Memorable people and places, chance moments, and inspiring works of art find their way into the words writers produce. Authors of all stages can pinpoint things that have altered the course of their creative lives. They can often say, ‘That was where it changed for me.’
In this series, we invite authors across Australia to reflect on three turning points that have shaped them, offering us glimpses into how each writer was made.
This post comes from the imaginative, sensitive mind of Queensland-born author Angela O'Keeffe. Angela's debut novel Night Blue is a novella told predominantly from the perspective of Jackson Pollock's painting Blue Poles. It was shortlisted for the 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards. From one risk-taking narrative to another, Angela reveals 3 turning points that changed everything while she wrote Night Blue and her latest book, The Sitter (UQP, 2023).
A person
The person who changed things for me at a crucial time was Peter Bishop. Peter had been director at Varuna, the National Writers' House, for many years, and in 2019 I ran into him in a café in Katoomba. He asked me what I was writing and when I mentioned the almost completed manuscript of Night Blue he encouraged me to send it to him.
I remember feeling very nervous and shy about handing it over, but also sensing that something marvellous might occur. He got back to me a couple of hours later to say that he loved it. He also said, “This is a novella. Don’t let any publisher tell you it has to be something else.” This confirmed what I already knew but was possibly timid about admitting to myself.
Having Peter voice it made me feel that I could stand by my work. In my observation, first time authors can be so eager to please a publisher that they agree to changes that ultimately undermine a work. I think it’s because of that conversation with Peter that I’ve always ended up with publishers who recognise and appreciate my work for what it fundamentally is.
Angela won the prestigious Eleanor Dark Fellowship in 2023 to work on The Sitter.
A place
I was in the early stages of writing Night Blue, and I went to Berkelouw Books in Paddington, Sydney, looking for something to help with my research. I remember sitting alone in the dusty upstairs room with all the second hand books around me, leafing through a thick tome titled Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.
I came across a description of how Pollock had lost the tip of a finger to an axe in the backyard when he was a child. I froze. I already knew that Pollock had died on my birthday, but here was another co-incidence. As a child I’d lost the tips of three fingers in a backyard accident.
Most writers, I think, are somewhat superstitious, at least about writing.
I remember laughing and sort of trembling, and thinking, Okay, now I have to write the bloody thing. There’s no choice. Berkelouw Books will always be about that threshold moment, for me.
More proof here that authors are a superstitious lot.
A piece of art
In 2017 I was in Paris and I went to an exhibition of Cezanne’s portraits, many of which were of his wife, Hortense. She looked so sad in the portraits. The museum tiles described their unhappy marriage, and how Cezanne had once offhandedly announced to his mother and sister, “My wife only cares for Switzerland and Lemonade.” I knew then that I would write about her. I had just started Night Blue, so the book would be a way off, but it began to work in my imagination from that moment.
I once heard Kate Grenville talk about how when writing about a particular place it’s important to go and stand on your own two feet in that place. That visit to the Musee d’Orsay grounded me when writing The Sitter. Whenever I felt lost as I wrote from Hortense’s point of view, I would go back to the feeling I had that day as I stood looking at those portraits.
While writing The Sitter I intended to return to Paris, but the pandemic dragged on and prevented that. Aside from the character of Hortense, The Sitter is about a writer named Georgia, who is stuck in a hotel in Paris during the pandemic and is trying to get home to Sydney. So here I was stuck in Sydney, where my character wanted to be, and my character was stuck in Paris, where I wanted to be. It all proved quite serendipitous to the writing. I was more able to imagine how she felt.
Last year, after I finished The Sitter, I went back to Paris and visited a portrait of Hortense at the Musee d'Orsay. I felt shy as I approached her. What would she make of the fact that I’d dared to assume her voice? To my delight she stared past me as if I wasn’t there. Touché, Hortense.
Of inspiration, US-author Anne Lamott says, "One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around."
Angela O’Keeffe grew up with nine siblings on a farm in the Lockyer Valley, Queensland. She completed a Master of Arts in Writing at University of Technology Sydney, and her first novel, Night Blue, was shortlisted for the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. She was awarded the 2023 Varuna Eleanor Dark Fellowship.
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