Doug PollardFrom Enid Blyton to Sarah Paretsky - a Lesbian Crime Writers Journey
DOUG: My special guest this hour is somebody moderately famous - - -
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: I think it’s fair to say; Lindy Cameron is a writer and a publisher. What she specialises in amongst other things is lesbian crime fiction – that’s what you write is it not, Lindy?
LINDY: It is.
DOUG: Welcome to the programme.
LINDY: Thank you very much, Doug.
DOUG: So, why crime?
LINDY: Why not crime – raised on it, I was. Started with the: Famous Five. What else was I going to write?
DOUG: The Famous – good Lord, that’s going back a bit?
LINDY: I know.
[laughs]
LINDY: Most women and a lot of guys I know, who read crime fiction now in their adult years - - -
DOUG: Yeah?
LINDY: - - - started with the: Famous Five.
DOUG: The Famous Five. The Secret Seven - - -
LINDY: [indistinct]
DOUG: - - - and the whatevers (sic) of adventure.
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: I remember reading those as a kid. So you read a lot of that?
LINDY: I read all of those and then I progressed to – m’mm, “Biggles”. Of all things.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: (and) Then “James Bond”, then I discovered women’s crime fiction, in the ‘80s.
DOUG: Yeah, I’m with you ‘til you make that leap into women’s crime fiction.
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: I never got to that one.
[laughs]
DOUG: Apart from possibly – people like, Sarah Paretsky. The “V.I. Warshawski” novels?
LINDY: Yeah. She was the first that got me into realising you could in fact – you know – you didn’t have to be Agatha Christie – old, white and dead - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: - - - to be an author and to enjoy crime fiction. Sarah Paretsky was the first of the modern, feminist crime writers we call them now – and so many followed her, then a whole bunch of lesbian crime writers started veering away from just romance and writing crime – so.
DOUG: Yeah. I introduced my mother to Sarah Paretsky. It was a bit of a mistake.
[laughs]
DOUG: Wasn’t quite what she was expecting, she read one book and her only comment was: Puts herself about a bit, doesn’t she?
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: Which is - - -
LINDY: Just as well she didn’t read the lesbian ones then?
DOUG: - - - well, yes. Yes. I halted my mother’s education in lesbian crime fiction at that point.
[laughs]
DOUG: (and) Now you’ve gone on to do publishing as well, which we’ll come to in a little while. But I wanted to back-track a little bit and find out where this really all began; you mentioned “Famous Five” and so-on and so-forth but let’s go back to your childhood. Where-abouts were you born?
LINDY: Traralgon. In Gippsland.
DOUG: M’mm?
LINDY: Which I keep driving through at the moment. Because my family have moved back to Gippsland from the Mornington Peninsula so I keep driving through the town and it is almost unrecognisable. From when I was there, as a kid.
DOUG: What was it like, then?
LINDY: Quiet. It’s probably still friendly, I’m sure it’s still friendly – but it was quiet and small. (and) M’mm - - -
DOUG: ‘Cause I’ve never been down there.
LINDY: Well, it’s not the prettiest – well – it is quite a pretty town and the LaTrobe Valley is quite gorgeous. If you’re not looking at all the coal-mining areas and power stations, all that sort of stuff.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: It’s a lovely little town. It’s quite old, quite an historic town, been around for a fair while – shortly after the gold rush. It’s near quite a lot of the gold fields in Gippsland. So it’s a pretty little town.
DOUG: The economy of the place was based on coal?
LINDY: Coal, gold – farming – electricity, in the end - - -
DOUG: A working town.
LINDY: - - - a working town. Definitely, yeah.
DOUG: Very much a working town.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: (and) Did your family work in the mines?
LINDY: No. My grandparents – my grandfather was one of the two pharmacists in town, when I was growing-up. There were only two; that shows you how small the place was. My grandmother was – m’mm, a grandmother at home. My dad’s side of the family, my – his grandfather – his father was a builder and he built a lot of bridges, buildings around town. My dad was various things including a builder. Mostly lived there ‘til I was about seven or 8 and then I went to boarding school.
DOUG: Boarding school?
LINDY: M’mm.
DOUG: That must’ve been a bit of a change from a place like you described, to go to a boarding school; run by nuns, by any chance?
LINDY: No. No, thank goodness. No nuns.
DOUG: No.
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: You escaped that.
LINDY: I escaped the nuns. In fact, my mum got the job as matron of the boarding house, it was Tintern Girls’ School. Which is in Ringwood East so, she got the job when my parents split up – of running the boarding house – and my little sister and I. I was only in Grade-3. She was in Grade-1 – m’mm and we went to boarding school.
DOUG: Now I get where all the “Famous Five” stuff comes from.
LINDY: Yeah.
[laughs]
DOUG: ‘Cause that’s got a very, very boarding school kind-of-atmosphere to it?
