WEBVTT
00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:21.519
Hello and welcome to the CBCA Shadow Judging Podcast, where young readers share their thoughts on the shortlisted books.
00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:25.519
My name is Poppy Holden and I'm the host for today's conversation.
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:31.120
We will be discussing the 2026 shortlisted title This Stays Between Us by Margot McGovern.
00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:38.320
We aren't joined by readers this week, so instead I will start with some of my thoughts on the book and then ask some follow-up questions to Margot.
00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:40.880
I'll just begin with a small summary.
00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:45.679
This book is about four teenage girls on their last school camp before year 12 starts.
00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:50.799
Shelly is completely new, attending this camp before transferring to their school the following year.
00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:56.000
Priya seems to have it all together: good grades, a life plan, and a long-term boyfriend.
00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:00.159
Mac is openly gay but regretting acting upon her crush on Rafi.
00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:03.920
Rafi has a boyfriend, but is now questioning her feelings.
00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:13.120
What begins as an unassuming camp quickly turns into a life-threatening horror that forces the girls to grapple with personal conflicts and work together to survive.
00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:15.359
I loved this book.
00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:17.920
My favorite part was actually the genre.
00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:25.760
I read quite widely in YA, but I read very few horror books that were as suspenseful and genuinely terrifying.
00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:38.000
It's written in slit perspectives, with each chapter alternating between one of the four main girls, which added to the creepiness, particularly when the characters are separated or disagreeing, which is often.
00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.400
I also found that the point of view stayed clear despite this change.
00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:47.040
I think this was due to how distinctive the characters' lives and reactions were.
00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:57.920
Unlike other books I've read where the characters blur or it feels unnecessary to have those separated perspectives, I felt it gave every character room to breathe and amplified that horror.
00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:01.120
Each character remains genuine throughout the book.
00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:06.400
They all have their own problems that feel authentic while connecting to the wider plot line.
00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:11.280
I felt like I could understand and empathize with each character in different ways.
00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:15.439
A theme I really enjoyed in the book was the presentation of high school.
00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:23.280
The female friendship group felt very authentic and honest in its portrayal of the issues they were experiencing without falling into any stereotypes.
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:28.400
I also found the more confronting themes like sexual assault relevant and well-written.
00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.120
I really loved the setting of the novel as well.
00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:42.960
While the 2000 time period isn't relatable to me, I thought it was a clever technique to get around the use of phones, which furthered the isolation and therefore frightening nature of many situations.
00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:51.360
Also, just the landscape of it being in this old mining town in Australia and this slightly dodgy camp was relatable to me.
00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:58.639
I felt like many high schoolers could understand the experience of going to a camp that is run down and faintly terrifying.
00:02:58.639 --> 00:03:05.599
One of the most memorable scenes for me was when Priya was returning from her boyfriend's cabin and Smiling Jack appears.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:09.360
Like the rest of the novel, it didn't actually feel like I was reading a book.
00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:14.879
I wasn't conscious of getting to the end of a sentence, turning pages, or finding out another plot point.
00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:18.000
Instead, I could see and hear everything they could.
00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.479
Nothing felt overexplained, yet at the same time the setting was vivid to me.
00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:23.919
The fear felt real.
00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:30.560
In many ways, this book, particularly this moment, was an equivalent level of suspense and immersion to a horror movie.
00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:35.280
In this scene, I was running with prayer and genuinely terrified for my life.
00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:40.240
Now we're joined by Margot McGovern, author of This Stays Between Us.
00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:45.199
Firstly, I wanted to ask if my thoughts on your novel were what you intended.
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:52.479
Oh thank you so much for having me and for I think giving such a beautiful insight into the book.
00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.360
I need to take you on tour with me.
00:03:55.360 --> 00:04:04.560
Yeah, I think I'm so pleased that the four characters and their voices sort of came through as distinct and strong.
00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:10.000
You know, obviously it's a horror novel, but I wanted to make sure that within that it was very character-led.
