This
week, please welcome esteemed international author Rosanne Dingli.
Rosanne is sought
by an international audience for prize-winning short stories and intricate
novels, Rosanne Dingli has published fiction successfully for over 25 years.
Most of her body of work is available in paperback and ebook.
The
author's fiction centres around the classical Arts, such as painting, music,
and literature. She also uses locations and their allure to anchor her stories
and give them substance. Folklore embellishes some of her works.
In
2015, this author wrote, produced and published three full-length
novels; A Funeral in Fiesole, which a
family-oriented novel that takes place in Italy. Adult siblings gather for
their mother's funeral, where new attitudes and opinions supplant old
perceptions. How to Disappear
is a novel in two parts that concerns the drudgery of some modern-day
relationships and also the migrant experience. And The White Lady of Marsaxlokk is a paranormal historical novel. It
once more features an Australian protagonist experiencing an adventure in
Europe.
The Hidden Auditorium
appeared in July 2013. It is a cultural adventure that takes an antiques dealer
on a quest for a secret about a famous composer. He thinks a beautiful pendant
contains an important clue. It received a BRAG medallion in 2015.
Camera Obscura
is the third on this author's shelf of novels. A romantic adventure using
photography, art theft, and fascinating locations, it takes the reader on one
of this author's breathless chases, which are now well-known and loved by her
readers. It has been short-listed in the 2013 Kindle Book Review Awards.
The
novel According to Luke was released
in 2010. This exciting and controversial novel has been described by some as a
combination of religious thriller and romantic suspense. It received a
Noveltunity award in 2015.
Her
work in progress is a family-oriented novel that takes place in Italy. Adult
siblings gather for their mother's funeral, where new attitudes and opinions
supplant old perceptions.
Rosanne
Dingli now writes full-time after retiring from teaching in 2009. Her
out-of-print short fiction and poetry is once more available in handy
easy-to-read volumes that do not cost the earth. She gives occasional workshops
on writing and publishing.
Can you tell us a bit about you as
an author?
I
started in New South Wales in 1985, two years after moving to Australia from
Malta, and immediately my short pieces were published in literary journals,
anthologies, newspaper inserts, and more. My collected published and awarded
poems came out as my first book in 1991, when Literary Mouse Press launched it
at the Perth Old Observatory. Everyone came. My first novel saw more than two
dozen publishers before Jacobyte Books in South Australia accepted and
published it in 2001. They went on to take two of my story collections. When
they closed in 2005, they passed me on to the British publishers BeWrite Books.
Today, I have seven novels, six story collections, a few novellas, and that
first lucky poetry book available under my own imprint, Yellow Teapot books.
What is the hardest part of being
an author?
It’s
all very hard, but discoverability is probably what approaches being impossible
to achieve in these days of widespread independent publishing. The
democratization of publishing means almost everyone is capable of putting out a
book or six – and they do. As a result of this, getting noticed is rather
difficult, and unless readers notice a book, however wonderful it might be,
they cannot read it.
What do you enjoy most about being
an author?
Autonomy
is something I love. I can dabble, or I can be as professional as I like …
always or in turn. And the consequences are all mine to own. Hard work, when I
can do it, comes easily. Doing nothing, or reading the books of others, is also
possible and gives great pleasure. Being my own boss appealed to me when I
freelanced as a journalist, literary editor, and columnist back in the 1990s.
Autonomous authors can measure their success as an outcome of their own
efforts, so it’s very rewarding.
What authors/books have had an
influence on your writing?
Rather
than on my writing, the authors I read have an influence on the broadness of my
outlook, the depth of my cultural understanding, and the eclectic array of
subjects into which I like to delve. John Fowles, AS Byatt, and Ian McEwen are
all intellectually stimulating authors whose topics are very relevant and
interesting to me. The reading I did as a young adult also proved important as
I discovered what I wanted to write about. Robert Goddard, John Dickson Carr, Georges
Simenon, and Georgette Heyer were only four among dozens of authors whose books
filled my bookcases. I am now reading everything by Peter Robinson, seeking the
fascinating undercurrents in novels that to others might appear simple or
boxed-in by genre.
