{"id":4641,"date":"2022-02-16T16:27:43","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T05:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=4641"},"modified":"2022-02-16T16:32:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T06:02:52","slug":"rapid-fire-wendy-scarfe-bright-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2022\/02\/rapid-fire-wendy-scarfe-bright-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS WITH: Wendy Scarfe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rapid<\/h1>\n

In our author interview series RAPID FIRE, we\u2019re getting to know our authors a little better by throwing a few quick questions at them.\u00a0Next up to the plate is Wendy Scarfe, author of\u00a0One Bright Morning<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/h1>\n

Set in Darwin in 1941, against the backdrop of war and the eventual bombing of Darwin,\u00a0One Bright Morning<\/em> is a story of love, hope, and finding peace in relationships.<\/p>\n

Read on to discover what books Wendy considers the greatest influence on her work, as well as the classic novel she wishes she’d written.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What are you reading right now?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I am re-reading Pride and Prejudice<\/em>. After completing One Bright Morning<\/em><\/a>, I am not ready for a book that tears my heart out, so I am enjoying Jane Austen\u2019s feisty heroine, her gentle, ironic view of people and her uncluttered prose.<\/p>\n

What book has had the greatest influence on your work?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

No single book has influenced my writing but I am certain that a lifetime of reading has. The delight of living in an imaginary world of books began in my childhood.<\/p>\n

I devoured books, first reading children\u2019s literature: the Australian Billabong<\/em> series, Seven Little Australians<\/em>, Anne of Green Gables<\/em>. There were no public libraries but Myers in Melbourne had a children\u2019s library and every Saturday morning my father took me into the city and I changed my novel.<\/p>\n

The local newsagent had a collection of novels at the back of his shop and for threepence I could borrow one a week. There I discovered Rafael Sabatini\u2019s historical adventure romances of daring deeds on the Spanish Main, the excitement of the Scarlet Pimpernel<\/em> and his secret group of comrades who rescued French aristocrats from the guillotine and Alexander Dumas\u2019,The Count of Monte Cristo<\/em>. I probably skipped over the machinations of French politics at the time. It was the story that gripped me. They were all wonderful lessons in the skilful writing of suspenseful stories and may have influenced my preference for the linear narrative.<\/p>\n

\n

As I matured I wanted more than noble heroes and beautiful heroines who were only a little bit feisty. I think I was about fifteen when I read Remarque\u2019s tragic war novels, All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em> and The Road Back<\/em>. I also read some of the short stories of Maxim Gorky. These were my first introductions to a world in books that was not always romantic with a happy ending and a realisation that some writers portrayed a truer, more tragic world.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Much later I read some of the great American social protest novels: John Steinbeck\u2019s\u00a0The Grapes of Wrath<\/em>, Upton Sinclair\u2019s The Jungle,<\/em> and Sinclair Lewis\u2019 Kingsblood Royal.<\/em> These had a great influence on my thinking and my perception of the world<\/p>\n

In my final year at school I met the works of Thomas Hardy and his strong women characters, and at university I met Tolstoy\u2019s great novels. I recall reading Anna Karenina<\/em> on the tram trip from the university so immersed that I missed my stop and had a long walk home from the terminus. Tolstoy\u2019s works showed me that characters in novels can overstep the bounds of culture, place and time and be universal in their power, different yet intensely recognisable. And it showed me that as well as character and story a novel needs themes to give it depth.<\/p>\n

What do you wish you\u2019d known about writing when you first got started?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Of course I can wish that I had known how to write the perfect novel, but that is an impossible dream. For me it has been a long process of learning my craft, of never being quite satisfied with the end product. I am always aware that perhaps some part of my book could have been written in a better way; a character more developed, a scene more real \u2013 even a word better chosen.<\/p>\n

What do you wish you\u2019d known about being published when you first got started?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

When my husband and I were first published by William Heinemann it was a totally new and fascinating experience.<\/p>\n

A Mouthful of Petals<\/em><\/a> was published and printed in London and distributed in Australia, although we worked with an editor from the Melbourne branch of Heinemann. We typed the manuscript on a manual typewriter and it was hand set, in the old-fashioned way of printing. If we made any editorial corrections to a word or a line, we needed to find suitable words of the same length so that we did not cause the whole page and hence the whole book to be re-set. All the stages of publication were an unfolding experience. If I had known the process at the start it would not have been such an exciting, memorable adventure.<\/p>\n

What’s the best\u00a0piece of advice you\u2019ve ever been given?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The best piece of advice I was given was to keep writing and to read E.M. Forster\u2019s little book, Aspects of the Novel<\/em>. It is written clearly and was very helpful for a beginner in outlining the elements and structure of the novel.<\/p>\n

What book do you wish you had written?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

So many great books I would have liked to have written. For a long time it was James Aldridge\u2019s powerful political novel The Diplomat<\/em> or John Steinbeck\u2019s perfect novella, The Moon is Down.<\/em> Now I am not so sure. I think what we may wish we had written changes over time. Could I say from my advanced years that what I wanted to emulate when I was young has changed as I have grown older. Now it would be much harder to select any single book. But maybe I would be happy to have been clever enough to write the timeless classic, Alice in Wonderland<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Wendy Scarfe’s\u00a0One Bright Morning<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>is available now. Find out more, or purchase the book here.<\/h1>\n

\"OneFleeing Kuala Lumpur after the Japanese capture Penang, young Zeny Havilland arrives in Darwin shortly before Christmas 1941. Uprooted and knowing no one, she finds work as a reporter on the Northern Standard and a home with Olive, a gentle Quaker who takes in waifs and strays. Robert, a troubled young man damaged by war, lives in a shed in the garden.<\/p>\n

The Japanese army’s advance into the Pacific seems unstoppable and Australia a probable target. Amid the growing tensions in a frontier town unprepared for Japanese attack, Zeny and Robert fall in love and face with courage not only the threat of invasion but their fear that Robert’s personal demons will destroy their future together.<\/p>\n

Rapid Fire is an interview series featuring Wakefield Press authors. If you\u2019d like to find out more about one of our authors, let us know!\u00a0Send us an email<\/a>\u00a0to nominate the next Rapid Fire interviewee.<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our author interview series RAPID FIRE, we\u2019re getting to know our authors a little better by throwing a few quick questions at them.\u00a0Next up to the plate is Wendy Scarfe, author of\u00a0One Bright Morning. Set in Darwin in 1941, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"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":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-fun"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-1cR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4641"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4645,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641\/revisions\/4645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}