LINDY: It does.
DOUG: Let-out for the holidays, kind-of-thing.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: Did you read any of that – what was that woman’s name who wrote a lot of girls’ stuff – Angela Brazil?
LINDY: Oh – the Chalet School?
DOUG: No.
LINDY: No. I got a dear - - -
DOUG: That was all terribly gym-slips and you know?
LINDY: - - - yeah, yes. Jolly hockey sticks and all of that. No, I was much more into George, you know? The tom boy.
DOUG: Ah-ha.
LINDY: (and) The dog and going on adventures in caravans, things like that.
DOUG: [laughs] So your life was set once you met George?
LINDY: Yeah – oh yes. Absolutely.
[laughs]
LINDY: In fact I’m quite convinced George grew-up to become a lesbian private eye.
DOUG: I’m quite convinced she grew-up to become a lesbian. I think she started out as one, you know?
LINDY: [laughs] Yes.
DOUG: (and) I have my doubts about Julian as well.
LINDY: Yes.
[laughs]
DOUG: ‘Cause they were: awfully-awfully. Weren’t they?
LINDY: They were awfully-awfully.
DOUG: You know, lashings of strawberries and cream. Tea - - -
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - and all that kind-of-thing. Very, very British. I could never understand why my family wasn’t like that – you know? I kept thinking that was how families ought to be and - --
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - mine were nothing like that, whatsoever.
LINDY: Yeah; having a father who’s a mad scientist and you own your own island.
DOUG: Yes.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: Yes - - -
LINDY: Wonderful stuff.
DOUG: I kept wondering when I was going to get servants, you know? But it never happened.
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: Okay. Let’s hear a bit of music from you, now – it comes as no surprise that you picked: Lucy Lawless.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: I don’t know why it’s not a surprise [laughs]
DOUG: M’mm – as Zena Warrior Princess and the: Amazon Chorus. From the episode “Lyre, Lyre” – that’s L-Y-R-E – “Hearts on Fire”. [indistinct] singing: Sisters Are Doing It. I have to ask you, why?
LINDY: M’mm, it’s just - - -
DOUG: But I think I know.
LINDY: I like the song for a start but this is an absolutely splendid version of it and Lucy singing it with a whole bunch of other women; but in this episode she was pregnant and her mother was trying to find her a bloke. (and) She said she doesn’t need a bloke, she’s got Gabrielle.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
LINDY: (and) The fact she was pregnant with a baby given to her by the spirit of her arch nemesis – who was a woman – there were no blokes involved with this baby, at all.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: Here’s the mother trying to find her a husband and you know? She says to her mother: What century do you live in.
DOUG: Well, here’s to lesbian parenthood then. Lucy Lawless and: Sisters Are Doin’ It.
[music]
DOUG: This hour we have one special guest. We go Digging Deeper, today with crime writer: Lindy Cameron. A great fan of Lucy Lawless whom we just heard there – doin’ it for herself along with her sisters. So, boarding school – Famous Five – cream teas - - -
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - all that sort-of-stuff. That obviously got you kick started in the world, as a lesbian – didn’t it?
LINDY: Oh, it did and I’ve got a little notebook somewhere. I think I was in Grade-5 when I started a story called: Manor House Mischief Makers.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
LINDY: Which had of course, all my friends in it.
DOUG: Yes.
LINDY: (and) You know, running around the boarding house waiting to get into some kind of mischief, obviously.
DOUG: Get into a scrape.
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: As the “Famous Five” used to do. Where did you go after school, then – I mean, obviously school – sounds like you had a lot of fun at school?
LINDY: I did. Oddly enough, I loved boarding school.
DOUG: A lot of people go: ooh, I hated my school days. Sounds like you enjoyed it?
LINDY: I did. I did. Tintern’s a great school. They’ve got boys there, now. I don’t know how I’d go there now.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: But back then it was – you know? A great school. It was good being a boarder, I was only a boarder for 5-years - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
LINDY: - - - and then went as a day-girl for the rest of the time. Great environment. Great teachers, mostly. So it was amazing.
DOUG: It’s nice to hear a good story about boarding school, for a change.
LINDY: Yeah.
[laughs]
LINDY: (and) It wasn’t just ‘cause my mum was there. She was the boss and it was quite awkward, sometimes. ‘Cause the other girls go: Ugh. Mrs. Cameron’s coming. Ugh. I’m going to hide. They wanted to say something nasty about my mum then they felt they couldn’t – yeah, so.
DOUG: Yeah, yeah.
[laughs]
DOUG: I had it slightly worse in one respect. My mum did the school dinners.
LINDY: Oh, dear.
DOUG: So I used to get the complaints about the over-cooked liver and onions.
[laughs]
DOUG: But enough of my school days. So after school, where then?
