A conversation with Laraine Stephens
Q: I see that you started writing after you retired from your career as head of library for secondary schools in Australia. Have you always known you would eventually write fiction? How did you settle on historical thrillers?
Laraine: I have always loved crime fiction since I was in high school. I read everything that began with ‘The Mystery of …’ or ‘The Secret of …’ in the school library, which resulted in some surprises, not all of them being crime fiction! It was in my teenage years that I discovered Sherlock Holmes. When I retired, I decided that I would combine my love of History, which I studied at university, with my love of detective/mystery stories. With my children grown and time to indulge myself, I started to write, and I have found great satisfaction in doing just that. It’s now an integral part of my life.
Q: You have done a great deal of traveling to some pretty cool places—Iceland, Egypt and the Scottish island of Harris and Lewis. Do your travels influence your writing?
Laraine: My love of History has often influenced the places we have visited, including the battlefields of the Somme in France where my grandfather fought in 1917, as a member of the Australian Imperial Force. I drew on the experiences of returned soldiers, suffering from shell shock, to create the character Max Rushforth, one of the protagonists in The Death Mask Murders. The novel is set in Melbourne, Australia, in 1918.
Q: The Old Melbourne Gaol, where you volunteer as a guide, has an exciting history. Some of Australia's most notorious criminals were imprisoned and executed there before it ceased operation in 1924, and death masks were created in their images. Was your work there part of the inspiration for your novel, The Death Mask Murders?
Laraine: Walking into The Old Melbourne Gaol is like walking back into the past. Built in 1842, with its forbidding bluestone walls, it housed dangerous criminals as well as petty offenders, the homeless and the mentally ill. In the cells are exhibited death masks of some of the 133 men and women who were executed there, including the infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly.
I found it fascinating that death masks were at one stage linked to the pseudo-science of phrenology, widely popularised in the 1800s, which claimed that a person’s character was determined by the shape, or contours, of the skull.
My work at The Old Melbourne Gaol has certainly influenced my writing. Without it, The Death Mask Murders would not exist.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your protagonist?
Laraine: Reggie da Costa, senior crime reporter for Melbourne’s premier newspaper, The Argus, is ambitious and vain. He is obsessed with his appearance, his wardrobe and his automobile: a sleek 1917 two-seater Dodge Roadster, with wooden steering wheel, immaculate black paintwork and shiny large headlamps. Classy yet flashy, just like Reggie.
Abandoned by his father, a violin-playing scoundrel and philanderer, Reggie clawed his way up the ranks to become one of the top crime reporters in Melbourne, due to his innate intelligence, his way with words and a reporter’s most important asset: his circle of contacts. The one thing that he is missing is that elusive wife, one with money and social status, who can restore him to his rightful place in society.
Q: Do you have any advice for struggling writers?
Laraine: Here’s what I would recommend:
Read in the genre you’re writing. Learn from reading other authors’ work. I would advise aspiring writers to join a writers’ group, which offers workshops and support services. You need objective appraisals of your manuscript, not the advice of friends and family. Be prepared to write numerous drafts before you submit. Leave your final draft for a few weeks then come back and read it with fresh eyes. Once you’ve sent it to a publisher and it’s rejected, that’s it, folks! If a publisher asks for three chapters, a 200 word biography, a 500 word synopsis, that’s what you send. Keep versions of cover letters, synopses, etc. and adapt them to suit submission requirements. Think outside the publishers you know. I started with Australian ones, then branched out into the United Kingdom, then to the USA. My main recommendation is to persevere.
Q: What can we expect from you next?
Laraine: My next novel, A Dose of Death, is set in Melbourne in 1923 and will be published in 2022. Reggie da Costa is a little older, a little thicker about the waist, but still has it as a crime reporter and investigator. And can he do the tango!
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