00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.159
And this was my first time writing a multi-perspective novel.
00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:24.240
So that was definitely one of the big challenges was making sure that each character had her own things going on and that those characters remained very distinct.
00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:28.879
And I'm also really thrilled that it, you know, it read kind of like watching a horror movie.
00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:30.959
That was definitely something that I was going for.
00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:34.079
You know, films were such a big inspiration for the book.
00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:38.639
So I'm really glad you got that sense of like watching a teen horror movie from it.
00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:39.839
Definitely.
00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:44.639
As I mentioned, I found this book an awesome presentation of horror.
00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:49.680
But this genre choice is very different from your first YA novel, Neverland.
00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:53.040
Why did you decide on horror apart from movies?
00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:56.079
And how are you able to create this story so effectively?
00:04:56.560 --> 00:05:06.560
Well, I think I've always been a really big fan of horror and but a bit nervous to, you know, to try writing it because I sort of wasn't sure if I could pull it off, really.
00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:11.519
But I think I really enjoyed writing the darker elements of Neverland.
00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:25.120
And so when I was looking for my next project, it was during the pandemic, and I think I was drawn to reading a lot of horror, and I could sort of see that there was a bit of a gap in that there wasn't a lot of Australian young adult horror out there.
00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:28.639
So I was like, I feel like there's a gap here and that I could fill that.
00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:44.399
And then I was just drawing on my love of the genre and particularly going back to the 90s teen slashes that I loved growing up and wanting to kind of embrace that, but then also sort of bring it into the 21st century a little bit and create a story that spoke to teenagers today.
00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:47.279
Yeah, I think that does it very effectively.
00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:51.360
It is so immersive and it does feel very relevant.
00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:55.360
The characters were obviously part of that, they're all very real.
00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:00.720
And as you mentioned, it's the first time, your first time doing that, which is I find very impressive.
00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:01.839
It's done so well.
00:06:01.839 --> 00:06:08.560
How challenging was it to develop all those different characters and create the distinctions and their different voices as well?
00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:10.399
Yeah, it was a big challenge.
00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:16.560
And when I first outlined this book to my agent, she's like, This is going to be the big thing that's tricky with this book.
00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:20.160
So I kind of knew going in that that was something I needed to focus on.
00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:31.120
So with each girl, I kind of thought about what are the challenges that she is going to have to overcome in this story, so that each girl had like specific things that they would need to work through.
00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:38.319
But then I also thought a lot about the relationships that each girl had with the other girls and the other characters beyond that as well.
00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:42.720
So before I started doing anything, I really sat down and plotted those out.
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.600
And that kind of became the backbone of the story.
00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:51.759
So I had, yeah, this very clear idea of who these four people were and what all their challenges were going to be.
00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:54.800
And then I had to sort of build the story around helping them through that.
00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:55.360
Cool.
00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:59.759
So I guess the bigger plot line around like smiling jack and stuff all came after the characters.
00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:08.560
Yeah, I guess they were kind of it's so, you know, when you talk about the writing process, it's like it's never quite as clear-cut as you know, you'd like it to be.
00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:16.399
So I think I knew I wanted to write this kind of slasher, and but then I wanted to make sure that it was very character-driven, which slashes sometimes aren't.
00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:18.560
So that felt like a big challenge as well.
00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:28.160
I kind of in my head, because the book is set in the year 2000, in my brain, I was like, I want this to feel like a scream movie, but also a Dawson's Creek episode.
00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:39.040
So I was like, how do I bring all of the kind of the drama and the depth, but then also have the kind of the fun and the, you know, running around chase scenes in the dark and things like that.
00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:51.199
So yeah, there was kind of that trying to marry those things and trying to make sure that the challenges that the girls were facing were kind of being, I guess, symbolically represented through the horror in the story as well.
00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:52.800
Yeah, I definitely got that.
00:07:52.800 --> 00:08:03.040
And I feel like that also comes through with all the themes that are in the novel, with how they appear from the friendship groups, the sexual orientation, consent, and the self-defense.