LINDY: I got a cadetship on the Geelong News; where I stayed there for a couple of years and did the fully-fledged journalism thing.
DOUG: Yeah.
LINDY: Doing it on a country newspaper – like, that only came out twice-a-week.
DOUG: Yeah?
LINDY: A very small staff meant that I learnt everything there was to learn.
DOUG: What sorts of stories did you cover?
LINDY: News stories, feature stories I liked writing most because I hated interviewing people who were self-important.
[laughs]
LINDY: Or thought they were important – like, politicians. Hated interviewing politicians.
DOUG: That’s part of the job, dear.
LINDY: I know, I know. I was never into politics and I could never think what to ask.
DOUG: Ah-ha?
LINDY: So I just – sort of, found a way of letting people talk for themselves.
DOUG: Yes, with politicians you don’t normally need to do much to get them talking.
LINDY: No. Exactly.
[laughs]
LINDY: But I wasn’t good at going: Ooh, that sounds contentious. You know?
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: Or pick on that and go with it. I wasn’t very good at that. But if someone was telling me their life story or some amazing thing that they’d just done - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
LINDY: - - - and it was a feature story, you know? I loved doing that.
DOUG: Any particular story that sticks in your mind from those years; I mean, any particular person you’ve met that you remember?
LINDY: Not really. It was a long time ago, Doug.
DOUG: I know. Sometimes, you run into one person somewhere and something happens or they tell a particular story. (and) It sticks with you.
LINDY: M’mm - - -
DOUG: Other times it just all blurs together.
LINDY: - - - yeah; kind-of blurs together.
DOUG: Nothing dreadfully fascinating happened?
LINDY: Nothing dreadfully fascinating. We did have a stint at one stage, all the journalists were asked to go and do something different that they would not normally do and - - -
DOUG: Oh, dear.
LINDY: - - - exactly.
[laughs]
LINDY: I got to climb the Queenscliff Lighthouse which was just terrifying for me ‘cause I’m scared of heights. Absolutely terrified of heights. (and) I got to go hover-crafting (sic).
DOUG: M’mm?
LINDY: One of the other guys got to learn parachuting and broke his leg on the practise jump.
DOUG: As did David Graham the other day.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: By-the-way – m’mm - - -
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - and Farmer Dave, he jumped out of a plane. Learning to parachute to do para-rescue and he broke one leg and one arm.
LINDY: Oh.
DOUG: (and) Had to have an ankle reconstruction done on Monday in Brisbane Hospital. So if he happens to be listening on line, get well Dave. Oh. You didn’t have to parachute, though?
LINDY: I didn’t have to parachute; despite this fear of heights I think I may have liked to do that?
DOUG: M’mm.
LINDY: Something I haven’t managed to do yet. I might do it when I’m 80.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: You know? When it doesn’t really matter if I hit the ground in a jelly lump.
[laughs]
DOUG: Yeah, I’ve never quite fancied those tandem parachute jumps, myself. You know? Where you go-down, strapped to somebody else – but you’re always underneath.
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: That’s the bit that always gets me. You know? You’re the one who’s underneath [laughs] so if anything goes wrong, they get a soft landing.
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: But you don’t.
[laughs]
DOUG: So? Cadetship at the paper.
LINDY: M’mm, yeah and from that paper I went to the Chadstone Progress. I was working up here, in Melbourne.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
LINDY: Doing a column which oddly enough, some people seem to remember. Called: About Town With Lindy. Which was local news from around Chadstone, things-like-that. I used to do the Myer – m’mm, go over to Myer Chadstone. Every week. (and) Get the gossip from over there.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
LINDY: Riveting stuff.
DOUG: [indistinct] fashion next?
LINDY: I did do fashion – yes, so not-me.
[laughs]
DOUG: How long did you stay a reporter?
LINDY: Wasn’t that long, actually. I – like, I got my cadetship in - - -
DOUG: ‘Cause it sounds like it wasn’t dreadfully congenial?
LINDY: The writing side of it, I loved. That’s why I did it because I thought, well, I want to be a writer of some kind. When I found out I wasn’t any good at science and was never going to be an astronomer or an astronaut, anything like that. Hopeless at maths, not very good at science. I thought, well, the only other thing I really like is reading – and writing. (and) The only way you can make money as a writer - - -
DOUG: M’mm?
LINDY: - - - was as a journalist. I knew that because my – m’mm, a family friend. Had been a journalist his whole life. So, I knew it was a possibility and I knew it was something I could do. If I managed to get the cadetship but it was the interviewing that got me. I wasn’t awfully – terribly good at it.
DOUG: That would seem to indicate that you’re more of a writer and less of a journalist?
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: A journos (sic) job is talking with people, isn’t it?
LINDY: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean I can talk with people and get stuff out of anyone, now. But for news it was just difficult.
DOUG: How long did you work as a journalist?
