Local author launches the latest in her time travelling trilogy
ONLY releasing her first book two years ago, local Dubbo author, Joanne Austen Brown has sparked international attention with her ‘The Always’ series and ‘Come with Me’ series.
With both series set in the Regency period, Mrs Brown shared that her newest book, “Molly’s Laird” in the “Come With Me” collection, explores romance through the elements of time travel.
She expressed that she is an active writer in both her series as she has varied ideas at the same time, she continued saying that she writes the books individually, but has already plotted the storyline.
“I’m not confused – it’s just a matter of working things out and seeing where they fit in,” she laughed.
Being a full-time writer, Mrs Brown releases two books a year, with hopes of launching her final book for the murder mystery series before Christmas.
“I write a lot, it’s what I love to do and what I have always loved doing,” she added saying she published her first fiction at 62 and hopes to inspire people that it is never too late to strive for passions.
Mrs Brown told Dubbo Photo News that if she could give advice to younger writers, it would be “to never give up”, saying she has enjoyed the art of storytelling from childhood and watched her passion grow to eventuate into a career.
She explained that her characters are a vital fragment in the story as they showcase the development of plot lines and relationships between other characters.
There is one character that crosses the two worlds in her series to tie the stories together, given that they reflect similar time periods.
“It was definitely planned, but I think it worked very well in the end,” Mrs Brown giggled, saying the characters talk to her while she is developing them.
“I know it’s weird, but they do,” she continued, saying that there is a constant conversation in her head between her characters.
“I want to know everything about them, what they’re like and how they think,” she said, revealing her fascination with characters helps to build her storytelling abilities.
“There are certainly characters in my books based on people I know, and maybe a few people would get worried about it,” she said.
Reflecting on her initial inspiration of the ‘Come with Me’ series, Mrs Brown shared on her travels in London, visiting a second-hand bookshop.
“I found a book when King George IV visited Edinburgh in 1822 and that’s how it started,” she said, telling how she immediately had a direction of where she wanted the book to head.
Mrs Brown described her first book as a learning curve which helped her develop her style and skills for her newer releases.
Analysing her timeline, she shared that the writing process takes her six months, with her research and editing taking an additional six months.
When writing historical fiction, Mrs Brown expressed the importance of research as “there is no point in telling a story based in historical times of things that are happening today – you want to learn from history”.
Like many people, Mrs Brown is a believer in the saying ‘history repeats itself’ and she takes pride in replicating that phrase through her storytelling.
Mrs Brown told Dubbo Photo News she has always gravitated towards history, with previously publishing non-fiction works in historical literature.
“It’s a big part of what I love, and I think we can all learn from the past,” she added saying she is in a historical novel society and the romance society.
She hopes to release as many books as she can and loves to engage with her readers.