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:06.000
So, what inspired those choices specifically?
00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:12.480
Yeah, I think coming to horror, because I've loved it for so long, I was like, what kind of horror am I going to explore here?
00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:17.600
And I really wanted to write about the horror of being a teenage girl, I guess.
00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:20.800
And, you know, the you know, the different aspects of that.
00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:33.440
And also sort of looking at, because the book is set, you know, a quarter of a century ago, and sort of looking at what kind of challenges teenagers faced in the past and how has that changed and how has it not changed now?
00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:40.799
And also, I like I grew up reading Carrie by Stephen King, you know, which is about a teenage girl who's got a whole lot of things going on.
00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:48.879
Um, and it's kind of, you know, that sort of remains, you know, over 50 years later, the kind of gold standard of like teenage girl horror.
00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:57.679
But Stephen King has talked about how difficult it was to create that character and how he found it really hard to relate to her and how he, you know, had to get his wife to help him and stuff.
00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:00.080
And I was like, I love Stephen King, I love that book.
00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:11.679
But I was like, as a girl, I think I can probably address some of these things and talk about things that sort of concerned me when I was a teenager and that I think are still relevant for teenagers today.
00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:14.159
So yeah, that was kind of where I started.
00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:18.399
I was like, what is the horror of being a teenage girl and how can I explore that?
00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:19.919
No, I love that.
00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:23.279
In exploring those, particularly the confronting themes.
00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:27.200
Did you have concerns about if that would narrow your audience?
00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:31.840
As you mentioned, Neverland, your prior novel, had those serious themes as well.
00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:33.759
So, how was the audience for that book?
00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:34.720
And yeah.
00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:44.720
Yeah, look, it's, I mean, when you're writing mature content, I'm always very conscious of how I'm framing that for younger readers.
00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:51.120
But I do really think that anything teenagers experience has a place in the stories that we are telling for them.
00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:55.200
And I think, you know, I'm not trying to appeal to everybody with my books.
00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:00.720
You know, they are books for readers who are looking for something that is a little bit darker and a little bit more mature.
00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:03.759
And I do think the books should be challenging for readers as well.
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:07.360
You know, they should take us that little bit further than we've maybe gone before.
00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:15.759
But yeah, I guess it is always about how am I contextualizing this and keeping in mind that it is for teenagers and trying to make it appropriate for them.
00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:30.000
But I have found we put a content warning on this book, and I was sort of like, I don't know how it's going to be received, but the response has been fantastic and the audience I think has actually been a lot broader than I thought, which has been wonderful.
00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:31.360
So yeah.
00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:32.879
Awesome.
00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:46.639
Going back to the book and the writing of the plot, you mentioned that setting it in Australia was important to bring sort of those influences to a context that was relevant to Australia now.
00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:50.879
But is there other ways the setting was important that camp?
00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.440
And what was the goal for the reader in that way?
00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:55.120
Oh, that's a good question.
00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:56.480
Um, I think so.
00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:08.879
The book is set in the fictional ghost town of Bayton, but it's inspired by a real ghost town called Inniston, uh, which is on Naranga Country or the York Peninsula, which is where I went on a school camp when I was in year nine.
00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:10.720
Um, and it was terrifying.
00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:13.120
It was exactly as it is in the book, pretty much.
00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:24.000
So, you know, we were kind of taken, it was all girls, and we were taken to this town, put into these old mining cottages that have been like not really done up, they were pretty rustic.
00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:33.919
And our teachers were staying in another hut that was like a kilometer away, and we had these two knights just out in the bush, sort of semi-fending for ourselves.
00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:35.759
And it was, it was terrifying.
00:11:35.759 --> 00:11:38.320
And I, you know, it made such an impression on me.
00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:43.039
I thought at some point I would love to write a story that sort of explored this.
00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:52.240
And, you know, I think because it was a long time ago when I came to write the book, I'm like, surely it wasn't kind of as as you know, bad as I remembered.