LINDY: ‘Til about ’83 and then I went overseas on one of those, you know? Big adventure trips. When you go with a ticket to Bali and no ticket home.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: (and) I came home 14-months later after doing South-east Asia and India. A little bit of Europe, Israel and Egypt.
DOUG: That is so Australian, isn’t it?
LINDY: It is. I just had the absolute best time; met a French Canadian. In Israel. She came back here with me, for a while. In the dim, dark days when there was absolutely no hope of getting a same-sex partner allowed to stay in the country for any reason, whatsoever.
DOUG: M’mm?
LINDY: She stayed here for about a year, though. It wasn’t going to work, neither of us had the finance to be able to live here and there – and go backwards-and-forward(s) – so.
DOUG: Yeah.
LINDY: That was the end of that, really. Which is sad. (and) Then I got a job working for “Lonely Planet”.
DOUG: Ah.
LINDY: The travel guide company.
DOUG: They actually pay you to go travel, don’t they?
LINDY: They didn’t pay me to go travelling. Because I was an editor. A book editor so I was chained to a desk and I got to edit everyone else’s travels.
DOUG: Did that make you jealous?
LINDY: It didn’t make me – well, it did. ‘Cause I was hired as an editor, I wasn’t hired as an author. So it didn’t really make me jealous. It’s the best sort of editing you can do, if you are a traveller.
DOUG: M’mm.
LINDY: (and) You can’t afford to go anywhere, you know? You get someone else’s manuscript and you turn it into something better. It only got annoying or whatever, when I was editing a book that for instance, I knew more about the country than the person who’d written the book.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: But that was annoying for any of the editors in there, you know?
DOUG: Yes. Did you ever have that thing – wondering, if they’d ever been there at all?
LINDY: Ah yes – well, there was one book. I was quite convinced apart from the fact the author had no sense of direction and he would’ve sent people into the Nile.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: Instead of into the Valley of the Kings. Or they would’ve got lost in a tomb instead of you know, going to a market.
[laughs]
LINDY: That sort of thing. That was more his sense of direction than the fact he hadn’t been there, though – so.
DOUG: I have heard stories of people more-or-less, writing these things from a bar in Cairo kind-of-thing and not venturing very far beyond there?
LINDY: Yeah. “Lonely Planet” readers would’ve picked on that, straight away and the editors would’ve known as well. You know? There’s no way this person – this alleged traveller of Egypt or - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: - - - where-ever it was hadn’t been to the places they’d written about – so. It’s pretty easy to pick.
DOUG: Yeah well, they find some pretty obscure things at times, as well; I remember when I first came here the first thing I did was buy the “Lonely Planet” guide to Australia.
LINDY: Oh.
DOUG: ‘Cause I didn’t know the place. You know?
LINDY: Well, I did have a hand in that one.
DOUG: You did?
LINDY: Yes. Yes, because all the editors jacked-up at one stage and said: Come on, please, please let us do Australia.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: We’re here. It doesn’t cost very much and it’ll probably cost you less than getting an American or someone, to come over and do it.
DOUG: Yeah.
LINDY: (and) I got to do Tasmania. So, I did go overseas.
DOUG: Yeah.
[laughs]
LINDY: In later years, I went to a couple of book fairs – you know? With the management, in America. Which was great. It was just awesome – so.
DOUG: You did get to do a bit of travel?
LINDY: I did.
DOUG: In the travel-book industry.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: Let’s have another piece of music; you’ve picked-out Melissa Etheridge: Bring Me Some Water. What’s this one about?
LINDY: Well, when this song first came out I’d walked into a record shop to get something else. A present for someone. (and) We were about to go on a long car trip to – m’mm, Albury. I’d gone in there to get a present and I heard this voice, playing in the shop. It was this song and it was Melissa Etheridge, it was probably the first time I’d heard it and I went up to the counter and said: Whatever that is I have to have it.
DOUG: So Melissa Etheridge: Bring Me Some Water.
[music]
DOUG: This hour we’re Digging Deeper with lesbian crime writer, Lindy Cameron. But so far we haven’t got you writing any crime? We’ve got you being a reporter, we’ve got you doing travel books for “Lonely Planet” – you’ve not done any real writing yet.
LINDY: No. Not any real writing when you make-it-up.
[laughs]
DOUG: (and) From what you were saying about interviewing people and all the rest of it, that was really where you’d wanted to go?
LINDY: Yes. Yes, just where I could make-it-up or it didn’t make any difference. You know, really didn’t make any difference. Still had to get the facts right – I mean, if you’re writing a crime novel and you’re doing basic facts about ballistics, dead bodies or forensics – anything wrong, then you get letters. So you’ve got to be really careful about those sorts of things.
DOUG: Well, what was it Dorothy L. Sayers said: I always promise to correct those in the second edition and never do.
LINDY: Yes.
