{"id":25773,"date":"2012-07-07T11:28:12","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T01:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=25773"},"modified":"2016-03-01T09:48:27","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T23:48:27","slug":"helene-young-author-of-burning-lies-answers-ten-terrifying-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2012\/07\/07\/helene-young-author-of-burning-lies-answers-ten-terrifying-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Helene Young, author of Burning Lies, answers Ten Terrifying Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Booktopia Book Guru <\/strong>asks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Helene Young <\/strong><\/h1>\n

author of Burning Lies<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, Wings of Fear<\/a><\/em> and\u00a0 Shattered Sky<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ten Terrifying Questions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

———————————<\/p>\n

1. To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in Vancouver, Canada, after my travel-loving parents headed there for an adventurous honeymoon and stayed for six years. Once my older siblings reached school age Mum and Dad hauled us all back to suburban Brisbane.<\/p>\n

When we weren\u2019t trekking south to Currumbin Beach for the weekends and school holidays, we lived in the house where my father was born, under the looming shadow of the Gabba Cricket Ground.<\/p>\n

I had an eclectic education. I attended a small Catholic primary school where many of my classmates didn\u2019t speak English as their first language. It gave me an early appreciation of the wonderful ethnic diversity emerging in Australia with the influx of immigrants from Europe in the \u201850s and \u201860s.\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I completed my secondary education at Somerville House, a lovely genteel girl\u2019s school run by the Uniting Church. I was fortunate to have fantastic English and History teachers who encouraged my imagination and inspired me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. What did you want to be when you were 12, 18 and 30? And why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At 12, I was destined to take the surfing world by storm.<\/p>\n

At 18, as an environmental scientist in the making, I was going to single-handedly save the Gold Coast beaches from erosion, save the Great Barrier Reef from the Crown of Thorn starfish, and invent cheap solar panels so everyone could have energy from the sun.<\/p>\n

At 30, I wanted to write full time, but with bills to pay I continued working as an airline pilot and dared to dream.<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. What strongly held belief did you have at 18 that you do not have now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At 18 I believed truth would always prevail\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

4. What were three works of art \u2013 book or painting or piece of music, etc \u2013 you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love writing to the sound track of The Mission<\/em> – the haunting opening bars sink me straight into my imagination.<\/p>\n

At age 15 Hungry as the Sea<\/em><\/a>, by Wilbur Smith, was a revelation. It was the first story I\u2019d read with a feisty heroine capable of anything and I loved it.<\/p>\n

The painting Valley Ghost Gums<\/em> by Albert Namatjira showed me how a great love of landscape could be shared with others.<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a novel?\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

I wish I had innumerable artistic avenues, but my paintings weren\u2019t good enough to even make it to the fridge door!<\/p>\n

Storying-telling started with my Dad who was a marine engineer working on oil tankers. He wrote stories when he was away from home and posted them back to Mum who in turn read them to us.<\/p>\n

For many years I didn\u2019t realise this was unusual. Didn\u2019t everyone make stuff up? It seemed inevitable that one day I\u2019d write novels.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>6. Please tell us about your latest novel\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lies, half-truths and deceit. Burning Lies<\/em> is a story of lost identity and the healing power of love.<\/p>\n

Kaitlyn Scott is hiding from her past. She\u2019s changed her name, and that of her son, to escape the taint of being married to an arsonist. She\u2019s rebuilt her life far away from danger, but when fire breaks out on the Atherton Tableland her lies start to unravel.<\/p>\n

Ryan O\u2019Donnell\u2019s been working as an undercover cop for so long he\u2019s lost sight of who he really is. He doesn\u2019t like the man he\u2019s become, but he\u2019s too damaged find a way to turn his life around.<\/p>\n

The two of them will come face to face with a vicious criminal who\u2019ll stop at nothing to keep his real identity secret. To stop him Kait and Ryan will have to navigate their way through the maze of deceit and accept that lies may be justifiable when you\u2019re fighting to save those you love.<\/p>\n

Click here to buy<\/strong> Burning Lies<\/em> from Booktopia,
\nAustralia’s No. 1 Online Book Shop<\/a><\/p>\n

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope I\u2019ve transported my readers out of their ordinary world to a place they may never have visited. I hope the amazing Northern Australian landscape resonates \u2013 I love it so much I feel the need to share! \u00a0But at the heart of my writing is the hope that I entertain readers and leave them with a sense of optimism, a feeling that anything is possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

8. Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Markus Zusak – because The Book Thief<\/em> <\/a>is so beautifully written.<\/p>\n

Nora Roberts<\/a> – because she\u2019s a disciplined writer who crosses genres and consistently delivers a good read.<\/p>\n

Geraldine Brooks<\/a>\u00a0 – for the wonderful characters she crafts.\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Goal setting is something deeply ingrained in me. I\u2019m managing to write a book a year as well as fly full time and I aim to keep doing that for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, I\u2019d love to still be connecting with readers in 30 years\u2019 time. Everything else will be a bonus!<\/strong><\/p>\n

10. What advice do you give aspiring writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Write, write, write and never abandon your dream. My favourite saying when I\u2019m delivering writing workshops is my take on an old one.<\/p>\n

\u2018Rules are for fools and the guidance of wise men. Be wise, be guided, be true to your voice.\u2019<\/p>\n

Helene, thank you for playing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks for inviting me \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Booktopia Book Guru asks Helene Young author of Burning Lies, Wings of Fear and\u00a0 Shattered Sky Ten Terrifying Questions ——————————— 1. To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?\u00a0 I was born in Vancouver, Canada, after my travel-loving parents headed there for an adventurous honeymoon and stayed for six years. Once my older siblings reached school age Mum and Dad hauled us all back to suburban Brisbane. When we weren\u2019t trekking south to Currumbin Beach for the weekends and school holidays, we lived in the house where my father was born, under the looming shadow of the Gabba Cricket Ground. I had an eclectic education. I attended a small Catholic primary school where many of my classmates didn\u2019t speak English as their first language. It gave me an early appreciation of the wonderful ethnic diversity emerging in Australia with the influx of immigrants from Europe in the \u201850s and \u201860s. I completed my secondary education at Somerville House, a lovely genteel girl\u2019s school run by the Uniting Church. I was fortunate to have fantastic English and History teachers who encouraged my imagination and inspired me. 2. What…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4,62,84],"tags":[993,1106,2395,4814,5184,6570],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57193,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25773\/revisions\/57193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}