Interview with Traci Harding
Q: Traci, you have published an extraordinary number of novels and have an extensive readership. What inspires you when looking for a topic to write about?
A: I enjoy looking into Earth’s great mysteries – be it amazing places, spiritual questions, historic events, or breakthroughs in quantum physics. I adore writing stories about time-travel and that period in ancient history where facts and legend blur. Anything supernatural and not fully explored, that’s my favourite story fodder.
Q: Your recent book Dreaming of Zhou Gong was voted as one of the ’50 books you can’t put down’ in 2013 and The Ancient Future was voted into Australia’s Top 100 Homegrown Reads 2013. These are significant awards. Have these awards affected your work? Have they created higher expectations in your readers?
A: This is not the first time The Ancient Future has been voted into top 100 lists. As far as Dreaming of Zhou Gong is concerned, I had vested so much energy into researching ancient China, it was a lovely surprise when it made the reading list. I think my readers expect all the elements in my books that I spoke of earlier, so I do my damnedest never to disappoint them.
Q: You have a wide readership from teenagers to people in their middle age and older. What is it about your novels that make them appeal to such a wide audience?
A: I think it is the spiritual aspect of my books that keep readers of all ages coming back. The doctrine informing my books is based on theosophy which borrows teachings from many different religions and philosophies and so it appeals to a broad spectrum of people. A reader once told me that my tales were unusual because they are not your classic kind of fantasy where good versus evil, but rather they are self versus self – good guys and bad guys alike. I think people relate to that kind of spiritual struggle.
Q: As a working mum with two children, how do you divide your time between the worlds of motherhood and writing?
A: When my children were young babies, I would stay awake after the 3 am feed and write until dawn – the muses have a lot to say in the wee hours when the rest of the country is asleep. But these days, the moment my children are out the door to school I sit down and write until they come home again. That’s six good hours of writing time a day, and hopefully 2,000 words a day. Household chores can be done when the kids are home. Writing is best done in complete solitude and quiet. This is why I adore living and working in Wisemans Ferry, it is paradise for a writer.
Q: Tell me about what you like to do when, if ever, you have a day off?
A: Well, the other thing about living on a one acre block in Wisemans Ferry is the amount of maintenance you have to do, both inside and outside – especially outside! I wouldn’t say I garden so much as rip, shred and tear at the bush. But I do enjoy doing DIY around the house. I have recently discovered several local markets and love to wander around them. I do Yoga also. Being a writer forces you to sit too much. Yoga helps to stretch out the body and avoid back problems.
Q: So what’s next?
A: I am currently working through the edits of my twentieth novel. This is my first stand alone novel in ten years. I tend to write a lot of trilogies. Its original title was to be The Art of Story, but my publisher and agent felt that it might be mistaken for a non-fiction book. It will now be released as The Storyteller’s Muse. It is a book about artists, writers in particular, and explores the writing process via several stories that weave through one another. This book is a little bit more mainstream than my usual work, but don’t worry, I still keep one foot firmly planted in fantasy. I don’t think I shall ever write a completely conventional story.
Thank you Traci for talking with me. You were a very popular keynote speaker at our first mini festival in 2013. We are really looking forward to seeing and hearing from you again at the new St Albans Writers’ Festival when you lead a panel of speculative fiction writers.