another Sandy Curtis novel and Grievous Harm certainly doesn’t disappoint. So what’s next for Sandy Curtis?
SC: There’s a character in Grievous Harm named Ryder and he’s itching for me to write his story, so it looks like book eight will start soon. I’ve also started writing a rural romance with a difference, and I’m trying to find a home for my women’s fiction, Murder, Mayhem and Menopause. I have a lot of faith in MM&M and know that it’s destined to bring a lot of entertainment to a lot of people. It just has to find the right avenue to do so.
Thank you for saying Grievous Harm doesn’t disappoint. I believe that writers owe it to their readers to write the best book they can possibly write. If readers spend their hard-earned money on our books they should get many hours of entertainment in return.
RH: Thanks for joining us today, Sandy. It has been a pleasure to chat with you.
SC: Thank you for asking me to join you, Rowena, it’s been wonderful and your in-depth questions have been extremely interesting.
RH: Where can we find Grievous Harm and your other works?
SC: All my books can be purchased from all good bookstores (just ask them to get it in if it isn’t on their shelves) and Clan Destine Press. My eBooks can be purchased through Clan Destine Press, Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, and soon from other sources.
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READ AN EXCERPT of Grievous Harm
About the Author
Sandy’s first five novels were published by Pan Macmillan Australia, were nominees in the Ned Kelly Crime Awards, and two were finalists in the mainstream section of the Romantic Book of the Year Award. They were also published in Germany by Bastei Luebbe, and are now available as e-books from Clan Destine Press. Her sixth thriller, Fatal Flaw, and seventh, the recently released Grievous Harm, are published by Clan Destine Press in print and as ebooks.
She was a magazine feature article writer for two years, a newspaper columnist, and has had short stories and serials published in leading Australian women’s magazines. She was a member of the Management Committee of the Queensland Writers Centre for four years and has presented many writing workshops, including the 10-day USQ McGregor Summer School Creative Writing course. She has organised WriteFest, the Bundaberg writers festival, since its inception in 2005. In December 2012 she was presented with the Johnno Award by the Queensland Writers Centre for her “outstanding contribution to writing in Queensland”.
Sandy Curtis lives on Queensland’s Central Coast, not far from the beach where she loves to walk and mull over the intricate plots in her novels. Her husband says he doesn’t know how she keeps it all in her head, and her friends think she must be far more devious than she appears. Actually, after having dealt with the chaos involved in rearing three children, dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and a kookaburra (teaching it to fly was murder), creating complex characters, fast-paced action and edge-of-your-seat suspense is a breeze for Sandy. Her various occupations, from private secretary to assistant to a Bore Licensing Inspector, as well as hitch-hiking around New Zealand and learning to parachute, have given Sandy lots of people and research skills. It’s the paperwork going feral in her office she has trouble with.
“Normal is when the chaos in my life subsides to frantic rather than frenzied. I once told a friend that I must have a chaos attractor glued on my forehead and she said that creativity hovers on the edge of chaos, to which I replied that I’d long ago fallen off the edge into the middle.”
Sandy loves hearing from readers. For contact details visit her website www.sandycurtis.com
You’ll also find excerpts from all her books. To learn more about Sandy check out her page at Clan Destine Press
Grievous Harm on Clan Destine Press
You can also follow Sandy on Goodreads and Facebook