Charlotte McConaghy, MIGRATIONS
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[0:53]The sponsor for this whole Labor Day Book last week is FirstBook.org. Obviously, the pandemic is crippling education for millions of students, especially those in low-income communities.
[1:04]The widening digital divide and extended quote unquote summer slide due to COVID is devastating.
[1:10]Apparently, 40% lack access to reliable internet and functioning digital devices they can use for online learning, making the need for physical
[1:18]books and resources to prevent further educational backsliding absolutely critical. FirstBook breaks down the barriers to education for children living in low-income communities by providing its network of more than 475,000 educators serving children in need with free and affordable new high-quality books, educational resources, and basic needs items through the award-winning first-book marketplace non-profit e-commerce site.
[1:44]They need your support to ensure these children have what they need to learn during this critical time.
[1:49]Visit FirstBook.org to help Charlotte McConaughey is an Australian author living in Sydney.
[1:55]She has a master's degree in screenwriting from the Australian Film Television and Radio School
[2:00]and eight books published in Australia. Her forthcoming novel migrations is her first foray into adult literary fiction published in North America by flat iron books,
[2:09]and is the last migration in the UK and Australia, and many more countries around the world.
[2:14]Fueled by her love of nature and her interest in stories of fierce women,
[2:18]McConaughey is currently working on a new novel about the biologist charged with using wolves to rewild the landscape and bring a forest back to life.
[2:26]Welcome, Charlotte. Thank you so much for coming on momstone. Have time to read books.
[2:30]Thank you very much for having me. It's lovely. Your novel migrations. Oh my gosh, so good.
[2:37]Lots of questions. But first, please tell everybody what migrations is about and then also what
[2:43]inspired you to write this as your debut novel. Okay, so migrations is the story of a woman who
[2:52]decides to follow the migration of the last book of Arctic turns on their journey from the Arctic to
[2:58]the Antarctic. And this is probably going to be their last migration because the book is set in
[3:06]the very near future during the peak of the extinction crisis when most of the animals have
[3:12]either gone extinct or they headed that way quickly. And it's kind of the story of Franny's life
[3:18]and all the moments that lead her up to taking on this journey. And I guess in terms of
[3:24]inspiration or where it came from, it's a hard one to pin down because it didn't really come in
[3:30]any kind of formed pieces. It came in a lot of different fragments. I knew that I sort of
[3:35]wanted to, I guess, engage with my kind of concern around the climate crisis. But I didn't really
[3:42]know how to do that. So I first I went traveling and I went exploring Ireland, which is where my
[3:49]ancestors were from. And I went to Iceland, which is the most beautiful place. And I still
[3:54]love with the gray lag geese. And that kind of got me thinking about migratory birds and the
[3:59]incredible journeys that they take and the type of people that study these birds. So I think that's
[4:05]how Franny, the ornithologist kind of came, came into my mind and I was imagining, you know,
[4:10]how amazing it would be to it if we could actually go on this journey with the birds. And then,
[4:16]you know, as I got to understand Franny, I started to realize what kind of world I needed to place
[4:21]her in to really be able to tell her story with impact. And also, I guess, kind of safely engaged
[4:28]with my own fear around the climate crisis. And so that's how the environmental side of this book
[4:33]got slowly drawn in. That was sort of to support her. Well, I feel like so much press. And by the
[4:39]way, you've gotten already just such amazing press about this book. It's just fantastic. Everybody
[4:44]so excited. They're reded. And it's just, you know, already such a hit. So I hope that is making
[4:49]you feel good. But I know that a lot of it is focusing on the environmental piece, which of course
[4:55]is a huge part of this novel and differentiates it from so many others. But I feel like not enough
[5:01]has been said about the character in the relationship, like the mother daughter drama and her,
[5:08]you know, abandonment issues and dealing with her parents and her grandmother and, you know, how
[5:14]that affects her relationship later in life and, you know, remorse and trauma. I mean, there's so
[5:20]much here. And the migration, you know, that's part of it, of course. But it's almost her migration,
[5:27]her own migration through her own life that is so spectacular in this book. Yeah, that's,
[5:33]that's right. Well, I mean, as I said, Franny was the one who came first for me. And she,
[5:39]it is a story of family more than anything. And that's kind of the touchstone that I always came
[5:44]back to when I was writing it. She's kind of this real lost soul. She's a wanderer who sort of
[5:51]kind of moves from place to place through her life. And, you know, I think she's searching for
[5:59]home and family and the place to belong. But it's probably something that's part of her
[6:05]contradictory nature that it's hard for her to have those things because she does have this
[6:10]instinctive drive to be moving and to be leaving. And we see that really manifested
[6:16]in her kind of passionate, but troubled relationship with her husband. I think, I think she,
[6:22]because she didn't grow up with a family, she found one instead in the natural world.
