{"id":149,"date":"2013-11-06T09:32:31","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T00:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=149"},"modified":"2014-02-19T13:22:02","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T02:52:02","slug":"author-profiles-sharon-kernot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2013\/11\/author-profiles-sharon-kernot\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Profiles – Sharon Kernot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharon Kernot worked as a community\u00a0support worker in a child protection agency\u00a0in the northern suburbs of Adelaide for\u00a0eleven years. She has a masters in Creative\u00a0Writing from the University of Adelaide and\u00a0a PhD from Flinders University.\u00a0Underground Road<\/em> is Sharon Kernot\u2019s first novel. It was shortlisted\u00a0in the Unpublished Manuscript category of the Adelaide\u00a0Festival Awards in 2010. Sharon is also the author of a collection of\u00a0short stories, In the Shadows of the Garden<\/em>, and one of poetry, Washday\u00a0Pockets<\/em>. You can find her website at www.sharonkernot.com.au.<\/p>\n

We asked Sharon a few questions about\u00a0Underground Road<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"SharonWould you be able to identify a high point during the writing of Underground Road<\/i>? And a low point?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When I was writing the Underground Road I had no idea how it was going to end because I\u2019m not a plotter or planner and my writing practice is a bit chaotic so I don\u2019t always write scenes (or chapters) in chronological order. I didn\u2019t know if all the threads from each character would tie together. This wasn\u2019t a low point as such but it did provide quite a bit of anxiety along the way. The high point came in the end when everything fit together neatly despite my concerns. I\u2019ve just finished a draft of a new novel and while I was writing I had to keep reminding myself to keep writing because even though I had no idea where it was going, it\u2019d all work out in the end.<\/p>\n

Can you tell us about what you\u2019re working on next?<\/strong>
\nAs mentioned above, I\u2019ve just finished the draft of another novel; it’s tentatively called Remembering Faith<\/em>. The story revolves around Faith who has issues with her memory due to a serious accident when she was younger. Throughout the course of the novel she tries to uncover her past and discovers that her life was nothing like she thought. The story is set in two different time periods \u2013 the mid-2000s and the 1960s \u2013 the 1960s scenes are written from a child\u2019s perspective. It\u2019s really quite different from Underground Road<\/em>\u00a0but there\u2019s still a lot of tension and suspense.<\/p>\n

Who is your favourite Australian author?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t have a favourite as such but I do love Tim Winton\u2019s books and I\u2019m currently reading his latest, Eyrie<\/em>. I went to listen to him read at Elder Hall recently along with about 600 others. I love the fact that he\u2019s so down to earth and unpretentious. Chris Tsiolkas\u2019 new novel, B<\/em>arracuda<\/em>, is next in line. I enjoyed The Slap<\/em>\u00a0particularly for its multiple viewpoints and structure, so I thought I give this one a go too.
\nI admire Helen Garner\u2019s writing for her brevity and precision, and her courage to write about difficult issues as in The Spare Room<\/em>\u00a0and Joe Cinque\u2019s Consolation<\/em>. I also love Sonya Hartnett\u2019s novels – Sleeping Dogs<\/em>, Of a Boy<\/em>\u00a0and Butterfly<\/em>; the late Dorothy Porter\u2019s verse novels particularly The Monkey’s Mask<\/em>\u00a0and What a Piece of Work<\/em>, and Cate Kennedy\u2019s short stories.<\/p>\n

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose and why?<\/strong>
\nWhen I was in my early twenties I lived on the Greek island Hydra for a short time. I loved it and have always wanted to go back. It\u2019s quite a famous island in the sense that a lot of writers, artists and musicians have lived there over the years \u2013 George Johnson, Charmian Clift, Sidney Nolan and Brett Whiteley to name a few. I think Leonard Cohen still has a house there. Ironically, at the time of staying, I had no idea who might have been living there. It clearly had a vibrant artistic community but what I loved most, apart from the stunning views, was the fact that there were no cars only donkeys, bicycles and boats for transport. I\u2019d love to go back and live there for a while, perhaps a year \u2026 and if Leonard Cohen\u2019s there \u2013 all the better!<\/p>\n

What are your favourite Wakefield Press titles, aside from your own, and why?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve just finished reading Margaret Merrilees The First Week<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>which I really enjoyed. I could empathise with the main character, Marian, as she struggled to understand why her son has done something horrific. Mothers, I think, tend to blame themselves when things go wrong for their children, and Mag captured this beautifully. She also writes evocatively of the Western Australian landscape and how it has been ruined by farming. Jude Aquilina and Louise Nicholas\u2019s poetry collection Woman Speak<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is an old favourite \u2013 it\u2019s funny and rude and obviously quite different from The First Week<\/em>\u00a0but I love these two talented South Australian poets. I also have a copy of the Tadpoles<\/em><\/a>\u00a0anthology of poetry which was edited by Jude; it\u2019s full of wonderful children\u2019s poems by South Australian poets including the late Max Fatchen. I\u2019d recommend it to teachers or anyone who has children or grandchildren<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sharon Kernot worked as a community\u00a0support worker in a child protection agency\u00a0in the northern suburbs of Adelaide for\u00a0eleven years. She has a masters in Creative\u00a0Writing from the University of Adelaide and\u00a0a PhD from Flinders University.\u00a0Underground Road is Sharon Kernot\u2019s first … 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":[44,48,49],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-profile-2","tag-author-profile","tag-sharon-kernot","tag-underground-road"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-2p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","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=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}