Do you ever get Writer’s Block? If
so, how do you deal with it? Do you believe there is such a thing?
I
am not one of those writers who have a daily schedule. I go for months without
writing, since I do not compose if there’s nothing to write. My 30 years of
writing professionally have taught me to understand the kind of writer I am. I work
when there’s a strong premise that won’t leave me alone, and when I find the
words with which to present it. I am not a strong believer in “story”, yet I do
not write navel-gazing philosophical recitals and chronicles that are just
display cases for acquired knowledge.
Do you have a particular place that
you like to write?
My
office is great. I’ve always had one, and will always have one, wherever I
live.
Do you have a favourite time of day
to write?
The
best is always the time when I am most likely to be interrupted. The middle of
the afternoon, when the family return home, when dinner needs cooking, when the
phone rings non-stop; that used to be the most fruitful time for me. Now that
the nest is empty, the place is quiet, and my partner, who is rather
self-sufficient, doesn’t need stuff in the middle of the afternoon, I find it
hard to write. I need interruptions, it seems.
How do you like to reach your
readers?
I
engage on Facebook, which I use for nothing else. It’s not for family or
friends, but is the vehicle for making myself and my books known. All I do
there is about books, writing, reading, and neutral but fascinating topics that
connect to what interests me. So this necessarily excludes anything to do with
politics and other controversial topics. I also like to respond to queries on
LinkedIn. Since the LinkedIn format changed, so did the nature of the
discussions. I must remember to find better conversations to join.
I do quite a number of public appearances every year. About four or five
workshops at libraries and writing organizations, and many talks and signings.
These are excellent occasions to sell and sign, and readers who meet me
eyeball-to-eyeball never fail to follow me on social media, so the enjoyable public
events are also very useful. I have been speaking and reading publicly since
1987, and when I lectured in Creative Writing at ECU in the years that followed,
I discovered some good techniques to engage an audience of readers.
Your latest book:
Can you tell us about your latest
book, A Funeral in Fiesole?
A Funeral in Fiesole
was one of three stand-alone novels I wrote, produced, and published in 2015.
It’s what I like to call ‘location fiction’, based on a particular place that
has fascinated me in the past, when visited personally. I love Italy, and speak
the language fluently, so I often include the country in my writing. Fiesole is
a village built into the hills above Florence, where beautiful villas catch the
eye among the trees. This particular novel was a challenge from the outset,
because it is narrated by four separate protagonists, all in the first person.
They are four adult siblings who meet for their mother’s funeral and the
reading of her will. They bring along emotional and financial burdens, which
are disclosed as they find out how unreliable memories of one’s youth and
childhood can be.
This
novel is aimed at people of a certain generation. I am fascinated by
baby-boomers, their concerns and peculiarities as a group. I also love that
aspect of the human condition – relationships – which will always fascinate us.
How couples bond or separate, how adult siblings relate. These are topics my
readers love. When incorporated into a piece of location fiction, they really
resound and stay in the memory.
How long did it take you to write
the book?
It
took about 5 weeks to set down the first draft of A Funeral in Fiesole. I do not plan my novels, but this one was
fairly easily kept in my head, and it all came tumbling out of my typing fingers
in a very short span.
Do you have a favourite character
in your work?
The
best character I have ever created – in all my writing life – became a real
person in my mind. He lives inside two of my novels, According to Luke and The
Hidden Auditorium. His name is Prof Bryn Awbrey, a Welsh eccentric who is
very good at solving mysteries, especially if they relate to art, history,
music, and related subjects. He is a loveable old man – the kind of uncle
everyone needs.
Do you have a favourite topic in
your work?
My
favourite topics are Bryn Awbrey’s topics! My tertiary education consisted in
Fine Arts, and History of Art and Architecture. I also love music and the lives
of the composers. I read a lot of biographies. So it’s only natural that I
should take these beloved subjects into my fiction without very much effort.
Researching within these subjects is also very pleasurable, and sometimes
preferable to writing.
What was your process? Did you plot
out the entire book, or just let the storyline flow? Do you write in chronological order?