[6:27]So that sort of makes her keenly aware of its loss. But yeah, for me, it is a relationship story
[6:32]more than anything. I wouldn't know what to think my teeth into if I wasn't writing about relationships.
[6:39]There was a lot of dunking into cold water. I feel like I needed a blanket after I finished this book
[6:45]in part. For all the time, the poor Franny was, you know, underwarred and all the rest.
[6:51]She loves it. She loves it. I know. She's like a, you know, she's like a fish of some kind.
[6:57]It's your mind when others can't. But I'm like, oh, my gosh, she's back in the water.
[7:00]How is she doing? They're telling me a little about the sleepwalking and the sleep torturing essentially.
[7:05]Like, where did that feast come from? Franny has this sort of darker side where she has these
[7:10]habits that are very, you know, not only self-destructive, but externally destructive.
[7:15]And then, you know, she takes it out, you know, it comes out on herself a lot as well.
[7:20]Tell me a little bit about how sleepwalking sort of fit into that. And what made you choose that
[7:24]as a device to sort of harness her anger in a way? Yeah. Well, I suppose the idea was that
[7:33]she's such a
[7:36]migratory person, even when she's awake, that even this kind of drive to always be moving
[7:44]was afflicting her while she slept. And so that idea that she couldn't kind of control her wandering
[7:50]feet. And this became a really difficult kind of burden for her because it also meant that
[7:57]she wasn't just kind of hurting her husband emotionally by sort of going off and leaving him.
[8:04]But she was sort of threatening him physically because of her she lashes out as she sleeps and
[8:10]she kind of enacts this sort of lifelong trauma that she's had around being abandoned and
[8:17]you know, things that I don't want to give away because they're part of the sort of
[8:21]secrets and plot that she means to reveal to the readers. But yeah, there's a lot of stuff that
[8:26]she's kind of buried down really deep. And I think the sleepwalking and sleep kind of
[8:32]acting out in a way of that just manifesting really. And I think that that's sort of something
[8:39]that happens when we don't. Potentially when we don't deal with our trauma and
[8:45]finally, certainly someone that doesn't deal with things, she kind of runs and tries to outrun them.
[8:51]So I think, yeah, there's a point where you can't get away from it any longer.
[8:57]And tell me a little about all these dueling timelines that you interweave so seemingly
[9:02]effortlessly and different places and different times and backwards and forwards like the way you
[9:08]just played with time was really amazing. Tell me about the writing of that and how you kept track
[9:13]and structure and everything. Yeah. Well, okay. So the stories told you, as you said, the two
[9:18]timelines, the front and the back story, one set in the present day with the the shit journey
[9:24]and the other timeline and goes back and looks at the big moments of Franny's life. And I
[9:30]actually wrote the book as you read it. I didn't kind of separate out the two timelines because I
[9:38]it felt important to write it as you read it just to keep a sense of the pacing and the rhythm
[9:43]of it all so that I could, yeah, be feeling how it would be read. And I chose the non-linear
[9:49]structure, I guess, for a couple of reasons. The first one's really simple. I just get
[9:53]bored easily when I'm writing. So that's one of the writing and the title from a single first
[10:00]in a linear structure just wasn't maybe challenging enough for me,
[10:04]or maybe it was too challenging.
[10:06]It's a more natural space for me to move around a bit in time.
[10:09]I think it allows you to experience those major moments
[10:12]in Tranny's life in a really intimate way with her.
[10:15]And just instead of getting told about them in dialogue,
[10:19]you can kind of feel them because you're inside them.
[10:21]It's a great way to build tension as well.
[10:24]You can establish a kind of clear transformation
[10:27]between her past and present.
[10:29]She used to be like that.
[10:31]Now she's like this, I wonder what happened to change her
[10:34]in the middle, kind of seed in little clues.
[10:37]And then you can build to these really climactic reveals
[10:40]of information.
