The Magical Heart of Writing with Tabitha Bird

Tabitha: [00:00:00] I need to write blind. I need to not know what's going to happen and I need to keep asking myself what if and what would that character say and what would they do next and where are they at and what are they feeling and what are they thinking? And be just really led organically through the story.

Pamela: [00:00:15] Welcome toWrites4Women, a podcast all about celebrating women's voices and supporting women writers. I'm Pamela Cook women's fiction author writing, teacher, mentor, and podcaster. Each week on The Convo Couch I'll be chatting to a wide range of women writers, focusing on the heart, craft and business of writing, along with a new release feature author each month. You can listen to the episodes on any of the major podcasting platforms or directly from the Writes4Womenwebsite, where you'll also find the transcript of each chat and the extensive Writes4Women backlist.

 On a personal writing note my current release is All We Dream. If you'd like to know more about it or any of my books, you can check out my website@pamelacook.com.edu.

 Before beginning today's chat I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Dharawal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is being recorded along with the traditional owners of the land throughout Australia and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging.

And a quick reminder that there could be strong language and adult concepts discussed in this podcast. So please be aware of this if you have children around.

Let's relax on the couch and chat to this week's guest.

My guest today on Writes4Women is Tabitha Bird.

And today just happens to be publication day for her second novel, which we'll be talking about during the podcast. Tabitha grew up in Queensland and has been a storyteller since childhood. Her first novel, A Lifetime of Impossible Days published in 2019, tells the story of Willa Waters on three impossible days in her life at ages 8, 33, and 93. It's all about healing the past and saving the future with a strong element of magic realism, and it won the Courier Mail's People's Choice Award for Book of the Year.

Tabitha's second novel out today, The Emporium of the Imagination is an equally magical tale about a mysterious shop that appears in places where it's most needed to help the people of the town recover from grief and trauma. It's a beautifully told story about love, comfort, and healing. T abitha has written in her blog about her own experience of childhood trauma and how writing and creativity have provided a healing space for her. She's an accomplished artist and has fabulous brilliantly colored images on her tab dot Bird, Insta page.

She posts very honest posts  on Instagram, about self-love and creativity. And it was after reading a few of these posts that I really thought that Tabitha would make a great guest for a Heart of Writing episode.   So Tabitha, welcome to the Convo Couch on Writes4Women.

Tabitha: [00:03:12] Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Pamela: [00:03:15] It's publication day today for the Emporium of the Imagination.

Tabitha: [00:03:20] It is! She's opened her doors.

Pamela: [00:03:24] Everything about this book is just so gorgeous and I can't wait to talk to you about it, about the design, the story, everything that you've done in marketing and in producing it and getting it out into the world. It's just been fabulous to watch.   

So Tab, I first came across you obviously on social media, but particularly on your Instagram page. And a lot of your posts really struck me in terms of, your emphasis on creativity and just really coming from the heart, which is really why I've asked you to come on today for this Heart of Writing episode.  I gather from reading your posts and reading your bio and things, story has always been really important to you. And I just wondered if you could start off by talking a little bit about that and where that love of story came from for you.

Tabitha: [00:04:12] So I think the love of story was something that was just inside me and something really natural. When I was younger, I used story really as a way to escape in a way to just create this other world where I could live and I could be happy and I could just completely express myself because I didn't really have that in my home life.

So I would tell stories to my little sister and my Chihuahua, and really anybody who would give me the time of day. And so, I think story became super important, very young, just because of how powerful it was in my life and in the life of my little sister and our world. And then as I grew up, I kind of forgot about story to be really honest and threw myself into a teaching career.

But in my early thirties, everything sort of came crashing down for me and I needed to deal with some past trauma. And it wasn't until I went into counseling that I had this incredibly gifted and very creative counselor who said to me, 'You know, what does the pain look like?' And it was then that I was like, that is such an unusual question. Cause she didn't want to know what it felt like. Well, she did. But she was asking very specifically for me to use my imagination to describe pain and where I was at. And I think that was the first call that someone had given me back to my imagination in a very, very long time. And I started writing to her. A piece about a character called Beast who was my pain and that sort of blew up into this whole big story world that I was using to sort through how I felt. And from that I realized, 'Oh my goodness, I'd forgotten about story'. And I actually really love stories. So it came out of that, but  there was that seed way back to being very little.

Pamela: [00:05:57] How did your writing journey then develop and how did that end up at the publication stage for you?

Tabitha: [00:06:02] It's a really long road.  As I'm sure most authors will tell you. But for me  I needed to get out some very personal writing first, which shall never see the light of day and was really just for me. But during that writing, it ended up being 120,000 words of a very messy memoir-ish type book. But my counsellor saw my imagination and saw in me a talent for writing that I did not recognize and was so sheepish about it. I was like, 'Oh no, I'm not, I'm not writing. I'm just sending you this stuff'.

And she's like, 'Well, you could've sent me anything. I mean, it could be art that you expressed yourself in. It could've been music. It could've been any number of things, but you chose writing and that's quite a powerful choice and quite a specific choice'. When I really thought about it, I was like, 'Yeah, she's really right'.