[laughs]
DOUG: Do you correct any of them?
LINDY: M’mm, if it’s seriously wrong I would correct it. Yeah – but if it’s a typo then, you know? Live with it, folks.
DOUG: Yes. Proof-reading aint (sic) what it was, anyway.
LINDY: No. It’s not. Well, it is now ‘cause I’ve got a star proof reader for my company – so.
DOUG: Ah.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: Good. I’m pleased to hear it because I’m very pedantic and I really hate it when I’m reading through a paperback and I go: That’s not what was meant to be written, there.
LINDY: M’mm, yeah.
DOUG: (and) It’s blindingly obvious.
LINDY: Murphy’s Law rule – whatever it is, that there will always be a mistake in any book. No matter how many times it’s been proof read – whatever.
DOUG: M’mm.
LINDY: If any book gets published that doesn’t have a single typo or incorrect bit of punctuation in it then it’s close to being a miracle.
[laughs]
LINDY: I’m such a pedant that I read it. I edit it – I check it, I proof read it. Then I give it to someone else to do the proof reading.
DOUG: Because you often can’t see your own mistakes, can you?
LINDY: You can’t, you can’t. Anyone who’s wanting to be a writer out there - - -
DOUG: Get somebody else to read it.
LINDY: - - - yeah. You can’t do it, you cannot read your own work and expect to make it perfect. Because you know what it says. Even if you’re sitting there thinking to yourself: I don’t remember writing this?
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: You still know what it says, the next time you go to proof read it and you won’t see you’ve used the wrong “there/their” or that you’ve put two words in, exactly the same – two “at(s)” or two “the(s)”. You just won’t see it, the brain doesn’t register it.
DOUG: Let’s go back to the beginning then and your first book – not so much what made you go and do it, because I think it’s fairly obvious you were heading in that direction – but what enabled you to stop being at “Lonely Planet” and sit-down and write a book?
LINDY: Well - - -
DOUG: ‘Cause isn’t that risky, financially and otherwise?
LINDY: Oh, yes. But I didn’t take any risks at the time when I first started writing. I left “Lonely Planet” and freelanced. I had a business partner and someone I shared a house with as well. She had lots of contacts in the publishing world. I really only knew “Lonely Planet” and we were both doing editing jobs.
DOUG: Okay.
LINDY: (and) Whenever I didn’t have any work – the first time I didn’t have any work, she said: I remember you had an idea for that story. Have a go, you may as well be doing something in your down time. I think she was making sure I did something during my day.
[laughs]
LINDY: But Kate was quite surprised when I came-up with this first chapter and I gave it to her. She goes: Okay, whenever you have down time this is what you’ll be doing. So, she saw something in it.
DOUG: Ah. Somebody else organised you?
LINDY: Well – yeah, someone else organised me and made me do it. In a sense, allowed me the time. Not gave me the time because we were running a business. I still had to earn money whenever I could. Obviously. Or we would not have eaten very well – m’mm and so – yeah. In the beginning I was doing two things. It took me 4-years to write the first Kit O’Malley book, for that reason. Because I had to do it when I wasn’t earning a living.
DOUG: Do you think you would’ve persevered with it – off air, you were mentioning perseverance as being a key thing for a writer – do you think you would’ve persevered with it, if you didn’t have somebody on your back saying: Go and write another chapter?
LINDY: Yes because the moment I’d written the first chapter, I thought: Oh my goodness this is exactly what I want to do.
DOUG: Ah.
LINDY: So I used the opportunity I had. I didn’t waste it; even though it sounds weird it took me 4-years. But that’s what happens when you’re earning a living. (and) You don’t have a publishing deal. It’s different if someone [had] said: Oh my goodness this is brilliant, I’m going to give you a publishing deal. (and) Give you money – well, of course you’d finish it in a year or 6-months. Or whatever it is. I had an idea for a novel set in Melbourne, I wanted it to be a PI-novel.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: Private investigator novel. I wanted to become the Australian Val McDermid.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: Who at the time only had 2-series out – one, featuring a lesbian sleuth and one featuring a straight PI. She’s my writing idol so I wanted to be her. I also wanted Melbourne to feature; one of the real things about crime fiction that fascinates most people is the sense of place.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: You mentioned Sarah Paretsky before - - -
DOUG: Chicago.
LINDY: - - - walk the streets of Chicago just having read Sarah - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
LINDY: You can walk most of the streets of Melbourne having read my novels except for the little park that I’d made-up. Which two people actually went looking for, with their dog.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: They said: Lindy, we went looking for this park. I said: I made that one up. But they walked the streets that are real until the imagined - - -
DOUG: The park that wasn’t there.
[laughs]
LINDY: They got to the park that wasn’t there. Yeah.