[10:41]And that's kind of ultimately to create catharsis for the reader.
[10:45]And the only thing I would say is about doing that
[10:47]is you just kind of have to keep the linked by a scene
[10:51]if they sort of reflect each other and explore the same thing
[10:54]and then you can do as many timelines
[10:57]and as many characters as you want, I think.
[10:59]Well, it takes a lot of skill to pull it off really well.
[11:03]And so I have stuff to you on that.
[11:06]But how did you even start writing?
[11:08]Like when did you always know you wanted to write?
[11:10]Like did you always want to write a novel?
[11:13]Like how did we get to this point where I'm holding your book
[11:15]in my hands?
[11:16]Yeah.
[11:17]Well, I actually started writing when I was 14.
[11:19]I started books.
[11:20]That was my first novel.
[11:22]And I always knew that I wanted to be a writer.
[11:25]I was a huge, huge reader and lover of stories.
[11:29]And I went out and was 14 at the time.
[11:31]I read a little fantasy and science fiction.
[11:34]So that's what I wrote.
[11:35]And I was very lucky that that book got picked up
[11:39]by a publisher in Australia.
[11:41]And so that kind of started me on this journey of publishing.
[11:44]And I did several series for YA readers.
[11:48]And they're sort of fantasy and sci-fi epics.
[11:51]And then I kind of reached, I think I was about 25
[11:54]when I decided I needed to learn more about storycraft.
[11:58]So I did two degrees in screenwriting at the film
[12:01]school here, which sounds a bit of an odd choice,
[12:04]but it was actually excellent in terms of teaching me
[12:07]about structure and character transformations and theme
[12:12]and kind of all that really juicy storycraft stuff.
[12:16]And then after I graduated, that's sort of when I went
[12:19]traveling.
[12:21]And I decided I wanted to challenge myself
[12:23]to write something really different, which
[12:25]is how I came to migrations.
[12:28]And it was certainly the hardest thing I've ever done,
[12:32]the most difficult, difficult project.
[12:35]And there were definitely moments
[12:37]where I thought I had never finished it.
[12:39]And I didn't know what it was about.
[12:41]But it was probably, I think it was the training
[12:46]that you get when you write every day for a decade
[12:49]that kind of prepares you and teaches you
[12:51]the discipline you need to be able to understand that there's
[12:55]ebbs and flows and highs and lows while you write.
[12:59]And you've just got to kind of write it out
[13:01]and really stick with something and finish it.
[13:05]Yeah.
[13:05]And I got, I guess I got that practice because I spent most
[13:09]of my school writing instead of doing homework
[13:12]or studying.
[13:13]That's what I'm going to do.
[13:16]And over my head start.
[13:18]So funny to think that writing is really
[13:20]like cheating on school when the whole point of school
[13:22]is to educate people who can be brilliant enough to write.
[13:25]And so it wasn't like that.
[13:28]And then I sort of made a decision early on
[13:30]when I got out of school that I didn't want to go straight
[13:33]to uni, which was a bit of a surprise, I guess,
[13:36]for most people.
[13:37]I just wanted to focus on writing.
[13:41]Yeah, I don't know.
[13:43]What about in your own life?
[13:44]So I know in migration, there's a lot of really difficult
[13:49]family stuff.
[13:50]And I won't go into it.
[13:51]But there's just a lot of stuff that's
[13:53]happened to Branny and her family and all the rest.
[13:57]And I was just wondering if any of it
[13:59]came from any sort of personal space
[14:02]if there had been some sort of trauma in your life
[14:04]or some mental illness, even perhaps in your family
[14:09]or something like it on being very personal.
[14:11]And you can totally ignore this question.
[14:13]But I was just wondering if there was something
[14:15]on a personal level that inspired any of this.
[14:18]Wow, that's a really interesting question.
[14:21]I guess it's the idea of how much of me is in Branny.
[14:24]Well, look, I've been very fortunate in my life
[14:27]that I haven't gone through the same losses and grief
[14:30]that she has.
[14:31]She's kind of had this really difficult life.
[14:33]And my life's been great, really, in the process.
[14:39]I've had a really loving family.
[14:41]I mean, there were difficulties.
[14:43]My parents split up when I was young.
[14:45]And I had a single mom.
[14:48]And she moved around a lot.
[14:50]And so we worked out by the time I was 21,
[14:55]I'd lived in 21 different houses.