And eventually I decided to own the fact that I wanted to write, that this was a dream and I wanted to write. So, I put aside that first very personal piece of work and decided that in fact, I really wanted to write something larger, I suppose, in my own experience and also something that would tell the emotional truth but would be fantastical and full of hope and full of joy.

And so I began writing very early drafts of what would become A Lifetime of Impossible Days. Fast forward eight years, lots of writing and lots of learning my craft. I entered that book into every conceivable competition for unpolished manuscripts that I could find. And I got a lot of feedback. And from that feedback rewrote it many times, I think there were 21 drafts in total of that book before it even went to Penguin and we redrafted. But I was very fortunate. I was with an Academy called The Manuscript Academy and they said to me that there was a new editor coming online and would I like an opportunity to speak with this editor? And I was like, 'Yeah, I would really love that'. And that editor was Kimberly Atkins.

And Kimberly said to me,  'Just send me the first 10 pages and we'll have a chat about it', which I thought was fantastic. But I wasn't really expecting anything. I was really expecting her to say, 'That's nice, but here's all the things you need to fix'. And when that didn't happen she actually said, 'Can you send the first 50, the first 100?

And so from there  imberley asked to see the whole thing and the rest is history. We had an offer from Penguin not long after that. So I was really blessed and, you know, I think it's just a testament to keeping those connections alive and well in your industry, and being yourself and really making sure those connections as strong as they can be.

Pamela: [00:08:40] So how did it feel when you knew that first book was going to be published after coming from such a place where  you were using writing as a healing tool originally, and then  developing your confidence in your own writing skills and building it into a story. And like you say, all those edits and then getting it to that stage where it was about to be published. How did that feel?

Tabitha: [00:09:01] Oh, I don't know if there's words for that feeling. I remember the email came in from Penguin and it had Offer of Publication in the subject line and I just couldn't make myself open it. Eventually I opened it and I skim read it just to make sure that it wasn't some sort of trick, they weren't saying, 'Look, we would have loved to have offer you publication' but in fact it was an actual offer of publication. And I rang my husband, who  works not far away in town. And I said, okay, 'You've got to come home. We've got it'. And I was sobbing. I was like, 'You have to come home'. And he was like, 'What's wrong?' I was like, 'Nothing's wrong, please come home'. And he got home and we just danced around the living room together like little kids. And I kept checking it. I kept rereading it. Is it, is that for real? It was a pretty surreal moment. And just so much joy. And I think also it was a moment where I could finally whisper back to that little girl that I was and say, 'We made it. It was worth hanging in there and something good came out of something that was not so good'.

It was a really powerful moment for me.

Pamela: Yeah, well, it just gave me goosebumps listening to you talk about it so I'm sure it must've been powerful to experience it. And so your books, the two that you've published, have this element of magic realism.  Maybe you could explain for anyone that's listening what it is and then were you consciously writing that?

Tabitha: Yeah, absolutely. So magical realism is a very unique and specific genre. It's not fantasy, it's not contemporary fiction. It falls right in the middle there. So the stories are set in the world that we know and live in. However, there is this fantastical twist. With fantasy you cross over into a whole other world, and the stories are set in a whole other make believe world. With magical realism you stay in the world in which we know as reality, but there's this just something fantastical that happens.

 But no, to answer the other question I didn't set out to write it. In fact, I didn't even know that's what I was writing. I actually had an opportunity for some feedback with a literary agent in the States and she said to me, 'Oh, so you're writing magical realism?'

And I went, 'Okay. Okay'. And googled 'What's magical realism?' It was the first time I'd ever heard my work described like that. And I was like, 'Oh my goodness. Yeah, that is what I'm writing'. And when I researched the genre more, I was like, ‘Well, there you go'.  It came up out of me very naturally. I really just wanted that otherworldly twist to my writing. And I didn't realize that was a whole genre at the time I was working on the draft. So, yeah, I was shocked. And then I was really happy. This is me. This is really authentically me. And this is very much what I'm absolutely obsessed with. I mean, I love the idea of going, 'What if?' You know, just that, 'But what if?' And I think that's just me. I would have asked that question even if magical realism, wasn't a genre.

It was quite an aha moment to discover that's what I was writing.

Pamela: [00:12:03] I'm sure. And once you knew that that's what you were writing, did that  then solidify things for you in terms of revising the book and actually getting it to that final point?

Tabitha: Yeah, absolutely. So then I was like, 'Okay, well I really need to learn about this because obviously there will be things that I don't know. And so there will be, you know, potholes and mistakes in my own work'. And of course there was. And I think the biggest learning curve for me was really that magical realism asks the reader for their trust. It asks them to accept that the world in which we live in could be other than. And so  it's a real privilege as a writer  to reach your hand out through your work and say, 'Want to come with me?' and the responsibility then for the writer is to make sure that trust is maintained. And by that, I mean, when you set up the magic, whatever it is that you set up in the work, it then needs to be consistent and follow its own rules. So whatever it is that you introduce, you can't just randomly change that six chapters in because it suits your plot or it solves an issue in the work.

Tabitha: [00:13:09] So that was a real learning curve for me to make sure that the magic made sense and that the reader understood how it worked without me having to do a whole big info dump. That through the narrative that the reader could understand how it worked and then that the reader could trust that magic. It's going to be that way through the whole book and I won't just randomly change that on you because I feel like it. And in that way, I'm asking readers to let go. And I'm asking readers to trust me. And I'm asking them to enter the world in which I've imagined.