00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:57.360
And I went down to the town to do some research, and it was exactly as I remembered it.
00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:02.159
It was, it's so remote and it's such a strange, eerie place, but also a very beautiful place.
00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:06.480
The York Peninsula is stunning, it's it's very wild and rugged.
00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:08.720
And not a lot of people have been there.
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:14.879
Like, even it's in South Australia, and even within South Australia, there's just not a lot of people that have heard of this place.
00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:18.879
And I was like, oh, it's such a shame that there aren't that many stories set here.
00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:22.159
It's it feels like this incredible place to explore in a story.
00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:24.159
So I really wanted to bring that in.
00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:32.320
And for me as well, I think so much of the horror that I read growing up, and even the horror I read now is set overseas.
00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:35.039
It comes from the US or the UK a lot of the time.
00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:48.240
Um, and certainly I think for authors in Australia, there is increasing pressure to set your stories overseas because then they will, you know, you'll sell international rights and you can make a bit more of a living from writing.
00:12:48.240 --> 00:13:00.639
But for me, it's I think it's really important that we have stories for young people that are set in, you know, a familiar environment and with characters that could be characters that they're going to school with and that we have that familiarity.
00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:02.480
Yeah, it was definitely familiar.
00:13:02.480 --> 00:13:04.720
Year nine camps are horrifying.
00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:21.759
And also with that setting and the descriptions in the book, I mentioned it before how it didn't feel like it was oversharing at any point or like over-describing, but it all felt like I could visualize the cabin exactly and I like knew the layer and I knew everything.
00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:25.759
I just wanted to know how you managed that, how you did that.
00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:32.320
Yeah, well, so I did do this research trip where I went and spent two nights by myself in this town to just see what it was like.
00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:36.480
And I made myself, you know, walk around in the dark and like took lots of video and photos.
00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:38.720
So I had sort of lots to draw on.
00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:45.200
And then I also the lodge where the four girls are staying is not really based on any one particular lodge in that town.
00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:49.279
I made it up and I used some like floor plan software to like draw it up.
00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:54.080
So I had a big map on my wall so I could sort of map where everything was and where everyone was.
00:13:54.080 --> 00:14:10.000
Yeah, so it was it was a lot of research and having maps of the town up on my wall and sort of looking at, you know, what plants there were around, what animals there were around, what does the wind sound like down there, like you know, if someone screams, how far away can they hear it?
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:11.440
You know, those sorts of things.
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:14.879
So there was a lot of really practical research, which was so much fun to do.
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:16.720
So that's awesome.
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:25.600
And you mentioned, just for a final question, you mentioned that you were inspired by horror films from that time, but were there other influences for this novel?
00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:31.759
I did notice at the start the quote from Frankenstein and obviously naming character Shelley, but yeah, is there any other influences?
00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:42.320
Yeah, I think, you know, I love horror movies and 90s slasher movies are my favourites, but I read very broadly within the horror genre and sort of more generally.
00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:48.559
So I was I was also looking back towards, you know, from right from Frankenstein through to where we are now.
00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:50.559
I'm very inspired by the Gothic.
00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:56.240
Um, the town, as I said, it's called Bayton, which was named after Barbara Bayton, the Australian Gothic writer.
00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:03.919
And I think there's, you know, there's a lot of kind of horror references sprinkled throughout the book, which are there for readers who might pick up on those.
00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:10.960
So it really, it's a love letter to 90 slashes, but also just to the horror genre, which was so important for me as a teenager.
00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:14.799
I think like it felt like this place that I could go to and kind of figure things out.
00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:19.840
So it felt very special to start writing into that genre and contributing to it.
00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:20.799
Thank you.
00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:25.360
Before we finish, I wanted to share why someone should read this book in one sentence.
00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:33.600
This Days Between Us is a thrilling horror that is suspenseful and frightening throughout while presenting genuine, relatable characters.
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.759
It's simply a must-read.
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:40.720
A big thank you to Margot for joining us today, and thank you for listening to the CBCA Shadow Judging Podcast.
