LOUISE CUSACK

AUTHOR

Where to begin? Well, I saw Aldrin walk on the moon on our grainy black and white television in 1969.

That's my first important memory, and I'm not sure if that's because I was in awe of the event, or simply because I got the day off school. But I remember it distinctly. It was the first time in my life that I thought I might like to be anything other than a writer. Although in those days there wasn't much question that a 'girl' would get to do anything exciting with her life. Not in Brisbane in the Sixties. So I went back to telling my class-mates that one day they were going to see a book with my name on the cover.

My elder brother's obsession with Science Fiction was another important factor in my development as a writer. Everything he read, I read. Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, E.E.'Doc' Smith.

My family life was suburban, middle-class. When I go home to Brisbane now, summer still smells the same way as it did when I was a kid. We had a mountain near us that we used to climb - Peg's Mountain - which is still a reserve. I went there a lot with my brothers, we'd disappear for the whole day and come back for dinner.

In my teens I forgot about writing and started 'living' instead. I hung around with my tribe, a group of six girls who still keep in touch. We partied and had opinions - I felt very passionate about politics then. In my twenties I was an activist, first in the peacemovement, and then with a big-time commitment to Animal Liberation. I protested outside rodeos with placards like "Real men don't rope baby calves", and did a lot of work towards educating people about animal experimentation. I became a vegetarian then and married.

By thirty I'd had children and I've been passionate about motherhood ever since. However, shortly after the birth of my last child I realised that the odd restlessness which had begun when my father died years earlier, wasn't going away. I went back to working part-time but that wasn't it. The problem was writing. I'd somehow forgotten that I was going to be a writer. I remembered then and I began.

For years I typed every day until I found characters who would tell me their stories, rather than me having to 'make them up'. Finally that happened and I started to get published. I don't pretend to understand the alchemy that occurs when people appear fully-formed in your mind to tell you about their lives, but I'm very grateful that it happens to me and that I'm able to share it with others. I adore the voyage of discovery that drags you along with your characters to see how a story ends. Each new day finds me in front of the computer doing what I love best, drinking heaps of coffee and creating like a mad thing.

ABOUT LOUISE'S BOOKS

SHADOW FROM TIME trilogy (with Simon & Schuster Australia) started in June 2001 with the publication of my first novel DESTINY OF THE LIGHT. Book two of the trilogy, DAUGHTER OF THE DARK was released in June 2002. Book three, GLIMMER IN THE MAELSTROM was launched in June 2003.