{"id":145,"date":"2013-11-06T09:32:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T00:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=145"},"modified":"2014-02-19T13:23:49","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T02:53:49","slug":"author-profiles-mag-merrilees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2013\/11\/author-profiles-mag-merrilees\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Profiles – Mag Merrilees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Margaret Merrilees was born and bred in Western\u00a0Australia but now lives in Adelaide. Her idiosyncratic\u00a0essays, which combine fiction, history and social commentary,\u00a0have appeared in Meanjin<\/em>, Island<\/em>, Wet Ink<\/em>\u00a0and Griffith Review<\/em>. Margaret is also author of the\u00a0online serial \u2018Adelaide Days\u2019. The First Week<\/em>\u00a0won the\u00a0SA Festival Award for an Unpublished Manuscript\u00a0at Adelaide Writers\u2019 Week in 2012. Her website is at\u00a0www.margaretmerrilees.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We asked Mag a few questions about her new book,\u00a0The First Week<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"MargaretWhat\u2019s been the best reaction you\u2019ve had so far to the book? And the worst?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Best reaction from my sister who immediately set out to try and sell the book in country WA. No bad reactions – though one woman said very cheerfully that she wasn’t going to buy it because she never reads books. Fair enough!<\/p>\n

The First Week<\/i> deals with some large and occasionally uncomfortable topics \u2013 was it difficult to write?<\/strong>
\nWriting The First Week<\/i> certainly brought me up against some painful memories of my own. Telling them as someone else’s story, distancing them, is one way of making sense of things.<\/p>\n

Who is your favourite author?<\/strong>
\nI have many favourite authors but if I had to name a single one it would be Jane Austen, my first and enduring love.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the greatest trip you\u2019ve been on?<\/strong>
\nGoing alone to the Stirling Range in WA and climbing Toolbrunup (it’s in the book).<\/p>\n

What are your favourite Wakefield Press titles, aside from your own, and why?<\/strong>
\nMy all-time Wakefield favourites are Miriel Lenore’s In the Garden<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(not to mention Drums and Bonnets<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and The Dog Rock<\/em><\/a>) and Jill Golden’s Inventing Beatrice<\/em><\/a>. Jill and Miriel are writing buddies of mine so I’ve watched the process from first rough idea to final polished work. That’s satisfying and inspiring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Margaret Merrilees was born and bred in Western\u00a0Australia but now lives in Adelaide. Her idiosyncratic\u00a0essays, which combine fiction, history and social commentary,\u00a0have appeared in Meanjin, Island, Wet Ink\u00a0and Griffith Review. Margaret is also author of the\u00a0online serial \u2018Adelaide Days\u2019. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[44,58,59],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-profile-2","tag-author-profile","tag-margaret-merrilees","tag-the-first-week"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-2l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}