Winner of the 2018 Queensland Literary Award Glendower Award for an Emerging Writer, author Melanie Myers has created a captivating mystery that spans generations set against a familiar Australian setting.
We had the pleasure of chatting to debut author Melanie Myers about her novel, Meet Me At Lennon’s, along with writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi Melanie! Tell us a little about yourself!
I’m a writer, editor, academic, and occasional actor. I studied acting at university, and still dabble in theatre when the right opportunities comes up, but found myself more drawn to writing as a creative outlet soon after graduation. I teach creative writing at university, and also work as a freelance editor and mentor for emerging writers. I grew up in Sydney, Australia, and currently live in Brisbane with my partner, who’s a photographer, and our moody tuxedo cat, Moosha.
Your debut novel, Meet Me At Lennon’s is set to release on September 3rd. If you could only use five words to describe it, what would they be?
Hmmm… Brisbane during World War II!
Now let’s hear a little more! What can readers expect?
Meet Me at Lennon’s is set in both contemporary and wartime Brisbane. The dual narratives intersect and play off each other, but essentially, it’s about the social upheaval that occurred in Brisbane during the Second World War. By the time General MacArthur set up his headquarters in Brisbane to command the Pacific theatre of war in mid-1942, there were some 66,000 America troops in Brisbane. By 1943, that number had grown to 90,000, and for a small, highly conservative city of only 300,000 people, the impact of this ‘friendly invasion’ can’t be overstated. Meet Me at Lennon’s looks at that social upheaval from a female perspective – what was good about it and what was bad. It was an exciting time to be a young woman, but there were also strong undercurrents of sexism, misogyny and sexual violence that often bubbled to surface, and had lasting consequences for victims.
Where did the inspiration for Meet Me At Lennon’s come from?
I’ve always been fascinated with the 1940s – its fashion, music, films, etc. – and the way the Americans brought this culture with them to Australia during World War II. While researching for my first my (unpublished) manuscript, which was set in Sydney during World War II, I discovered that Brisbane felt the effects of the influx of American troops far more than any other Australian city. When I moved back to Brisbane from Sydney in 2009, I knew wanted to have another go at writing a home-front novel as there was a lot more I wanted to say about this era in Australia, but this time I would set the novel in Brisbane.
Did you face any challenges while writing?
I wrote Meet Me at Lennon’s as part of a creative writing PhD, which meant the novel had to be innovative in some way. To justify it from a research perspective, I had to be able to articulate not only why the novel was worth writing, but its value as a research project. This pushed me to write a novel that isn’t straight historical fiction, but rather a novel that interrogates the purpose of historical fiction to confront the past and examine the present. The other main challenge was writing about real historical cases of sexual assault in a way that was sensitive and respectful, but in a manner which, I hope, gives those victims some kind of voice all these years later. Confronting the sexism and racism of the 1940s when looking at original police documents was challenging on a personal level.
What kind of research did you have to do for your novel?
I read a lot of popular and academic histories, articles and novels on the Australian World War II home front. As useful as these sources are though, they’re no substitute for investigating original source material and archives. I spent a lot of time delving into old newspapers, which thanks to the amazing National Library of Australia Trove website are digitally archived online and are easily accessible and searchable. I also spent time in the Queensland State Library looking at primary material and the Queensland State Archives looking at original wartime police files to understand how cases of sexual assault committed by American soldiers were investigated by the local police, which always resulted in the perpetrators being handed over to the American military to be dealt with. I also did site research, which involved walking around parts of the city to get an idea of where and how particular events in the book, both fictional and real, took place.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Perseverance. Getting a novel published can literally take years. My journey from writing my first manuscript to having Meet Me at Lennon’s published took about 15 years. In that time, I did a Masters and then a PhD in Creative Writing, and had some small publishing successes along the way – shortlists in competitions, being published in literary journals – but these small hits of validation were often few and far between. You have push through self-doubt, lack of motivation, lack of inspiration, rejection, more rejection, and then more rejection, which can lead to questioning your ability and your ideas. Ultimately, you just have to back yourself and keep putting your work out there. Having said that, you should also work doggedly and pedantically on your craft to be the best writer you can. Growing a thick hide is also useful – mine could double as a hazmat suit.
What’s next for you?
The next few months, I’ll be busy promoting Meet Me at Lennon’s and doing everything that entails, as well as continuing to teach at university. Once the semester finishes, I’ll get stuck into researching and writing my next novel, which has been playing in my head as an idea for months now. I was in New Orleans earlier this year for the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival and I’m hankering to go back there to live for six months or so and take up a writing residency or something of that nature, but that’s just a pipe dream at this stage.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for us?
I’m reading Heather Rose’s Museum of Modern Love at the moment, which is an exquisitely realised book about the transformative power of art centred around Marina Abramovic’s famous performance piece The Artist is Present. Historical novels I’ve recently enjoyed are Ann Weisgarber’s The Glovemaker and Toni Jordon’s The Fragments. I haven’t read Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls yet, but it’s high on my to-read list – she can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.
Great read! Really enjoyed the women’s stories of that period in Brisbane.