SALLY PIPER

The Brisbane nurse-turned-author’s third novel is her most personal yet

Bone Memories is novel No.3, does the process get easier with each book? I’d say it gets more difficult. I wrote my first novel into a void of little expectation that it would be read. Now, with Bone Memories, I have a greater sense of a readership, so write with the personal demand that I not disappoint them. Which is a good thing. It makes me work harder. Equally though, there is my own expectation that each book must be better than the previous one. So, it’s like I’ve got the reader on one shoulder and me, the writer, on the other and both often feel judgy!

You have also worked as a critical care nurse. Were you working at writing in the background? I didn’t start writing until after I’d retired from a 19-year nursing career. However, I believe my writing started with my experiences as a nurse. Writing was going on in the background, but it didn’t require pen or paper. It was the silent writing of a life; a life defined by what it did or was exposed to each day. Much of that still filters into my work.

Is there a book that made you love writing? No singular book, but the many that have did so at a sentence level. Hit me up with enough beautiful sentences and I’m reminded of why I want to write. What’s the best book you’ve read? Again, no singular book, but beautiful sentence writers include Elizabeth Strout, Nardi Simpson, Maggie O’farrell, Benjamin Myers … I could go on.

A book that had a pivotal impact on your life? I read The Handmaid’s Tale long before the world was talking about it, and I recognised then that Margaret Atwood had a freakish prescience in her ideologies. I’ve been an admirer of her books and her intellect ever since.

The book you couldn’t finish? Catch-22. I’ve tried three times and failed on every attempt.

A book you wish you had read but haven’t got to? Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It’s a doorstopper and I’m not a fast reader!

The book you are most proud to have written? Publishing is a tough industry, so for any of my books to be published is a pride-filled achievement. But in saying that, Bone Memories is probably the most personal of the three, which made it challenging to write. That I persevered and pushed into that personal stuff makes me proud. What book do you re-read? I rarely re-read books unless I am to interview the author. With so many great books published each month, I find there just aren’t enough reading hours in the day to go back. What books are on your bedside table? Astronomy: Sky Country by Karlie Noon and Krystal de Napoli and edited by Margo Neale, and The Night Ship by Jess Kidd.

What are you writing next? I have a vague premise for another novel, which is too vague to describe yet.

Bone Memories by Sally Piper: UQP, $33, out now