Although
it’s vital in fiction, storyline is not what comes first. I first seek a strong
premise, give it a good base in the human condition, lace it with a lot of
history, music, art, literature and so on … find the correct words with which
to frame the narrative, seek some wonderful characters to bring it all to life,
and it takes form, very swiftly, in my head. Then I hold my hands over the
keyboard, and they do the rest.
Do
you have plans for further instalments?
No.
Occasionally I write a book and my readers ask for a sequel, so it does occur
to me, but that’s not enough. I must have all the ingredients I mentioned
above. When that happens, and another novel can be constructed on the tail of
another, it’s a fine thing. It’s only happened once so far. But watch this
space.
Do
you have a plan for your next book?
I’m
the kind of author who doesn’t plan. My life is too full of complications for
that. If I applied the same structures and schedules to my writing as I must to
what I call my real life, writing would cease to be enjoyable.
Ebooks vs Physical books? Do you
have a preference when reading?
I
read paper books for one simple reason – most of my day is spent in front of a
computer screen for one purpose or another. Relaxing with a book means lying
down with a paperback for me.
There
will always be a place for both electronic and physical books in the reading
world. Many readers love both, and some have a distinct preference for one or
the other. Low cost makes ebooks wonderful, and without that stream, my books
would not sell so widely or so well. I find, however, that people often buy the
whole set of my paperbacks after they have bought an ebook or two … when they
have come to love my characters and the way I write. Collectors love books they
can place on a shelf.
Self-publishing vs traditional
publishing? What are your thoughts? Do you feel that the industry is changing?
The
industry – if we can still call it that – started to change sometime in
2008-09. That was the period my publishers started to telegraph a sense of
excitement to me. Amazon started to tap into the groundswell of independent
writers and small publishers, and suddenly there was a big inundation of new
works that travelled well without the need of agents or established publishers.
Wow. I took my backlist and published two or three volumes myself, gaining a
lot of useful experience as I did it. When my last publishers folded, I was
poised to fly. Rights were returned to me and within a fortnight ALL of my
books were self-published and selling under my own imprint, Yellow Teapot
Books. I have never looked back.
The
last seven or eight years have been incredible – not only have mainstream
publishing had to take a long hard look at what is happening, but traditional
publishers found that participating pays. It’s not easy for them, and it’s not
easy for small publishers and those who do it on their own. But the book world
is not an easy place to inhabit. It’s always been a hostile place, almost
impossible to navigate. Those who survive are the quick learners who are also
patient and perseverant. There will always be a place for both trad and SP, but
they will both evolve as we go, and the most likely way is in different
directions, for different markets. I found it was wonderful to transition
between one and the other. I was a hybrid author for a few years. It was what
perhaps got me started so well on my own path.
What advice would you give to
aspiring authors?
Seriously?
I suggest they never touch writing and publishing unless they are immune to
frustration, doubt, and extreme difficulty. They must have minimal hope in
making it pay financially, and be prepared for endless unpaid hours of not only
drafting, editing, correcting and rewriting, but also innumerable hours of
promoting, promoting, promoting, and finding new ways to make one’s books
discoverable. It’s not for everyone. First, one must be a capable writer, and
that takes decades to perfect. Then, one must be open to constant change. One
must also be able to understand the book world, understand that ‘marketing’ is
not a simple subject one can learn in one weekend; and that just a handful of
books will never be enough to cut it in such a ferociously competitive
marketplace.
My
advice is – if you want regular money, stick to your real job. If you want
quick results, reliability and predictability, avoid working in the arts. If
you think it’s all about storytelling, delve further into the book world. If
you think the life of a writer is uncomplicated and fairly simple, ask someone
who does it full time. If you think success as a writer doesn’t involve luck,
ask someone whose books are doing well. If you think a good book will
automatically find readers, think again.
And finally, how can readers find
you?
Twitter: @rosannedingli (rarely used)
Thank
you for this opportunity, Amanda. I like reaching new readers, and your
generous offer was very timely.
Rosanne
Dingli
Thank
you for visiting Rosanne. This was an incredibly stimulating interview.
Amanda
I write romance, which I'm
always a bit remiss to announce. People seem to think romance = Fifty 