00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:21.519
Hello and welcome to the CBCA Shadow Judging Podcast, where young readers share their thoughts on the shortlisted books.
00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:25.519
My name is Poppy Holden and I'm the host for today's conversation.
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:31.120
We will be discussing the 2026 shortlisted title This Stays Between Us by Margot McGovern.
00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:38.320
We aren't joined by readers this week, so instead I will start with some of my thoughts on the book and then ask some follow-up questions to Margot.
00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:40.880
I'll just begin with a small summary.
00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:45.679
This book is about four teenage girls on their last school camp before year 12 starts.
00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:50.799
Shelly is completely new, attending this camp before transferring to their school the following year.
00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:56.000
Priya seems to have it all together: good grades, a life plan, and a long-term boyfriend.
00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:00.159
Mac is openly gay but regretting acting upon her crush on Rafi.
00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:03.920
Rafi has a boyfriend, but is now questioning her feelings.
00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:13.120
What begins as an unassuming camp quickly turns into a life-threatening horror that forces the girls to grapple with personal conflicts and work together to survive.
00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:15.359
I loved this book.
00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:17.920
My favorite part was actually the genre.
00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:25.760
I read quite widely in YA, but I read very few horror books that were as suspenseful and genuinely terrifying.
00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:38.000
It's written in slit perspectives, with each chapter alternating between one of the four main girls, which added to the creepiness, particularly when the characters are separated or disagreeing, which is often.
00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.400
I also found that the point of view stayed clear despite this change.
00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:47.040
I think this was due to how distinctive the characters' lives and reactions were.
00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:57.920
Unlike other books I've read where the characters blur or it feels unnecessary to have those separated perspectives, I felt it gave every character room to breathe and amplified that horror.
00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:01.120
Each character remains genuine throughout the book.
00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:06.400
They all have their own problems that feel authentic while connecting to the wider plot line.
00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:11.280
I felt like I could understand and empathize with each character in different ways.
00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:15.439
A theme I really enjoyed in the book was the presentation of high school.
00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:23.280
The female friendship group felt very authentic and honest in its portrayal of the issues they were experiencing without falling into any stereotypes.
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:28.400
I also found the more confronting themes like sexual assault relevant and well-written.
00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.120
I really loved the setting of the novel as well.
00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:42.960
While the 2000 time period isn't relatable to me, I thought it was a clever technique to get around the use of phones, which furthered the isolation and therefore frightening nature of many situations.
00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:51.360
Also, just the landscape of it being in this old mining town in Australia and this slightly dodgy camp was relatable to me.
00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:58.639
I felt like many high schoolers could understand the experience of going to a camp that is run down and faintly terrifying.
00:02:58.639 --> 00:03:05.599
One of the most memorable scenes for me was when Priya was returning from her boyfriend's cabin and Smiling Jack appears.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:09.360
Like the rest of the novel, it didn't actually feel like I was reading a book.
00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:14.879
I wasn't conscious of getting to the end of a sentence, turning pages, or finding out another plot point.
00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:18.000
Instead, I could see and hear everything they could.
00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.479
Nothing felt overexplained, yet at the same time the setting was vivid to me.
00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:23.919
The fear felt real.
00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:30.560
In many ways, this book, particularly this moment, was an equivalent level of suspense and immersion to a horror movie.
00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:35.280
In this scene, I was running with prayer and genuinely terrified for my life.
00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:40.240
Now we're joined by Margot McGovern, author of This Stays Between Us.
00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:45.199
Firstly, I wanted to ask if my thoughts on your novel were what you intended.
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:52.479
Oh thank you so much for having me and for I think giving such a beautiful insight into the book.
00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.360
I need to take you on tour with me.
00:03:55.360 --> 00:04:04.560
Yeah, I think I'm so pleased that the four characters and their voices sort of came through as distinct and strong.
00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:10.000
You know, obviously it's a horror novel, but I wanted to make sure that within that it was very character-led.
00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.159
And this was my first time writing a multi-perspective novel.