[laughs]
LINDY: So I wanted to create a lesbian PI. We didn’t have one at the time, in Australia. A fictional one.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: The only lesbian character that we had in fiction, here in Australia was Claire McNab’s character: Carol Ashton – and she was a police officer, full of angst about being a lesbian. Oh my God, I have to hide in the closet – how will my colleagues know. All that sort of stuff.
DOUG: Tedious.
LINDY: So much of the lesbian fiction at the time was like that.
DOUG: So much gay fiction of the period.
LINDY: Yeah, yeah.
DOUG: Was all tortured and: I have to hide.
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: You have to come to a bad end, in-the-end anyway.
[laughs]
LINDY: Well the good thing about this, fiction from the ‘80s and the ‘90s that was coming out with lesbian romance and detective fiction, it didn’t have to end badly. That was the good thing. It didn’t have to end badly.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
LINDY: But people – like, characters. Like: Carol Ashton. Because she was a high-profile cop in the Sydney police force, she thought she had to be in the closet – so. I don’t know if she ever came out, actually.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: Probably has come out by now. But I wanted to create a character who was a lesbian, who happened to be a lesbian – you know?
DOUG: M’mm.
LINDY: The word “lesbian” gets mentioned in the first book – once – by someone else.
DOUG: (and) Then you take it for granted from there.
LINDY: Yeah and it’s not even in reference to my character Kit O’Malley. It’s in reference to someone who isn’t a lesbian, someone who’s going: Ooh, I bet she’s lesbian. She says it to Kit and Kit’s standing there, going: Oh you idiot.
DOUG: M’mm.
LINDY: You don’t know what you’re talking about – so, Kit herself – is just normal. Average, everyday dyke around town. Happens to be a PI, ex-cop. Falls in love, in the first book. That’s where she has – I don’t know? Her more sensitive, side – not her more sensitive side. She’s a klutz and every time she sees the woman-of-her-dreams – or who becomes the woman of her dreams, she’s always on her arse. She’s just fallen over. You know?
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: Done something embarrassing – so, yeah. I wanted that side of it to be vaguely comical and she’s got a good sense of humour because it’s easy to be funny, when you can spend a week writing one scene.
DOUG: Is she you, is there a lot of you in her?
LINDY: My friends would say, yes and I would probably have to agree. On certain levels. ‘Cause it was the first book I ever wrote - - -
DOUG: ‘Cause they always say to some extent, one’s first book is autobiographical.
LINDY: Yes. Well, it’s not autobiographical at all. There’s none of that in it.
[laughs]
LINDY: I mean – well, at the time we were the same age.
DOUG: Yeah.
LINDY: We were both 32 and – m’mm, I was thinner than I am now. But Kit’s always been taller than me. She was a cop which I never was; she was a PI which I never will be. She likes seafood and bourbon because I had to give her something I didn’t like so that she wouldn’t be completely me.
[laughs]
LINDY: But she’s probably got my sense of humour although her mother is my mother. There’s no two ways about it – her mother, is my mother.
DOUG: [laughs] Revenge?
LINDY: No. No, in the best way.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: In the best way. Everyone who knows my mum says: Oh Lillian is your mum, isn’t she?
DOUG: Ah.
LINDY: Yes, in a good way.
DOUG: In a good way.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: It’s appropriate now to go to your next piece of music. Writing for a living was obviously, your dream and this next piece of music is called: Dreams. By, “The Cranberries”. Why this one?
LINDY: I like this one, I like songs with a bit of wailing in them you know? Ah-ah-ah; that kind of thing. Not the yodelling all the pop singers do these days, that’s not what I mean.
DOUG: The over-decorated warbling. Yeah.
LINDY: The thing that makes my skin crawl.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: But a bit of wailing - - -
DOUG: With you there.
LINDY: - - - and also songs that build from something and then adding more and more instruments – and yeah, The Cranberries do a good job at that.
DOUG: Okay so let’s hear them doing it in: Dreams.
[music]
DOUG: This hour we’re Digging Deeper with crime writer Lindy Cameron. Now, you don’t just write crime fiction. You write crime fact as well?
LINDY: Yes, that was an accident.
DOUG: An accident?
LINDY: Yeah – m’mm, a fellow-crime-writer Kerry Greenwood was given the chance to put together a collection of true crime and she said she would only do it if she could do it her way. (and) With a different sensibility than from what true crime is usually written. Which is kind-of, sensational. She asked me if I would contribute a story and I said: I don’t do true things any more if I can help it.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: She said: Just have a think. As it turned out I discovered my own doctor was in fact, the doctor at Hastings that my mother had been talking about a few years before. Who’d been shot in his own surgery, one Saturday morning. So I asked him if he would talk with me about it and he said of course he would. I invited him for dinner and he told me this absolutely extraordinary story about this loon coming in – and he wasn’t after Andrew – to kill him or hurt him, he just wanted to hurt a doctor that day. He shot Andrew 5-times.