Pamela: [00:13:43] Yeah, that's really interesting. I'm in the middle of the Emporium now and I'm not usually a reader of magic realism. But I love that idea of just different possibilities, and like you say, what if? What if this did happen or what if this could happen? And it's really interesting to see the way you've used different elements to create that world.

Tabitha: [00:14:05] Thank you. Yeah. It's interesting you say that because so many people who have read my work. are like, 'I would never have picked this up if I had have known that this is exactly what the genre was, or I'm not a fantasy reader, or I don't really like other-worldliness in my work and I usually read contemporary or whatever. And so I take that as an extreme compliment because I really did want the work to feel real, you know, to really feel as if this was a world that was possible.

 It's not so far out there that you couldn't lose yourself in it. I just say thank you to you and all those readers out there who have trusted me and gone, 'Ooh, let's see what Tab made up'.

Pamela: [00:14:46] And when you're creating a world like that is it that fine line between keeping it grounded in the real world, but then thinking, okay, 'what are the fantastical elements'? Are you ever pulled one way or the other more? Or are you pretty au fait now with how to go about it?

Tabitha: [00:15:12] Interestingly enough, the magic in my work turns up so late. The draft will be very much about the characters and their emotional journey and what's happening for them. And there may be some element of the magic in there, but usually the big part of the magical or the big key that connects everything will come pretty much in the very, very last draft. So for me, I've really learned to trust my own messy process. I'm not a plotter and I've just learnt to open myself up to ideas, to write what's inside me and put it on the page, and then trust that at the right time the magic will enter the manuscript and I'll go, 'Oh, there you are. Welcome'.

When I first started writing, I think one of the biggest things that really shut down my creativity that I really had to push back against was the how to, and the shoulds. There's a lot of great books out there to tell you how to write and how to plot and all the rest of it. And I highly recommend them and there's nothing wrong with them, but at the end of the day, you have to kind of let go of all that and just write. And for me, that meant honoring the fact that when I tried to sit down and plot, all the characters in my head just went, ‘see you later’. This sounds like a school project and we're out of here. I was like, 'Well, okay, then that leaves me with no creativity and no one in my head talking to me'.

And if you're a writer, you really want people in your head talking to you. So I was like, okay, 'Well, we won't do that'. I need to be my first reader. I need to walk through those scenes and go, 'Oh, Oh!' Just the way I want my readers to. So if I know what's going to happen, then that's gone for me, the magic's gone for me. I need to write blind. I need to not know what's going to happen and I need to keep asking myself what if and what would that character say and what would they do next and where are they at and what are they feeling and what are they thinking? And be just really led organically through the story. Doesn't work for every writer, but it certainly works for me.  I think that's a big thing you should, you know, trust your own process.

Pamela: [00:17:23] Like you say, there's so much stuff out there and it is really good to brush your skills up and you know hone your skills that way, but then it's all about trust isn't it? And trusting your own process and finding what that process is for you and not being swayed too much by what other people are doing.

Tabitha: [00:17:39] And just finding out how to use sound when you show up on the page. You know, what does your voice actually sound like in writing when you show up on the page. And if you're constantly trying to emulate somebody else or emulate a certain should, you know, that's going to be really hard. And, and I think that's where a lot of blockages come for writers is that they're like, 'Oh, but I don't sound the way in which I think I should sound' or 'My work, isn't coming out the way in which I think it should.

And so then we lose the uniqueness of people's voices and that's the power of story. My stories don't sound like anyone else's and I don't think other people's stories sound like mine. And that's the beauty. That's the beauty of putting out a book, you know, that it's unique.

Pamela: [00:18:17] Yeah, for sure. Was there a turning point for you tab where that clicked?

Tabitha: [00:18:22] It really did. There were a lot of tears and one night I said to my husband that's it. I can't write, I'm terrible at this. I cannot plot. And I'm just awful at it. And he said to me, 'Well, I don't understand why you keep trying to do it that way. Then if you, if you hate it so much and it's not working'.

And I said, 'Because all the real writers do it this way, and I want to be a real writer'. And Matt said, 'Really? So every single writer writes their books like that?' And that just made me go, 'Ah, what if they don't? What if that isn't even actually true? What if lots of writers have lots of different processes?' And so, I started reading a lot of blogs and a lot of articles and, you know, listening to other writers. And I, I finally figured out actually, everybody's got their own way of doing this. There is no right way. So it really was a let go moment for me. And as soon as I let go, my writing just flourished on the page. And I was like, 'Oh, there you are Tab. That's what you sound like. Let's go girl!'

Well, can

Pamela: [00:19:25] Can you walk us through Tab... first of all can you tell listeners what the Emporium of the Imagination is about in case they haven't seen it out and about on social media? And then I just want to ask you about where the inspiration for this particular book came from?

Tabitha: [00:19:39] Yeah, absolutely. So the Emporium of Imagination is about a fantastical shop called the Emporium of Imagination, which arrives in the small town of Boonah in the very early hours of the morning.

