Tanya Hennessy: Drum Roll Please, It’s Stevie Louise

Comedian Tanya Hennessy on her first foray into junior fiction and why it’s her proudest work to date.

The last time Tanya Hennessy did interviews to promote a book, she didn’t talk about her book at all.

“Yeah, here’s the thing,” the reporter corrected. “We’re actually going to talk about your breast reduction.”

It’s little surprise then that Hennessy is wary of the scrutiny – and intrusiveness – that comes with success. Being a comic in 2021 can be a lightning rod for criticism from all corners of the internet. When you’re a woman, double that.

But despite this Hennessy has worked tirelessly for some 17 years in the media, sharing her unvarnished and very funny content with some 1.1 million followers on social media, doing stand-up and slogging it out in the notoriously brutal commercial radio industry.

A true child of the nineties, she lives the philosophy of Jay Z: The genius thing that we did was, we didn’t give up.

“I heard that quote when I was 15 or something, and it actually stuck with me,” she says. “I just applied that to my life. I’ll tell you what: this industry is hard. You have these catastrophic days where you’re like, ‘I cannot do this anymore,’ but the truth is I can’t not do it.”

The volume of content Hennessy produces – weekly, daily, by the minute – is impressive. From podcasting to YouTube and TikTok to commercial radio, she does it all.

Tanya Hennessy’s new book is her first foray into junior fiction.

Drum Roll Please, It’s Stevie Louise, a story of a fierce little girl who wants to make her dreams come true, is her first foray into junior fiction. It’s her proudest piece of work to date.

“I was reading a lot of junior fiction during COVID, and so much of it is written by male writers. A lot of the narrative was about love interests or flirting or crushes,” Hennessy says. “And I was like, where are the female stories about tenacity and resilience and passion?”

Resilience is the “biggest thing” Hennessy developed during her career – she has proved the boys clubs wrong, overcome failures and recovered from the occasional misstep.

“I think it’s such a good lesson for kids to know that things are going to be sh*tty and going to be hard. But you just have to get up the next day. The sun will come out and just keep going. You just have to keep going,” she says.

Like so many authors, Hennessy is quite a bit like her protagonist – “only Stevie is way cooler”. Stevie feels at home on the stage. But off stage, she is plagued with self-doubt and wrestles with insecurities.

“And as much as I want to move through the world and be this confident, badass b*tch, I can also be very sensitive. I’m very insecure, but most artists are,” Hennessy says. “I feel like Stevie’s that cracking point for me to feel like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m legit now.’”

In her book, Stevie’s magic weapon is her pair of gold boots. But her confidence is shattered when she loses them.

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Tanya watched kids’ shows, went to four sleepovers, kids soccer games, and birthday parties as research for her new book.

“That happened to me when I was 32,” Hennessy says. “I had these gold boots, and I lost them one day, and I was like, ‘How the f*ck am I going to do stand up? How am I going to be funny without these boots, and do radio without these boots?’”

But Hennessy realised her ability to perform wasn’t tied to those boots – courage to climb on stage was always there.

“And I thought, ‘This is such a cute, powerful lesson for kids,” says Hennessy.

Purposefully, the female characters are the funny ones, not the boys.

“But this isn’t a book where you finish and go, ‘What a feminist story’,” Hennesy says. “You’ll finish it and go, ‘That was really funny, there were some really funny things in there’.”

To research this new audience, Hennessy watched kids’ shows, went to four sleepovers, kids soccer games, and birthday parties. Was it tiring?

“It was fun,” Hennessy says, who recently shared how desperate she is to get pregnant. “I have a massive soft spot for kids, and I just love kids so much. I did everything to try and get as much research and figure out what they find funny as possible.”

‘Relatable’ is the word commonly used to describe Hennessy: She’s brutally honest, proud of her Newcastle roots and has the uncanny ability to imitate beauty bloggers, nurses and teachers.

“But I thought that there’s no way I could be relatable to a child. I’m 35 and I don’t hang around kids. But kids are like, ‘Stevie’s me, Stevie’s me.’ And I’m like, Oh my God, I managed to be relatable to a child,” she says.

Up there with intrusive questions about her breasts, Hennessy loathes the ‘what’s next’ question.

“It’s so funny, because you’re like, I just killed myself doing this thing! I care so much about this project, and you want to know what’s next?!” she laughs. “It’s just that when you’re the person receiving it, you can’t help but feel like what you’ve done isn’t enough. It gives me anxiety.”

To ask that terrifying question, what’s next? “When kids read the book they’re like, ‘We want more!’ I would love to give them more, but let’s see how this one goes first.”

Drum Roll Please, It’s Stevie Louise, by Tanya Hennessy, is out now through Allen & Unwin, RRP $14.99