DOUG: Ooh.
LINDY: Chased him through the medical surgery, didn’t shoot anyone else and there were other people there. Andrew should’ve died; they guy in the end, lay down on the floor next to Andrew and shot himself in the heart. (and) Missed. Because he missed his heart, didn’t know where his heart was. So they both survived but Andrew was – it was absolutely incredible, he survived these 5-bullet wounds. Especially where the last one went. The story went on from there, the guy didn’t get enough gaol time. This happened shortly after the Pt. Arthur shootings, when all the gun laws had been changed and this guy broke so many laws – just by having the gun. Walking through the town with it, walking into a surgery. Discharging it in public. All of that sort of stuff; he didn’t get nearly enough gaol time. But Andrew was just the most extraordinary person. He told me this story and I had it. All-of-a-sudden, I found myself writing true crime.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: (and) It went from there. I’ve since put together 2-collections; one, with my sister called: Killer in the Family. Not our family, though.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: It’s a collection of domestic homicides.
DOUG: I’m glad you cleared that one up.
LINDY: Yeah. My mum was joking that if my sister Fin and I didn’t get on while we were writing this book and we killed each other in the process of deciding who was going to do what. Then she’d just bury us in the backyard and finish the book, herself. (and) It would still be: Killer in the Family.
[laughs]
LINDY: (and) I wrote another one - - -
DOUG: I like the sound of your mum.
LINDY: - - - yeah. Well, my mum’s great. Another book I wrote: Women Who Kill. I wrote it with a co-author, a mate who lives in Perth: Ruth Wykes. Who used to run the lesbian magazine over there, for about 8-years. “Women Out West”. So she and I put together the second collection.
DOUG: So you got into it and you got to enjoy it, by the sounds of it?
LINDY: M’mm, yeah. It’s not something I’d like to do - - -
DOUG: Still prefer making-it-up.
LINDY: - - - still prefer making things up because oddly enough, it doesn’t matter how old a case is - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
LINDY: If you set about doing a book about it or a story in a collection, about it – m’mm, it comes up in the news. For some reason. ‘Cause someone gets a parole or evidence is found, you know – 50-years later – to prove that so-and-so didn’t do it. It’s one of those things; if you make-it-up you make the decision. This is what happened. This is how it ended – you know? (and) It’s great. But true crime is forever changing.
DOUG: You’ve had your Kit O’Malley series, your lesbian PI – now, not only have you started your own publishing company and you’ve mentioned Kerry Greenwood. I interviewed her about her book she’s publishing with you, the one called: Out of the Black Land. I’ve been a big fan of Kerry’s for a long, long time; another one with a great sense of place when she writes about Melbourne.
LINDY: Oh, yes. Yeah. (and) Ancient Egypt.
DOUG: Strangely enough, ancient Egypt as well. Yes.
LINDY: Great sense of place. I don’t know how she did that although I’m quite convinced her character: Phryne Fisher – of the – m’mm, 18-novels so far – mostly all set in 1928. I’m convinced Phryne is Dr. Who.
DOUG: [laughs]
LINDY: So, I don’t see that it’s unrealistic that Phryne just might take Kerry in the Tardis, back to ancient Egypt. So that Kerry can get her sense of place, first-hand.
DOUG: I love the bit when I was interviewing Kerry and I was saying: Where did you get all this from – and she said: It’s all off tomb inscriptions – and stuff. It’s all in hieroglyphics: I taught myself to read it, it’s fairly easy.
[laughs]
DOUG: I was going: Oh.
[laughs]
DOUG: You know? That’s dedication. You teach yourself hieroglyphics.
LINDY: It is, it is. They’re endlessly fascinating, hieroglyphics.
DOUG: Is there a book out there called: Hieroglyphics-for-dummies?
LINDY: Yeah. Probably – probably, I mean it took a long time for them - - -
DOUG: [indistinct] perhaps.
LINDY: Took a long time for them to crack what they (sic) even meant.
DOUG: Yes.
LINDY: M’mm and you know – now, Kerry – she’s an historian. Obviously, by the Phryne Fisher series set in 1928 - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
LINDY: - - - that’s what she does. She does all the research and her other series called: The Delphic Women - - -
DOUG: Yes. Read a couple of those.
LINDY: Which is Medea – three books: Medea – Cassandra and Electra; all set in ancient Greece, they’ve been out-of-print for 9-years. We’re doing them – Clandestine Press is doing them, next year.
DOUG: Very nice.
LINDY: Getting them back-in-print and I am so excited about that.
DOUG: I wish some TV company would make a Phryne Fisher series. That’d be a terrific television series.
LINDY: Yeah. Yeah.
DOUG: It’d be period and Phryne is such a character.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: So if any TV-execs are listening, I’m sure you’ll be able to send a set of books?