And this shop offers people and anybody an opportunity to have one last phone call with a lost loved one. It also sells all manner of vintage wears that are heavily dusted with magic. And if you go into the shop and you find the magic or the thing that most attracts you, whatever that item is and you pick it up and that will have some connection for you to something you've lost, be that a person or a lost opportunity or a lost dream.

So that's the book in a nutshell, that's the magic in a nutshell. And of course, there's a custodian called Earlatidge and Earlatidge has a few problems, the first of which is that he's disappearing and he needs to find a new custodian for the shop. So that kind of sets up the little bit of the drama in the book.

And so for me, it wasn't the shop that first hit me. It was really Enoch, the youngest character in the book. Who's 10.  His voice came through so clearly for me. And he had so much to say about loss and about grief. And he was grieving the loss of his dad who had passed, but there was all this guilt for him in that. Because he felt like in some way he'd been a part of, you know, the fact that his dad was no longer with him anymore. And I won't tell you too much, so don't want to spoil it. Yeah. So that sort of came to me first. I think I always connect with the characters, emotional journeys first and write that. And then just one day randomly, I happen to open an email from Atlas Obscura, and it's just a website that sends you articles about weird and wonderful things that are happening around the world. And as a writer, there's just no greater food for my imagination, then that kind of thing. So I clicked on an article that was titled The Wind Phone, and I was like, what is a wind phone?

And it happened to be this Japanese gardener who had built himself a telephone booth in his garden. And he put inside the telephone booth a disconnected rotary phone and he used that rotary phone to talk to his cousin who had died the year previously. And just tell his cousin how he was feeling. And he says that his grief was then carried on the wind, hence the wind phone. And then in 2011, of course, the tsunami hit the Japanese coastline and his village, I think lost about 10% of the population, which was massive. So there were lots of people who had lost loved ones. And so he opened up that telephone booth to the public. People were traveling from all over Japan and now from all over the world to go to that phone booth and have a conversation with a lost loved one. Now, obviously, it's not connected and you're not actually talking to somebody, but I was struck by two things. One how amazing is the human imagination and the power of the human imagination to heal what hurts us and how these people were using their imagination to actually heal their own wounds. And second thing that struck me was, so what if there was a phone that could actually connect you to a lost, loved one? What would you say, how would that look and how would that play out in a book? And I was like, 'That's what the Emporium needs'.

And so those phones came to be within the Emporium. And then as I was writing the book, my own grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in 2019 and sadly in 2020, April 2020 we lost her to cancer. And so, then the book became incredibly personal and became a way for me to really, I guess, explore grief, but more than that, to explore the hope and the connection that can be found and just how beautiful community can be during that. The book is essentially really joyful and hopeful, even though it does deal with loss. So that's kind of how it all came together for me. And yeah, I could never have planned that at the beginning. I feel like that book found me. 

Pamela: [00:23:53] I love that, that came from a true story. I never would have thought that. That's fantastic.

Tabitha: [00:23:58] Exactly. Yeah.  Good old Japanese gardener who I'll forever be grateful for. Mr Arturu is his name. And I hope I'm saying that correctly, but all credit to him for his wind phone.

Pamela: [00:24:10] But how great that you can just find a little snippet like that in something, and it can just spark a whole - you already had the idea for the Emporium - but it just added that whole other layer to the story.

Tabitha: [00:24:22] It did. And I'm always open to that. Like, as I'm creating, I sort of have a pact with the universe where I'm like, 'I'm open to your ideas, get involved. I don't want to do this on my own'.

And I always trust that sort of something other than me, greater than me, whatever you want to call that, sort of just pops things in my life at the right times, things like that article. I almost wasn't surprised when I found it. I was like, 'Oh, and there you go'. You know, things do just sort of find you, I think when you open yourself up to anything, finding you at the right time and just believe and trust that things will find you at the right time. They tend to, so yeah, that, that article was a bit of, yeah, serendipity, I suppose.

Pamela: [00:25:06] Definitely. I'm just interested in your process then Tab. So you started with the character of Enoch  and started to write the story from there. When you're drafting, are you sitting down every day and spending hours on your writing or how does that whole drafting process work for you?

Tabitha: [00:25:22] Yeah, I look, I am really gracious and careful with myself when I'm creating. I think when you're creating, the more gentle you can be with yourself and the more loving you can be towards yourself, the better the work that you will create will be. So I don't demand that I sit down and write between nine and three, for example, or that I write a certain number of words.

I actually never track my word count. Because for me that would feel harsh and that would feel pressing. And that would also feel like an assignment. And once again, for me, then the play space would be gone. And for me, writing needs to be play. It needs to be magic. It needs to be full of 'Ah' and  'Oh', and all those moments so that the reader has an opportunity to feel that as well.

So, no, I never do. I usually sit down. And make connection with my book at least a couple of times a week, even if it's just reading over it or thinking about it. But I think most of my writing actually happens away from the computer. I think a lot of my writing happens when I'm gardening, when I'm just living life and suddenly something will come and I'm like, that needs to go in the book.

So some days I might write five or 6,000 words and then I may not touch it for another three or four days until it organically feels right to come back to it. And I think the more I've learned to love myself and respect myself, the more careful and gentle I am with my creative process and making sure that I nourish that and that I protect that as well.

