Interviews

Nothing is more humbling and gratifying to a writer than meeting a reader who has read their work, and this is where writers meet them, sometimes more than one, but if only one, hooray.

I dislike the word ‘cunt’. I know that is has been appropriated by women and is often used for strong contextual effect, but the hard c at the beginning and the sharp t at the end set my teeth on edge. It is a scary word, an effective one no doubt, but I have never been able to stomach it.

What was your pathway to publishing? In 1971 I founded the weekly newspaper that became Nation Review. Soon afterwards my proprietor, Gordon Barton, acquired Angus & Robertson and offered me the job of running the publishing company. I jumped at the opportunity.

Why do you write? Because I get enjoyment out of it, and so do other people.

As an English and Comparative Literature graduate whose childhood had been circumscribed by chronic asthma and excessive reading of Enid Blyton stories of naughty school girls, I was ill equipped for any other form of employment ...

Ones who write memorably, whose language combines critical acuity with verve. I could name many, but Robert Hughes, Peter Porter, Kerryn Goldsworthy, and Brian Matthews are four Australians critics I read and reread, and from whom I have learned much, even when I’ve disagreed with, or been provoked by, them.

I had been a writer and editor at school and university, I’d worked in the Whitlam government, I’d been a freelance journalist, and I was interested in politics, history, books, and writing, so it was a natural progression – though I didn’t realise it at the time.

I know I dream, but all I remember are my nightmares.

I was about to land a cadetship with The Age, or so I thought. When I missed out, I applied for a job as a publishing assistant with Cambridge University Press. Before long I was working in CUP’s Sydney office, a terrace in Surry Hills. Bits of crumbling wall would fall onto our desks, so manuscripts were often covered in sand. It has always been a glamorous industry, but one I’m very glad I fell into.

Why do you write? It’s a hopeful or optimistic thing, I think, to try to catch bits of life, large or small, and explore them, understand them, then offer them up to readers who might also connect with them or for whom they might make sense.