Anna Morgan is an author and bookseller based in Melbourne, Australia. She spent much of her childhood in Nepal and Tibet and attributes this cross-cultural life for inspiring a love of reading and dreaming while also making her a curious observer of people. Her debut novel All That Impossible Space released in 2019 and was longlisted for the Davitt Award and named by the Children’s Book Council of Australia as a Notable Book for Older Readers, which is pretty impressive if you ask me! Anna has been busy writing and is bringing us a new book that I simply cannot rave about enough. Set in an adventurous Schoolies Week, Before the Beginning is out now and tells the creative and authentic coming of age story of the modern teenager.
We had the pleasure of speaking with Anna about her latest release, her writing, what’s next for her, and much more!
Hi Anna! Thank you for taking the time to sit down with us today. Could you tell us a little about yourself and about your new novel, Before the Beginning?
Thanks for having me! I am a writer and bookseller from Melbourne, and Before the Beginning is my second novel. It’s a mystery set on schoolies week and follows four characters who abandon their classic schoolies week celebration to camp on an uninhabited island with a stranger who they meet on the first night. Each of the four characters have their own hidden doubts about the future that are revealed over the week. It’s all about transition and change and being on the brink of your adult life.
What inspired you to write Before the Beginning?
One of my favourite aspects of YA writing is that sense of being in-between – that feeling of being a teenager when everything can change and you’re full of anticipation. Schoolies week is such a perfect microcosm for that feeling – exams are finished, but you don’t yet know your results. School is over, but you don’t necessarily know what you’re going to be doing next. Plus it’s a week spent with your friends, away from home – such a rich setting for all kinds of tensions and emotions to bubble to the surface. I thought the structure of schoolies week would be perfect for a novel. I also wanted to write about my favourite place in the world – the beach in summer.
This story starts out like your typical east coast of Australia Schoolies experience. What was your Schoolies experience like?
I remember schoolies as an emotional week – my friends and I weren’t big party people, and we had all worked really hard for the end of year exams. We were looking to schoolies to release all that anxious energy at once – too much to ask of one week! We went to the beach in Torquay and had fun, but I remember a lot of tension between friendships coming to the surface as well. I also remember trying and failing to order myself a drink at the pub (I wanted a vodka cranberry, and somehow ended up with two beers) and feeling generally unprepared for adult life.
Could you tell us a little about your writing style? Are you a planner or a pantser?
I am a bit of both, for sure. I often start writing with an idea of the themes I want to explore and the characters, but the plot comes later. I generally have a few key scenes in mind that I write and shuffle around before I fill in the gaps (it can be quite messy!). When writing Before The Beginning, as well as the themes and characters I also knew the structure early on – I wanted to tell the story over one week, and I wanted to tell it from multiple perspectives. That was a really exciting challenge for me as a writer. I like having a mix of methods – I love that I can be surprised throughout the writing process, but the emotional arc of the characters is something I know from the beginning.
Was there any difference in your writing process the second time around?
It was very different! First, I wrote my debut over about four years, and the first draft of Before the Beginning over about six months. It was also a joy to write with the support of editors from a much earlier stage since I already had my publisher involved – the editing process was more extensive with Before the Beginning, and while it was a little scary for me to let others in at a rougher stage at first, I feel very lucky that I was able to shape the story with the support of talented editors. It made the final drafts SO much better. I also had more confidence in myself as a writer, since my debut was the first time I ever wrote a novel. This time around I knew I’d done it before and I could do it again.
Your characters were so relatable! Were any of them based on people within your own life? Did you have a favourite (I know I’m the worst)?
Ha, I was wondering if anyone would ask me to pick favourites! I have a soft spot for Noah – I just want to give him a big hug every time I re-read his section. Oh, and the fact that Noah loves space is definitely taken from my brother, who corrected my space facts in my drafts. Generally though I discover my characters through observing people around me, so bits of them – like how they tie their shoes or what they like to cook – are taken from others, but the person they are most closely based on is myself. I’ve struggled with a worldview that no longer fit my experiences like Grace, I’ve had impossibly high academic expectations of myself like Noah, I’ve hurt people in the pursuit of creative achievements like Casper, and I’ve been stuck in unhealthy relationships and been unsure about the future like Elsie.
Do you relate to any of the characters within the book?
Yes! All of them are experiencing more intense versions of the fears and challenges I faced in my late teens and early twenties.
What is the best part about being an author? Do you find working in the industry gives you an advantage or edge?
I’m going to pick two things that are the best parts of being an author. The first is completely solitary: when I’m absorbed in a draft, often in the final week before a deadline, and the fictional world feels more real to me than my own. The second is hearing from readers who read and loved the books, especially if it connected in some way to a personal experience. Realising that that lonely process I went through alone connected with a reader is truly magic.
I love working in a bookstore, and I do think it is an advantage to see what is being published and where the industry is going – not that I would write to trends because it is impossible, but I think it is important to know what is going on in the conversation before you join it. Staff discounts on books is also a brilliant perk!
Are you working on anything currently? Can you tell us a bit about it?
I am working on something new but it’s currently so new it’s difficult to talk much about it. I do think it will be set in Australia, possibly in the bush, and exploring themes of climate change and family. But don’t hold me to that, because it could completely change.
What are you reading currently? Do you have any recommendations for readers that enjoyed Before the Beginning?
If you want to explore more of the anxiety around end of school, I’d recommend Untidy Towns by Kate O’Donnell, It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Kenwood, and Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley. I also recently read and loved Becoming Kirrali Lewis by Jane Harrison which is set in first year uni and follows a young Aboriginal woman as she learns more about her family history. Oh, and two of my favourite YA reads of the year have been Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales and Frankly in Love by David Yoon. I could list dozens more but I’ll stop there!