 I don't have a harsh regimented process around writing, but other people may really need that. And that may be how they flourish, but I've just learned about myself that that's just not how I flourish. I don't sit down and write at any particular time, but I do make sure I maintain that connection with my book in some way.

Pamela: [00:27:14] Really important. And were you're writing to a deadline for Emporium?

Tabitha: [00:27:19] Yes. The magical thing happens after you have a first book published is that you have automatic publisher interest in everything else that comes up. So Beverly Cousins from Penguin, who is an amazingly talented human being, was of course asking, ‘What else are you writing? What else are you doing?’ And I had this little thing: the Emporium was something that I started a long time before it became the Emporium, as just a way to entertain myself. And it was a very different story. Some of the characters were in it but it was a very different story. I knew I had something so I pitched those first three chapters and Penguin, bless them, actually bought the book on those first three chapters. And I didn't have the rest of the book, so then you're on a deadline. And so then I agreed that I would hand in the rest of the book, I think I said six weeks, six or eight weeks to hand in book.

So that made me really sit down and I, I think I just, at that stage really started honing the creativity and I guess getting in the flow of it. But I know that I can produce work in that time. I never agree to any deadlines that feel so tight that I wouldn't be able to breathe. And so it was fine. I was able to produce it. But yes, once you sign that contract, people want things at certain times. But deadlines are not a problem. As long as I give myself padded extra time to make sure. I'd rather hand it in early and be like, ‘Ooh, isn't she a wonderful writer handing it in early’ when really that's just when I knew I could get it done by.

Pamela: [00:28:57] I love that. You were talking before about the issue of grief in the novel and that's such a huge strand of the story.  I came across this lovely passage, which I just wanted to read.  It's about The Owner's Guide to Grieving, which is a book that features in the Emporium.

And it says: In every town, the owner's guide to grieving starts a new book, blank pages that the town's folk fill with their hearts. Of course, not everyone writes in the book. Sometimes it's enough for people to read the other entries more than once. It has been the difference between loneliness and connection.

Well, the teacher’s well aware of how poorly most Western societies deal with loss. For some people, the book is the first time they've really been able to talk about their feelings. A blank page is often the perfect friend, one with open arms and no judgment.

 I just absolutely love that. And particularly those last couple of lines, and it really struck me well, two things really…this idea of books connecting people, but also this issue of grief, particularly in Western society, and how it's such a silent thing that is often just not talked about at all. I love in the story that the book  and everything that goes on in the Emporium gives people the chance to talk about it, just like there's people in Japan talking on the phone to their dead loved ones.

Tabitha: [00:30:16] Yeah, I think it's really sad. I don't know about other cultures, but I do find within Western culture that once we've had the funeral once there's that couple of weeks after where people might be bringing food or people might be making a phone call or sending you a text message, it quickly dies off.

And within two to three weeks, you're back to normal, but your normal has changed forever. I experienced a great deal of loneliness in that, but what I think I was surprised to find is how many people did want to connect, but didn't connect for fear of saying something wrong or  for fear of in some way talking about it and then you didn't want to talk about it.

And then, you know, just this uncomfortableness around it as if there was a right and a wrong way to go about it. And I was really shocked by that because when we're so scared to reach out to each other and so scared to get it wrong, or right, then what we do is we say nothing and then that person is left even more alone than they already were because of the loss of whoever it is that has passed on.

So I was deeply interested in how it is that we might do that better.  And the power of that connection, I suppose, to bring hope and joy, and also just looking at grief in a slightly different way as something that we might hold close and almost cherish, because to grieve mains that we have loved.

If there's no love, then you don't grieve. You don't grieve for something you didn't love. If you lose something and you're glad to lose it because you hated it or you didn't have any connection with it, you don't experience grief. We only experience grief when we have lost something precious or someone precious.

And therefore it's a precious thing. And whether you've lost your grandmother or not, everybody knows what it's like to lose something or someone. So on every level, everybody has the opportunity to connect to loss. Even if it's not specifically that other person's loss. We do have the opportunity to reach out and go, ‘Look, I may not know how it is for you, but I understand what it means to lose and I'm here and I want to listen and I want to talk’. So, yeah, I think that's why I started that book within a book with The Owner's Guide to Grieving, because there's just so many of us that just don't talk about it. And I wanted to just show that perhaps there could be another way.

Pamela: [00:32:52] I love that idea of connection and keeping the person alive, their memory alive, by connecting and by talking about them.

Tabitha: [00:33:00] Exactly. And just how kind of normal and natural that can be, you know, like I'll talk to my grandmother all the time. And I like to think that in some way she can hear and she can be a part of that. And you're right. It just keeps that connection alive. And also just gives me a way to honor her and her memory.

Pamela: [00:33:21] I think Trent Dalton said something similar. I heard him talking about All Their Shimmering Skies and the idea that he used to talk to his dead father up in the sky. And that's where the idea for that came from. I think a lot of people can relate to that.

Tabitha: [00:33:34] I completely agree with you. And I think that's why it's not so strange when you hear about a phone where you could talk to a lost loved one because I think we all do it in some way, shape or form. And so I think readers can go, 'Oh yeah, I could make that leap because I am actually already connecting in some way or I would like to.’