[14:57]Oh, my god.
[15:00]So and that was by no means traumatic at all.
[15:03]It was just a different experience, I guess.
[15:07]And I suppose that it sort of made me a little unsure
[15:11]about where I belonged and where my home is.
[15:13]And I guess that's one of the reasons
[15:16]that that sort of infused Franny's character.
[15:20]She's this wandering searcher.
[15:23]But apart from, yeah, look, she's a lot of,
[15:26]she's made up a lot of a lot of things
[15:28]that I wish I was more of and a lot of things
[15:30]that I'm really glad that I'm not.
[15:33]And a lot of her damage is, I guess,
[15:38]instead of it being a way for me to explore my own personal trauma,
[15:43]it's more of a way to explore a larger grief
[15:47]about what's happening to the planet.
[15:49]And that sounds strange, but it's kind of like,
[15:53]I had this real concern and fear for the wildness
[16:00]that we're losing and a longing to have wildness in my life.
[16:04]And so I didn't quite know how to explore that.
[16:07]And so I sort of brought it to bear
[16:09]in the internal sort of pain of a person
[16:12]and hoped that that would be how we could access
[16:15]that feeling to make it more intimate and personal,
[16:19]if that makes sense.
[16:20]It does, it totally makes sense.
[16:22]And I can see that reflected in this story.
[16:24]You had one line where you said,
[16:26]the rhythm of the seas tides
[16:27]are the only things we humans have not yet destroyed.
[16:31]And I feel like that sets the tone for the whole thing
[16:33]that you can see sort of the sea going in and out
[16:37]and yet all the things around it sort of in fast forward,
[16:40]sort of shape shifting quickly and not in good places.
[16:45]I know this is like such a passion of yours.
[16:47]Like how do you approach this aside
[16:50]from obviously raising so much awareness
[16:52]with this book, for instance?
[16:54]But like how do you not like how do you sleep at night?
[16:57]But like what do you do to change it?
[16:59]What can we do to change it?
[17:00]Like what's your fault?
[17:02]Like what's your strategy and plan?
[17:04]And I don't know, what do you think?
[17:06]Or what activism or education or all the rest?
[17:09]Yeah, well, I mean, education comes first obviously
[17:12]and starting the conversation.
[17:14]We want people to be aware of what's happening.
[17:16]And so I guess that's one reason I wanted to write about this
[17:21]just to try and give voice to some of what's happening
[17:27]and my concerns around it.
[17:29]I guess in terms of the way I live,
[17:32]I try to do as many small things as I can
[17:35]because they all add up, you know,
[17:37]if we're all doing the small things,
[17:39]they add up to major change.
[17:41]And when I say small things, I am talking about,
[17:43]I don't eat meat.
[17:45]And I know that that's hard for a lot of,
[17:47]that's not something that everyone will be able to do.
[17:49]But if you can reduce your meat eating, that's amazing.
[17:53]Things like composting, one of the other means,
[17:56]switch your energy to a renewable energy provider.
[17:59]Ride your bike instead of driving your car
[18:01]if you can or walk.
[18:03]Lots of those kind of smaller things.
[18:05]Think about what the products that you're buying
[18:07]and whether you can recycle them,
[18:09]try to reduce the waste so things aren't just going into landfill.
[18:13]But you know, the biggest thing that we can actually do
[18:16]is contact our politicians
[18:18]because the change has to come from above.
[18:21]Unfortunately, you know, we can do a lot of smaller things
[18:23]and they do work.
[18:25]But we really, really need to change the systems
[18:29]that are in place because they're not supporting the planet.
[18:33]They're actually doing incredible damage.
[18:37]You know, my daughter, she's 13,
[18:39]but from the time she was born,
[18:40]she's like an obsessed with polar bears.
[18:42]So I know, so like who knew that over her even lifetime
[18:47]that the risk the polar bears would have escalated
[18:51]as much as it is.
[18:52]And so she's become this big advocate against,
[18:54]preventing climate change and, you know, all of this stuff.
[18:57]So I'm sort of intimately aware
[18:59]and I need to have it brought to the forefront by a child
[19:01]instead of necessarily by me.
[19:03]But yes, I do feel that this next generation is so aware already.
[19:08]Not that I wasn't growing up.
[19:09]I mean, I feel like there was Greenpeace and all this stuff.