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: We want to get a couple more pieces of music in. We’re going to have to make room now, for: The Pretenders.
LINDY: Okay.
DOUG: “Don’t Get Me Wrong”. Now for me, you don’t have to excuse this track with any reason at all - - -
LINDY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - ‘cause I love it – but why did you pick it?
LINDY: Same reason again. The composition of it in terms of the way the music changes. I love the beat of it – I mean, I just love the Pretenders full-stop – it didn’t hurt my appreciation of it when I came across a film clip with Chrissie Hynde with “John Steed” from: The Avengers. (and) She was chasing him around.
DOUG: Wonderful.
LINDY: Trying to catch him and it was just a wonderful blend of real “Avengers” footage and Chrissies trying to catch-up to him – so.
DOUG: Okay – here-we-go with: The Pretenders. “Don’t Get Me Wrong”.
[music]
DOUG: We’re almost at the end of our hour with Lindy Cameron. What we really ought to talk about before you go is your latest book?
LINDY: Yes. My latest book.
DOUG: “Redback”.
LINDY: Redback – yeah. I don’t know whether to call it an espionage thriller or an adventure – an action-adventure, it’s all of those. M’mm - - -
DOUG: So no PI this time?
LINDY: No PI. This time my main character – I’ve lots of main characters actually, this time – the main one is “Bryn Gideon” and she’s a soldier. An ex-soldier, who heads a team called: The Redbacks. They’re retrieval agents and it’s their job to go in and rescue hostages from hostage situations in usually, foreign places. I might get her to do something a bit closer to home in the next book – m’mm, but the book opens with her rescuing a group of hostages. From an island in the Pacific.
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
LINDY: (and) Out of that she becomes acquainted with a woman called “Jana Rossi” who ends-up joining the team. But “Bryn Gideon” is an ex-soldier who is a female who came the closest to joining the SAS but not quite. She’s just been recruited to head this team, to go and help people so there’s lots of action. But it’s also international espionage – action thriller, in that – there’s international intrigue. There’re terrorists in Pakistan doing things and there’re home-grown terrorists in America. Doing things. (and) It features the American president, the Australian prime minister and the British prime minister.
DOUG: Yes and I gather you bumped-off somebody quite famous in the - - -
LINDY: I did.
DOUG: - - - course of the book?
LINDY: I did, yes. Yes. A certain attorney-general whose name will – well, he’s fictional. So it doesn’t really matter.
DOUG: It’s fictional – it’s fictional.
LINDY: Yeah.
DOUG: We’ll ask for an amnesty in that direction.
LINDY: Yes.
DOUG: As Sherlock Holmes might put it – and you can work-it-out for yourselves, from there. This is intended to be the first of a new series?
LINDY: First of a new series. It will soon be out in eBook as is Kerry’s book and: Dougal’s Diary. Which is the 3rd-book out by Clandestine Press; my partner Michelle and I have been working hard to get the press off-the-ground and get it up-and-running and hopefully – so that she can retire from her day-job – she’s the one who’s been supporting me for the last few years whilst I’ve been writing and not editing. The idea is to publish as much genre fiction as possible, specialising in crime, mysteries – adventure – historical fiction. Horror. Speculative fiction – you name it, we’ll do it – as-long-as it’s not literature with a capital-L.
DOUG: You’re going to have a big slush pile?
LINDY: Yes. Yes, that’s growing. Already.
[laughs]
DOUG: Are you particularly focussing on women authors?
LINDY: No. Not at all. One of my first three authors is David Greagg who’s a wizard. His book’s about a cat. So, apart from doing genre fiction we’re also doing cat books and why not? Why not do cat books.
DOUG: There’s always a ready market for cat books, anyway.
LINDY: There is. What I’m hoping to develop next year – or starting from next year, when I start taking manuscript submissions – is more local, lesbian fiction. Gay fiction, too – but - - -
DOUG: Yeah?
LINDY: I’d like to un-earth a bit of gay and lesbian talent in the genre fiction field.
DOUG: The best of luck with it.
LINDY: Thank you.
DOUG: Lindy, thank you for joining us this morning.
LINDY: Thank you very much.
DOUG: Sorry it’s been such a hot-and-sweaty morning.
LINDY: Yuck.
DOUG: For you, as well but anyway. You’ve coped with it, wonderfully.
LINDY: Thank you.
DOUG: What’s your last piece of music – Mumford and Sons: Roll Away Your Stone.
LINDY: Yes. I’ve just discovered “Mumford and Sons”. I don’t know how long they’ve been around but I’ve discovered them through their latest CD. They had the song: Little Lion Man. Which I quite liked and so I bought the CD and this particular song “Roll Away The (sic) Stone” has got everything about them which I like. Which again is music building and changing – and amazing voices and instruments.
DOUG: Lindy, thanks very much.
LINDY: Thank you, very much.