Pamela: [00:33:51] So you were obviously writing from a very authentic place yourself and dealing with grief and loss, so did you find that writing the story was quite healing for you?

Tabitha: [00:34:02] Yeah, I did. I found that grief is a complicated thing. It's not just missing somebody or really remembering somebody and loving them. There was for me initially a lot of guilt associated with the grieving because we watched my grandmother pass over about an 18 month period. So, it's really a living grief, you know, that she's not going to get better. This will eventually take her life. And of course, I wanted her to stay with me forever. However, as things progressed, I actually didn't want her to stay. I really wanted her to go. And that was two pronged. One, I really wanted her to not be in any pain and suffering anymore. And I wanted her just to be able to leave this world before that got any worse. But the other thing, and the place where there's some guilt is, where you just want an end to your own pain. You know, that constant being there and that constant watching and that constant waiting and will it be now?

That made me feel guilty because I was like,  'Am I awful for wanting her to go? Just because I  want this to be over.’ And I realized there's nothing more human in this world than wanting your own pain to end. That is such a human beautiful, innocent thing to want. And in fact, there is no guilt in that. We can love someone and we can want to hold them and we can also desperately want them to go.

And so that sort of wove itself in the book, and I began to explore the dynamics of that through the characters who were also struggling with that same duality. And that's the thing. Emotion isn't black and white. Emotion is all shades of color. And grief is all shades of color from happiness and happy memories to really feeling quite closed in and that guilt.

And I wanted to talk about it because I wondered ‘Did other people feel this? Were other people quiet about this and feeling ashamed of this?’ When in fact I don't think that we need to feel ashamed of that. So I wanted to talk about it.  

Pamela: [00:36:04] I think it's really good to explore those connected issues. Like you say, grief is not just one single emotion, there's all those things around it. And that really comes through in the book itself. So the other angle I wanted to look at with you is putting the book out into the world. It's been coming for a while now, I can't remember how long ago you  started to put images and things out but it's had the most amazing sort of publicity campaign with these beautiful gifts that you sent to readers and to other writers. Can you talk about a little bit about that and where that idea came from?

Tabitha: [00:36:40] Yeah, I'd love to. So, I was really surprised and, and genuinely happy when I discovered that all marketing is, is connection. It's simply a conversation between you and your reader. And once I discovered that I was like, ‘I love to talk. I love to connect. This will not be difficult for me'.

And I just thought all that you really need to do is just be yourself. And I thought, ‘Well, I can be myself. I don't have problems being myself. And if that's all it takes, I can do that.’ So I tapped in to the fact that I love to create. I'm a very creative person and I could see the Emporium in my head and I wanted to give a little bit of that to everybody in as many ways as I could.

So the idea for the Emporium boxes came out of that and I actually just pitched it to Penguin and asked would it be all right with them if I sent a group of people a box as if it had come from the Emporium with vintage gifts inside, and also the ARC of the book. And Penguin were like, 'Well, yeah, not only would that be okay, but we will definitely put dollars behind that. That's an amazing idea'.

And then I realized that my book was full of unique things, and unique little ‘what ifs’ that I could automatically share with people. There were the ladybirds, you know, there were the ladybird lollipops. There were so many things that I could draw out of the book. But I will also give you just a little secret. While I was writing it did occur to me that people want to be involved in the process so I started writing into the book vintage items that I had actually found and purchased on eBay. Because I was like, ‘These will then be so fantastic in the marketing and I will have already written it into the book’.

So the book informed my life and my life informed the book and they crossed over. I just realized that if I'm going to be the creator of it, I can almost write in my marketing, if you know what I'm saying?  So I started thinking about what will I easily be able to find? Ladybirds in themselves are so magical - that's going to go into the book. The lady bird lollipops turned up in the book and just little things like that. But then the marketing flowed out of that. So it flowed out of who I was and my genuine interest in involving readers.

And I start talking about my books the minute I get an idea for a new one. I've already started subtly talking about the third one that I'm writing. And my readers love to get involved.

The readers actually voted for the color of the door in the Emporium, and they decided on green. I had in my head red, but they were overwhelmingly passionate about it being green. So I was like, ‘You know what? The readers have spoken.’

Pamela: [00:39:33] It’s this whole world that you're creating not just words on a page.

Tabitha: [00:39:39] I just let them in. And you know, when I realized there was going to be a cat in the book, I couldn't think of a name for the cat. And I was like, ‘I bet I know who can give a name for the cat.’ And so I put it out to my readers and just went, ‘Hey everybody, there's this gorgeous cat that's turned up in the book. Tell me about your cats. What are their personalities like? And what would you name the cat in this book?’

 So my readers came up with the name Pickled Onions, and there is a real life Pickled Onions. And there was a real life cat that really does bring little gifts to its owner. And I just thought that was magical, so that went in the book too. So all of that is marketing, but it's very organic and it's really just natural conversations and nobody feels like a book is being shoved in their face. They're just along for the ride. And I loved it. I was having fun with it and other people joined in the fun.

Pamela: [00:40:33] I don't think I've ever seen a marketing campaign like it. I love it.  How are you reaching your readers then? Are you reaching them through social media, newsletters? What are your methods of connecting with your readers?