00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:24.240
So that was definitely one of the big challenges was making sure that each character had her own things going on and that those characters remained very distinct.
00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:28.879
And I'm also really thrilled that it, you know, it read kind of like watching a horror movie.
00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:30.959
That was definitely something that I was going for.
00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:34.079
You know, films were such a big inspiration for the book.
00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:38.639
So I'm really glad you got that sense of like watching a teen horror movie from it.
00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:39.839
Definitely.
00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:44.639
As I mentioned, I found this book an awesome presentation of horror.
00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:49.680
But this genre choice is very different from your first YA novel, Neverland.
00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:53.040
Why did you decide on horror apart from movies?
00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:56.079
And how are you able to create this story so effectively?
00:04:56.560 --> 00:05:06.560
Well, I think I've always been a really big fan of horror and but a bit nervous to, you know, to try writing it because I sort of wasn't sure if I could pull it off, really.
00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:11.519
But I think I really enjoyed writing the darker elements of Neverland.
00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:25.120
And so when I was looking for my next project, it was during the pandemic, and I think I was drawn to reading a lot of horror, and I could sort of see that there was a bit of a gap in that there wasn't a lot of Australian young adult horror out there.
00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:28.639
So I was like, I feel like there's a gap here and that I could fill that.
00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:44.399
And then I was just drawing on my love of the genre and particularly going back to the 90s teen slashes that I loved growing up and wanting to kind of embrace that, but then also sort of bring it into the 21st century a little bit and create a story that spoke to teenagers today.
00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:47.279
Yeah, I think that does it very effectively.
00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:51.360
It is so immersive and it does feel very relevant.
00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:55.360
The characters were obviously part of that, they're all very real.
00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:00.720
And as you mentioned, it's the first time, your first time doing that, which is I find very impressive.
00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:01.839
It's done so well.
00:06:01.839 --> 00:06:08.560
How challenging was it to develop all those different characters and create the distinctions and their different voices as well?
00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:10.399
Yeah, it was a big challenge.
00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:16.560
And when I first outlined this book to my agent, she's like, This is going to be the big thing that's tricky with this book.
00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:20.160
So I kind of knew going in that that was something I needed to focus on.
00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:31.120
So with each girl, I kind of thought about what are the challenges that she is going to have to overcome in this story, so that each girl had like specific things that they would need to work through.
00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:38.319
But then I also thought a lot about the relationships that each girl had with the other girls and the other characters beyond that as well.
00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:42.720
So before I started doing anything, I really sat down and plotted those out.
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.600
And that kind of became the backbone of the story.
00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:51.759
So I had, yeah, this very clear idea of who these four people were and what all their challenges were going to be.
00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:54.800
And then I had to sort of build the story around helping them through that.
00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:55.360
Cool.
00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:59.759
So I guess the bigger plot line around like smiling jack and stuff all came after the characters.
00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:08.560
Yeah, I guess they were kind of it's so, you know, when you talk about the writing process, it's like it's never quite as clear-cut as you know, you'd like it to be.
00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:16.399
So I think I knew I wanted to write this kind of slasher, and but then I wanted to make sure that it was very character-driven, which slashes sometimes aren't.
00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:18.560
So that felt like a big challenge as well.
00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:28.160
I kind of in my head, because the book is set in the year 2000, in my brain, I was like, I want this to feel like a scream movie, but also a Dawson's Creek episode.
00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:39.040
So I was like, how do I bring all of the kind of the drama and the depth, but then also have the kind of the fun and the, you know, running around chase scenes in the dark and things like that.
00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:51.199
So yeah, there was kind of that trying to marry those things and trying to make sure that the challenges that the girls were facing were kind of being, I guess, symbolically represented through the horror in the story as well.
00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:52.800
Yeah, I definitely got that.
00:07:52.800 --> 00:08:03.040
And I feel like that also comes through with all the themes that are in the novel, with how they appear from the friendship groups, the sexual orientation, consent, and the self-defense.
