The Booktopia Book Guru asks
Kate Forsyth
author of The Wild Girl, Bitter Greens
and many, many more…
Five Facetious Questions
1. Every writer spends at least one afternoon going from bookshop to bookshop making sure his or her latest book is facing out and neatly arranged. How far have you gone to draw attention to your own books in a shop?
I’ve trained every member of my family, from my mother to my youngest child, to turn my books cover outwards … not to mention the sneaky transfer to the Bestsellers shelf.
2. So you’re a published author, almost a minor celebrity and for some reason you’ve been let into a party full of ‘A-listers’ – what do you do?
Enjoy myself.
3. Some write because they feel compelled to, some are Artists and do it for the Muse, some do it for the cash (one buck twenty a book) and some do it because they think it makes them more attractive to the opposite sex – why do you do write? (NB: don’t say -‘cause I can’t sing, tap or paint!) 
Because its my one true destiny. Trust me, you don’t do it for the cash!
4. Have you ever come to the end of writing a particularly fine paragraph, paused momentarily, chuffed with your own genius, only to find you’ve been sitting at the computer nude or with your dress half-way over your head or shaving cream on your face or toilet paper sticking out the back of your undies or paused to find that you’re singing We are the Champions at the top of your voice, having exchanged the words ‘we are’ for ‘I am’ and dropping an ‘s’?
No? Well, what’s your most embarrassing writing moment?
I often find myself writing half-nude … thanks to flashes of inspiration in the middle of the night … perhaps I should wear more to bed.
5. Rodin placed his thinker on the loo – where and/or when do you seem to get your best ideas?
A lot of my best ideas comes to me as dreams. I also like to walk every morning, as a kind of meditation in motion. Ideas will come, inspiration will strike … I can’t manage without it.
About the Contributor
John Purcell
While still in his twenties, John Purcell opened a second-hand bookshop in Mosman, Sydney, in which he sat for ten years reading, ranting and writing. Since then he has written, under a pseudonym, a series of very successful novels, interviewed hundreds of writers about their work, appeared at writers’ festivals, on TV (most bizarrely in comedian Luke McGregor’s documentary Luke Warm Sex) and has been featured in prominent newspapers and magazines. Now, as the Director of Books at booktopia.com.au, Australia’s largest online bookseller, he supports Australian writing in all its forms. He lives in Sydney with his wife, two children, three dogs, five cats, unnumbered gold fish and his overlarge book collection. His novel, The Girl on the Page, was published by HarperCollins Australia in October, 2018.
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Book review: Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth | Footsteps and Photos