Who’ll be Australia’s next Liane Moriarty?
Australia’s current writing queen Liane Moriarty has rubbed shoulders with Hollywood’s A-list. But there are other female authors also writing gripping novels.
What does it take to make the jump from scribbling as a side hustle, to rubbing shoulders with Hollywood’s A-list? Relatability, heart … and a little darkness, according to the experts.
Australia’s current writing queen Liane Moriarty did it by specialising in suburban fiction — mums, children, husbands — but with that all-important twist.
Moriarty’s 2014 smash hit Big Little Lies was serialised for HBO after Nicole Kidman bought the rights, airing in 2017. It’s been renewed for another season, which you can see in Australia on Foxtel this year.
Her newest book, Nine Perfect Strangers, is still No1 on the Nielsen bestseller list five months after being released.
So how to become the “next Liane” so sought after by publishers?
Take a leaf out of her book and write about relationships. Motherhood. The 9-5 grind. Your growing laundry pile. Wobbly legs and bums.
Harper Collins Australia’s head of fiction, Catherine Milne, said the publishing house has a rollicking list of reads this year by funny, fearless Australian female authors.
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“Liane Moriarty is hands-down brilliant — but there are many other fantastic authors out there, writing wonderful, funny, unputdownable novels — so if you love Liane’s books, you’ll also love Jessica Dettmann’s warm and funny How to Be Second Best, Cassie Hamer’s gripping After the Party, Nicola Moriarty’s addictive The Ex and Brandy Scott’s deliciously readable Not Bad People — all fabulous reads.”
(Yes readers, Nicola is sister of Liane and Jaclyn, also an author).
Milne told the Sunday Book Club that when she gets a killer manuscript, she feels its fabulousness in her gut.
“A kind of primitive hunter-gatherer gene that kicks in. Whenever I get a manuscript in my inbox, I generally open it on my desktop and read a few pages straightaway as a kind of a test. If the noise and the chatter of our open plan office falls away, and I find myself leaning in to the computer, totally gripped, wanting to read on, then I know I’ve got something special on my hands. It’s quite visceral — a kind of prickle comes up on the back of my neck and I find myself obsessed, unable to think about anything else until I’ve acquired it.”
“It all comes down to a great story, compellingly told, by a strong voice — a story that connects — that’s all we want.”
To that end, the authors of this year’s most hyped-about books have that connecting thread of everyday life, but in a fresh voice.
Dubai-based Australian Brandy Scott, author of the Sunday Book Club’s book of the month, Not Bad People, said the premise of her debut novel originated from a party with friends.
An extraordinary idea stemming from an ordinary event.
“The idea for Not Bad People came from a letting go ceremony I was invited to a few years
ago. A group of us wrote down the things we wanted to be free of — bad habits,
resentments, cellulite — and each tied our list to a sky lantern.
“As I watched the lanterns fly away, I thought — wow, I wonder what would happen if they hit something? And that’s where the first chapter of the book comes from.”
Sydney writer, former journalist and Kidspot regular Cassie Hamer, whose debut novel After the Party will hit shelves on February 18, said not to underestimate the power of relatability and an escape from the mundane.
Her funny, gripping read was conceived soon after the birth of her second child, who is now eight years old.
The book focuses around a child’s birthday party, and the potentially devastating effect of one mum’s actions.
“I pretty much started writing after my second child was born and I just needed something, I guess, for myself. I needed a way to use my brain,” Hamer said.
“The moment that I found it very difficult, when you’re in the baby’s room and the baby’s crying, and you’re just patting their bottom endlessly you think, life is over, this is it, I’m stuck in this room for the rest of eternity. I started writing because I found it got me out of my own head and obsessing about them and myself.”
Hamer said that reading, for her, was essential — and that she hoped her new book could be a refreshing departure from the everyday.
Both Hamer and Scott say Liana Moriarty is one of their favourite authors, among blockbusting Aussie female writers like Jane Harper, Emma Viskic and Holly Throsby.
Another genre that continues to delight readers, Milne said, is historical fiction, and the emerging “up-lit”.
“They’re certainly not about saccharine sweetness — in fact, they often delve into dark areas and difficult issues, but at their heart, they offer hope — they’re uplifting. Think Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, and Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton.”
University of Queensland Press publisher Aviva Tuffield, co-founder of the Stella Prize for women’s writing, says it’s all about “engaging and delighting readers with an escape from the daily grind.”
The independent publishing house will release The Aunts’ House by Elizabeth Stead in April, a quirky story set in 1942 Sydney, Little Stones by debut author Elizabeth Kuiper in June, and The Trespassers by Meg Mundell in August — a “literary murder mystery with a speculative edge”.
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