Interview Kev Richardson

by

Heather Garside

1) How long have you been writing?

How long is a piece of string? I’ve always wanted to write yet my career never gave me time. Was editor of several society/hobby newsletters over years, even back in school, then after taking early retirement began travelling and for some ten years lived off travel-stories for airline and travel magazines. I now write things that grant me more personal satisfactions.

2) Have you had other books published, and if so, are they all with Wings?

Gurrewa (a tale of Australia’s First Fleet), also Brogan (first of a trio on the same character) were published by Puff Adder Books (UK) along with two other books Heritage 1 and Heritage 2 (more on Australian convicts), but that company closed its doors in 2003. Wings took up Gurrewa (a finalist in the Independent eBook Awards 2002) and Brogan (a tale of life in Queensland’s Channel Country). I have six more titles now under contract with Wings.

3) What genre is your present novel?

General Fiction Adventure. Brogan flies a courier service in Amazonia in the late 1930s and stumbles into the local gun-running mafia.

4) Have you written in this genre before?

No. The Brogan trio was my first attempt at leaving real people and their true-life stories behind (I am a student of Australia’s convict history), to give my imagination full rein.

5). What inspired you to write Brogan’s Bust?

Travel in Amazonia left such an indelible tattoo on my memory that I simply wanted to set a story there. The intrigue of graft and corruption in that part of the world made it an ideal setting for the Brogan’s Bust romp. There I bumped into two people in particular who became major characters in the book (Bridie and ‘Angelico’).

6) Is the setting for your novel inspired by where you live, or is it totally unrelated?

Unrelated, except that living in Thailand makes understanding graft and corruption easy!

7) Do you take inspiration from the people around you and incidents that happen in your own life (no matter how trivial)?

Absolutely. All my characters are people I’ve known, which makes it easier to keep them true to character type. Incidents in my own life have been of huge significance. Many years of travelling, meeting uniquely strange people and often being in awkward situations, all contribute great back-ground material.

8) Who are your favorite authors?

I could fill a page on favourite authors. Thomas Keneally tops my list--an absolute master when it comes to using words to paint people. And I still prefer re-reading some of the old masters--Conrad, Stevenson, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Dickens and such--they made both characters and pages sparkle!

9) Is there any particular author who has strongly influenced your writing?

Tom Keneally, a ‘regular’ winner of the Miles Franklin Award.

10. How do you juggle your writing time with work and other commitments?

I do it the other way around. I try juggling other commitments around writing. When still living in Australia I learned a great lesson from my literary agent (she had led me through Gurrewa); she insisted I write my two Heritage books within two years… an impossibility for me, I reckoned, what with travelling for three months of every year then coming home to write all my articles which would take another three to six… “If you were really dedicated, Ric,” she told me, wagging a finger, “you would take two years off from every other commitment, preferably away from home so you are not distracted, and just bloody do it!” So I went to Thailand because it was cheap living, to do just that, to fall absolutely in love with the laid-back lifestyle; it is now eleven years later and I’m still here with now eight titles contracted, another in assessment and two more being written! My kids think I’m crazy of course, but they have their own families now and I’m alone, so can do as I please at last.

11) Do you forward plot with your novels, or do you write as the inspiration takes you?

I always forward plot; in fact I oft-times plot backwards because business taught me that the end-goal is the target of all projects. But sometimes it gets difficult, like when characters insist on taking their own course. I usually, then, however, let them have their way.