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:06.000
So, what inspired those choices specifically?
00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:12.480
Yeah, I think coming to horror, because I've loved it for so long, I was like, what kind of horror am I going to explore here?
00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:17.600
And I really wanted to write about the horror of being a teenage girl, I guess.
00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:20.800
And, you know, the you know, the different aspects of that.
00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:33.440
And also sort of looking at, because the book is set, you know, a quarter of a century ago, and sort of looking at what kind of challenges teenagers faced in the past and how has that changed and how has it not changed now?
00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:40.799
And also, I like I grew up reading Carrie by Stephen King, you know, which is about a teenage girl who's got a whole lot of things going on.
00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:48.879
Um, and it's kind of, you know, that sort of remains, you know, over 50 years later, the kind of gold standard of like teenage girl horror.
00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:57.679
But Stephen King has talked about how difficult it was to create that character and how he found it really hard to relate to her and how he, you know, had to get his wife to help him and stuff.
00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:00.080
And I was like, I love Stephen King, I love that book.
00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:11.679
But I was like, as a girl, I think I can probably address some of these things and talk about things that sort of concerned me when I was a teenager and that I think are still relevant for teenagers today.
00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:14.159
So yeah, that was kind of where I started.
00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:18.399
I was like, what is the horror of being a teenage girl and how can I explore that?
00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:19.919
No, I love that.
00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:23.279
In exploring those, particularly the confronting themes.
00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:27.200
Did you have concerns about if that would narrow your audience?
00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:31.840
As you mentioned, Neverland, your prior novel, had those serious themes as well.
00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:33.759
So, how was the audience for that book?
00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:34.720
And yeah.
00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:44.720
Yeah, look, it's, I mean, when you're writing mature content, I'm always very conscious of how I'm framing that for younger readers.
00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:51.120
But I do really think that anything teenagers experience has a place in the stories that we are telling for them.
00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:55.200
And I think, you know, I'm not trying to appeal to everybody with my books.
00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:00.720
You know, they are books for readers who are looking for something that is a little bit darker and a little bit more mature.
00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:03.759
And I do think the books should be challenging for readers as well.
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:07.360
You know, they should take us that little bit further than we've maybe gone before.
00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:15.759
But yeah, I guess it is always about how am I contextualizing this and keeping in mind that it is for teenagers and trying to make it appropriate for them.
00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:30.000
But I have found we put a content warning on this book, and I was sort of like, I don't know how it's going to be received, but the response has been fantastic and the audience I think has actually been a lot broader than I thought, which has been wonderful.
00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:31.360
So yeah.
00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:32.879
Awesome.
00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:46.639
Going back to the book and the writing of the plot, you mentioned that setting it in Australia was important to bring sort of those influences to a context that was relevant to Australia now.
00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:50.879
But is there other ways the setting was important that camp?
00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.440
And what was the goal for the reader in that way?
00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:55.120
Oh, that's a good question.
00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:56.480
Um, I think so.
00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:08.879
The book is set in the fictional ghost town of Bayton, but it's inspired by a real ghost town called Inniston, uh, which is on Naranga Country or the York Peninsula, which is where I went on a school camp when I was in year nine.
00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:10.720
Um, and it was terrifying.
00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:13.120
It was exactly as it is in the book, pretty much.
00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:24.000
So, you know, we were kind of taken, it was all girls, and we were taken to this town, put into these old mining cottages that have been like not really done up, they were pretty rustic.
00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:33.919
And our teachers were staying in another hut that was like a kilometer away, and we had these two knights just out in the bush, sort of semi-fending for ourselves.
00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:35.759
And it was, it was terrifying.
00:11:35.759 --> 00:11:38.320
And I, you know, it made such an impression on me.
00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:43.039
I thought at some point I would love to write a story that sort of explored this.
00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:52.240
And, you know, I think because it was a long time ago when I came to write the book, I'm like, surely it wasn't kind of as as you know, bad as I remembered.