Tabitha: [00:40:45] Yeah, I find Facebook and Instagram are the most powerful for connecting with readers. There's a really different readership on Facebook and a very different readership on Instagram and not often do those two cross. Both those forums lend themselves to different things. I find Facebook is where I can do a lot more of the conversational type things. And although I do put that on Instagram, Instagram better connects with the ‘visualness’, if you like. I'm going to make that word up.

But the visualness of storytelling. So storytelling in 2D and then in your audios and your little gifs or whatever that you put together. It's all storytelling. It's just different ways of storytelling. And so that's how I connect to my readers.

I do have a newsletter that is growing and has been growing since I put it out. And I connect very personally. My actual personal email and direct messages are actually open to my readers as well. I haven't found that they abuse it. I have found that they genuinely connect when it's right for them. And I have been sent the most gorgeous and very personal emails from people who have connected to well first A Lifetime of Impossible Days.  And now with this new one, so I genuinely cherish the readers that choose to be a part of my life. Without them I don't have a job and without them, there's no magic in writing.

I mean, for me, putting together a book, just so I can read it?, That would lose so much of the magic. The magic in writing is that you get to share it, you know, and that all the people get to own it. And other people get to make it their own and have their own fun with that and let the magic run amuck in their own life. And that's the power of storytelling. So readers are just so vital to the process.  I involve them in every way, shape and form. Every possible thing that I can come up with I'll involve them. 

 Pamela: That's great. And I know that the Emporium went to a second print run before today. Before publication day. Were you surprised by that?

Tabitha: I was very happily surprised by that. We had certainly learnt a lot my husband and I.  We'd learned a lot from putting out A Lifetime of Impossible Days. Of course, traditional publishers will put marketing dollars behind the book, but more and more authors are being asked to step up to that plate. Now they don't have to, it's not written into your contract that you have to. However, I think if I've spent so long producing something that I really care about then I want to give that baby every chance to meet the readers and to be embraced. So, we learnt a lot and we did a lot of different things this time to connect, not only on social media, but we did 14 and a half thousand letter box drops of leaflets for the Emporium. We paid for some of those to be delivered. And we personally delivered the others ourselves, and I linked directly to where people could buy that book. So when Penguin said it was going to a second reprint I was happily surprised but I was also like, ‘This is the power of that connection. Like this power of making readers feel like they have ownership in something that is coming out and they want to be a part of it.’ So, yeah. I was surprised, but I also wasn't surprised and of course I'm thrilled.

Pamela: [00:44:13] How many boxes would you have sent out, do you think?

Tabitha: [00:44:16] I sent out 50 of the Emporium boxes and they were very specifically chosen. And I actually pitched those boxes to people over a year ago because I wanted to be sure that one, they wanted to be involved in it, and secondly, they understood what being involved in it would mean because if they didn't have the time for that or they weren't interested, I obviously didn't want to lump them with something that they weren't interested in. So that was chosen over a year ago and almost everyone, (I think it was only one or two people who said they genuinely couldn't for reasons that they were going to be busy around the actual date of release and they didn't feel it would give it the time that it would need) but without fail, everyone else was really excited to be a part of it. The feedback that I got was, ‘This is not just a pack with an ARC of a book in it. This is an experience.’ And I think, yes, because that's what my novels are. I want them to be an experience so I want that to show up in my marketing, that I'm inviting you in.

Pamela: [00:45:14] Well, you did that in such an amazing way. Congratulations! The other thing that I've noticed on Instagram…I've been really loving your artwork. You're obviously super creative in the art field as well. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Tabitha: [00:45:30] Yeah. Thank you for the compliment.  My art is something that I had pushed aside for a long time. I hadn't really been given permission in my childhood to explore that. And I sort of shut it down as being something that I couldn't own. And I thought, ‘Well, you know, you're good at writing and, you're enjoying that, isn't that enough?’  And I think that's unfortunately a message that we get a lot as women, that we should just be happy with enough is enough. Don't press into everything. Don't want too much. Don't take up too much space. Don't explore all of who you are. And I just call BS on all those messages.

So I thought to myself, ‘You know what? I love art and I want to explore how my voice looks in the visual form as well.’

And so I started drawing and I started painting and I started, you know, putting them up on my Instagram. And then eventually I have created my own Instagram page just for my art. And that's also led into me acknowledging that I'd really love to write a children's picture book. So I've been working on that as well and have had a few up my sleeve that I'm hoping will one day make their way into it the world.

Pamela: [00:46:38] I think your talents would be so suited to that. And of course all those magical ideas that you've already got that you can channel into to the kids' books as well.

Tabitha: [00:46:46] Thank you. I think for me too, there's even something greater behind that where I just wanted to show women, or anybody, that it's okay to want, and that it's okay to have a dream and that it's okay to go after that shamelessly. It's ok to put that first in your life. It's not selfish and I'm going to do it with you. You know, let's do it together because I don't want to miss out on anyone's talents.  Whatever it is that people are passionate about in this world I hope I get to experience it. I don't want them to shut it down and I miss out on it. 

Pamela: [00:47:22] I love that way of looking at it. And you do talk about a lot of this stuff on your Instagram and your posts.  As I said in the intro, you're very honest and very open about a lot of issues that you're dealing with. How do you find people connecting with that and relating to those posts that you put up on Instagram?