[19:11]It's not like I wasn't aware, but I don't know.
[19:13]I think there's a new found sort of dedication
[19:16]to preventing their globe from, you know,
[19:20]losing all these species and everything.
[19:22]So yeah, and it's wonderful.
[19:24]You know, to hear that your dawn is kind of really
[19:27]aware of all this stuff.
[19:29]And yeah, like we are, we are in good hands
[19:32]with them with the next generation, I think.
[19:34]But that doesn't mean that we can kind of rest in our laurels.
[19:38]We've got to start slowing this down now
[19:40]because, you know, by the time it gets to them,
[19:42]it might be too late.
[19:43]Oh my gosh, do not wait for my daughter.
[19:46]Exactly.
[19:47]We do not, certainly do not wait for her.
[19:51]The little, in fact, I mean, I'm kidding.
[19:53]Yeah, we can't, the fate of our country
[19:55]is certainly going to rest on her.
[19:56]That's for sure.
[19:57]But no, no, no, no, no, she might wind up.
[20:00]being the first female president. She might, you know, you never know. You never know.
[20:06]So tell me what you're working on next. I feel like you sold another book. Am I right about that?
[20:11]You are right. Yeah. So the next book's coming out this time next year. I have spent the last
[20:17]year and a half writing and editing it. It's called Creatures All, and it's the story of a wolf
[20:23]biologist who is charged with reintroducing wolves into a forest in the Scottish Highlands in order
[20:29]to kind of rewild the ecosystem. And it's a love story and a mystery and ultimately it's a
[20:36]story of the healing power of nature, which is a recurring thing for me apparently. I see that.
[20:42]It's good, you know. I mean, I feel like sometimes I talk to authors who have written like
[20:46]10 books and they're like, well, turns out it's all about my dad. You know, at least in nature,
[20:51]it's pretty clear cut. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense that people were sent to the same things,
[20:57]the ideas that kind of they love or that fascinate them, or maybe they're trying to work through
[21:02]some terrible issue of themselves. Yeah. So true. Well, what advice would you have to aspiring
[21:10]authors? Well, firstly, I would say this is a cliché, but it's really true. Right from your heart
[21:18]right about something that you really, really care about. That's something that matters to you
[21:23]because you have to sustain interest in this thing for a long time. You've got to sustain your
[21:30]passion. It's so easy to kind of just start something on a whim and realize halfway through
[21:36]that actually you've lost interest or you don't care about it anymore. And that's kind of,
[21:40]I guess, probably the main reason that somebody people start and don't finish books. So yeah,
[21:46]true something that matters to you, true something that isn't necessarily about what the market
[21:52]wants or what you think people will enjoy because it's much more important to write about what you
[21:58]enjoy, write the book that you want to read. And that kind of comes through to readers. They can
[22:03]really feel that passion, I think. Yeah, that would definitely be my main piece of advice,
[22:09]practice heaps, you know, build the skill. You don't have to necessarily work right every day,
[22:15]but you do have to write a lot because otherwise you're not practicing a skill and it's a skill
[22:20]like any other. Yeah, I think, and that just be determined. Don't give up, don't take no
[22:25]for an answer. You know, there's a time for everything. And if you're having trouble with one book,
[22:30]then maybe it's time to start a new one. I kind of go on all day about this stuff, but yeah,
[22:36]I think that would be the main points. I think another thing you should add is always end your
[22:41]chapters with a bang because I feel like your captor endings were always like,
[22:46]you know, they were so good that you had to keep going. And I just feel like that's always
[22:52]really important in moving things along. Oh, totally. And also, especially if you're moving
[22:58]timelines, because sometimes people hate that, you really annoys them. But if you can leave them on
[23:02]a note of wanting more, then they're really happy to come back to that timeline or that scene.
[23:09]So that's a really good point. Yeah, so I'm just adding tips for you there.
[23:16]Well, Charlotte, thank you so much. Thank you for your book and for all of your advice and
[23:22]for raising awareness for such an important issue for everyone in the planet, on the planet,
[23:28]and just for taking the time to talk to me today. So thank you. Oh, thank you so much,
[23:32]Libby. It was lovely to chat. And I really appreciate you having me home. My pleasure.
[23:37]All right. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.
[23:40]Thanks so much to firstbook.org for sponsoring this Labor Day book blast. Please consider giving
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[23:53]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
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[24:13]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.