My First Radio Interview

It’s been an exciting week! Not only has the 2013 Sydney Writers’ Festival finally kicked off (I’ll post separately about the great SWF seminar I went to today), but it also marked my very first experience of being interviewed about writing … versus doing the interviewing!

Following on from my Newswrite magazine article on sex in Young Adult fiction (read it here), I was asked to appear on 1233 ABC Newcastle’s ‘Afternoons’ program with host Carol Duncan on Monday.

Carol threw some great questions my way about how much sex is too much in teen fiction, what publishers and other stakeholders have told me about where – and how – they draw the line and, on a personal level, what attracts me to writing for teens. (You may remember my first novel, still in progress, is pegged at a YA market).

As to that last question, as I told Carol, I don’t see myself as exclusively writing for teens (in fact, the short fiction I’m producing for my Masters has a very different target audience and flavour); it’s more that I happen to have chosen it for this particular project.

Having said that, with two teen siblings myself, I know how mature a readership they can be, how easily they see through artifice and how loyally they respond to things that speak truthfully and authentically to them. How rewarding (and challenging!) to really connect with that type of reader and to be accepted by them as genuine and arresting!

I can only hope my responses did Carol’s questions justice!

Note, With the kind permission of 1233 ABC Newcastle, I will be posting a recording of this interview here shortly. Stay tuned!

~ DF

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