INFRAME.TV

Guest of the Melbourne Writers Festival 2011
 

With four instructional works on creative writing published alongside bestselling works of fiction, Kate Grenville is in a stronger position than most to talk about her creative process.

Whilst she is disciplined in documenting and reflecting on her process, Kate is also open to spontaneous inspiration. Like Carolyn Steel, she will use whatever materials are at hand to make notes or sketches - be that a paper bag, cardboard box or Aspirin packet. The memory of a conversation can be useful, but it’s often a small detail or key word than is needed to break the cycle of writer’s block.

Sketches, photographs, notes and objects take on special significance in her research. Collecting brickwork, stones and artefacts might be a vaguely superstitious way of researching, but it’s one that allows her to get a physical grasp on her writing.

Grenville’s novels respond to the monopolisation of history, covering the terrain between fiction and memoir with strongly subjective and often tactile prose. Works like The Secret River are private endeavours with a public aspiration: our culture needs to look at how we evolved in order to understand present-day relations.