00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:57.360
And I went down to the town to do some research, and it was exactly as I remembered it.
00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:02.159
It was, it's so remote and it's such a strange, eerie place, but also a very beautiful place.
00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:06.480
The York Peninsula is stunning, it's it's very wild and rugged.
00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:08.720
And not a lot of people have been there.
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:14.879
Like, even it's in South Australia, and even within South Australia, there's just not a lot of people that have heard of this place.
00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:18.879
And I was like, oh, it's such a shame that there aren't that many stories set here.
00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:22.159
It's it feels like this incredible place to explore in a story.
00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:24.159
So I really wanted to bring that in.
00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:32.320
And for me as well, I think so much of the horror that I read growing up, and even the horror I read now is set overseas.
00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:35.039
It comes from the US or the UK a lot of the time.
00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:48.240
Um, and certainly I think for authors in Australia, there is increasing pressure to set your stories overseas because then they will, you know, you'll sell international rights and you can make a bit more of a living from writing.
00:12:48.240 --> 00:13:00.639
But for me, it's I think it's really important that we have stories for young people that are set in, you know, a familiar environment and with characters that could be characters that they're going to school with and that we have that familiarity.
00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:02.480
Yeah, it was definitely familiar.
00:13:02.480 --> 00:13:04.720
Year nine camps are horrifying.
00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:21.759
And also with that setting and the descriptions in the book, I mentioned it before how it didn't feel like it was oversharing at any point or like over-describing, but it all felt like I could visualize the cabin exactly and I like knew the layer and I knew everything.
00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:25.759
I just wanted to know how you managed that, how you did that.
00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:32.320
Yeah, well, so I did do this research trip where I went and spent two nights by myself in this town to just see what it was like.
00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:36.480
And I made myself, you know, walk around in the dark and like took lots of video and photos.
00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:38.720
So I had sort of lots to draw on.
00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:45.200
And then I also the lodge where the four girls are staying is not really based on any one particular lodge in that town.
00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:49.279
I made it up and I used some like floor plan software to like draw it up.
00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:54.080
So I had a big map on my wall so I could sort of map where everything was and where everyone was.
00:13:54.080 --> 00:14:10.000
Yeah, so it was it was a lot of research and having maps of the town up on my wall and sort of looking at, you know, what plants there were around, what animals there were around, what does the wind sound like down there, like you know, if someone screams, how far away can they hear it?
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:11.440
You know, those sorts of things.
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:14.879
So there was a lot of really practical research, which was so much fun to do.
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:16.720
So that's awesome.
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:25.600
And you mentioned, just for a final question, you mentioned that you were inspired by horror films from that time, but were there other influences for this novel?
00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:31.759
I did notice at the start the quote from Frankenstein and obviously naming character Shelley, but yeah, is there any other influences?
00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:42.320
Yeah, I think, you know, I love horror movies and 90s slasher movies are my favourites, but I read very broadly within the horror genre and sort of more generally.
00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:48.559
So I was I was also looking back towards, you know, from right from Frankenstein through to where we are now.
00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:50.559
I'm very inspired by the Gothic.
00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:56.240
Um, the town, as I said, it's called Bayton, which was named after Barbara Bayton, the Australian Gothic writer.
00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:03.919
And I think there's, you know, there's a lot of kind of horror references sprinkled throughout the book, which are there for readers who might pick up on those.
00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:10.960
So it really, it's a love letter to 90 slashes, but also just to the horror genre, which was so important for me as a teenager.
00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:14.799
I think like it felt like this place that I could go to and kind of figure things out.
00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:19.840
So it felt very special to start writing into that genre and contributing to it.
00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:20.799
Thank you.
00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:25.360
Before we finish, I wanted to share why someone should read this book in one sentence.
00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:33.600
This Days Between Us is a thrilling horror that is suspenseful and frightening throughout while presenting genuine, relatable characters.
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.759
It's simply a must-read.
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:40.720
A big thank you to Margot for joining us today, and thank you for listening to the CBCA Shadow Judging Podcast.