Tabitha: [00:47:37] Yeah, I was really surprised when I first started putting myself out there, how well received that was. And jhow much other people almost wanted - permission is the wrong word - but I guess a space in which they felt safe to connect and they felt safe to go, ‘Yeah, me too.’ And so people have really connected with, not so much what I'm doing, although they have connected with that, but what has been more of a privilege is watching people connect with what they're good at. With A Lifetime Impossible Days so many people messaged me and said for the first time ever they connected with the little girl that they once were and they asked that little child, 'What did you want, or who were you before the world told you who you supposed to be?' And all of a sudden, I was just flooded with beautiful messages of how many people actually took that story and asked the same questions to themselves and sat down with their own little girl or little boy and went, ‘Who are we again? What did we want? What are you excited about?  What do you look at in my adult life and go, that's not who we wanted to be? Have you forgotten about all the joy and the fun and the play, and we liked this and this and this and this?’ So that was more the privilege, you know?

Yeah. It's a great privilege to be honest and put yourself out there, but it's far better when other people feel that they can do the same.

Pamela: [00:49:02] We're nearly there Tab, I keep thinking of more  questions to ask you. You mentioned before, because I come from a teaching background as well, and you mentioned that you were a teacher. How do you feel about the formal education system and what happens to our creativity  when we're in there?

Tabitha: [00:49:19] I have strong feelings about that. So I was always a prep teacher. I liked the younger grades because I felt like they were the grades in which no one was so worried about their, scores. There wasn't as much pressure in the prep years to teach to a test or make sure you hit this or make sure you hit that. There was a little bit more leeway for me to encourage their imagination and share my own imagination. I left the teaching game quite some years ago, and unfortunately since then, I think that we expect a lot from children. I think even just the nature of going into a classroom with four walls and sitting down, and a lot of the learning being fairly sit and listen, not interactive, loses a lot of children particularly boys. I know that's quite stereotypical, but I've got three sons myself so I've seen how much they need to process the world by being really physical with the world, really hands-on with their learning.

And it's not the teacher's fault. They haven't got a lot of opportunity. They either don't have the resources for it, or they don't have the time because of how much of the curriculum they have to push through and how fast they have to push through it. And so children's imaginations and play -I don't think there is the amount of space for that, that there perhaps once was. Parents are busy, so children are going home to busy households and potentially multiple afterschool activities. So where is that time to be bored? You know? And when we're bored, that's when we start asking questions like, 'Oh, what if I? Well, how come? and that's when the imagination starts to fire. And you know, my children know in my house, if you say you're bored, I'll go ‘Awesome. I wonder what you'll come up with?’ So my kids never tell me that anymore because they know that's how it'll be but some of their most imaginative games have come when I've kicked them off all this technology, and refused to solve their ‘I'm bored’ problems and just let them at it. And eventually after kicking around and moping for a bit children will fire up their natural imagination. So yeah, I think, unfortunately there’s not a great deal of space for it anymore.

And I think that's why we have so many adults that don't think play is important. It hasn't been honored in their own childhood. They get to adulthood and think, ‘Well, that was a thing I've put behind me.’ Yet play is how we problem solve, you know? Without play how are you problem solving any adult problems? Cause play is the ability to think ‘what if’ and imagine different scenarios. That's play. That's the essential nature of play. So when we lose that as adults I think we lose a lot and that's for me, the power of magical realism. I'm actually extending the opportunity to adults to play again. Come play with me. And then how would you play? So that's the power of it I think.

Pamela: [00:52:23] I love that. And it's brought us full circle. I totally agree by the way. But the last question I like to ask on these Heart of Writing episodes is what is at the heart of your writing?

Tabitha: [00:52:35] The heart of my writing…I think the heart of my writing is the beautiful, messy experience of what it is to be human.

And some of the deeper issues which humans face. And hope and joy. Is there hope and joy in those issues? And my answer to that is always yes. And so, I think there's just, I hope, a certain rawness and I hope people see a little bit of me when they read it.

I hope they feel as if they know me a little bit, because I'm definitely in my stories.

Pamela: [00:53:07] I can see that. It's lovely. Thank you so much for chatting to me and taking the time out, because I know it's publication day. I just saw flowers arrive at your place and I hope you have a fabulous celebration today. I know that you're in lockdown up there in Brisbane, briefly. Hopefully you'll be out soon.

Tabitha: [00:53:24] Thank you so much. It's such a joy to talk to you and I'm so glad we got this opportunity to connect.

 Thanks for listening to Writes4Women. I hope you've enjoyed my chat with this week's guest. If you did, I'd love it if you could add a quick rating or review wherever you get your podcasts, so others can more easily find the episodes. Don't forget to check out the back list on the Writes4Women website - so much great writing advice in the library.

And you can also find the transcript of today's chat on the website, too. You can find details on the website on how to support the podcast through Patreon and get exclusive access to the extended audio and video of the monthly craft episode. And you can connect with me through the website at writes4women.com and on Instagram and Twitter at @w4wpodcast, or the Facebook page Writes4Women.

You’ll  find me and my writing at pamelacook.com.au

Thanks for listening. Have a great week. And remember every word you write your one word closer to typing The End.