10 Quirky Questions with author Amelia Mellor

1. What's your hidden talent?

I’m not really the type to hide my talents – I’m more of a ‘look at what I can do!’ kind of person. But people are often surprised to find that for someone so entrenched in the world of words, I’m pretty good at visual arts and crafts as well. I recently crafted a set of potion bottles as props to promote Oceanforged using old perfume bottles, epoxy resin and alcohol inks. I hand-paint wooden toys for the children in my life. Lately I’ve been collecting sea pottery from the beach to eventually make a mosaic.

2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?
It’s impossible to choose a favourite, but Kiersten White’s version of Victor Frankenstein in The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein is a brilliant reimagining that will stick with me for a long time. Even as a child, he’s cold, possessive and manipulative. The people around him in the early 19th century only know that something is wrong with the boy – but the 21st -century reader can instantly recognise his behavioural patterns as those of a serial killer in the making, and the effect is chilling. If you’re going to retell a literary classic, you’ve got to both respect the original and expand on its ideas, and White’s novel strikes that rare balance.

3. You're hosting a literary dinner party, which five authors would you invite? (alive or dead)
I don’t think the dead ones would be able to make it. I’d probably just invite the best yappers in my Aussie kidlit circle – friends from my time in the Alpine Valley and people I love to catch up with at writers’ festivals.

4. Which literary invention do you wish was real?
Lyra’s alethiometer, or truth compass, in Northern Lights and its sequels, is an enigmatic and very cool device. I think it would be quite valuable in our current world, where AI is fracturing reality and corporations have never had greater reasons to lie than they currently do.

5. What are five words that describe your writing process?
‘I prefer writing second drafts.’ First drafts always feel messy to me – I’m often trying to go in too many directions at once and bumbling around circuitous routes before getting to the point. Second drafts are usually easier. Everything that’s already good becomes better in the second draft, and the new sections feel more directed and purposeful.

6. Which are the five words you would like to be remembered by as a writer?
‘The greatest of her century’ – in this scenario, I’m still being read 500 years in the future.

7. Picture your favourite writing space. What are five objects you would find there?
I write at my antique roll-top desk. I keep a lot of weird little things around it. Among them are a vase of dried Billy Buttons, three sea urchin exoskeletons, a gold pocket watch and the very large  matryoshka doll I’ve had since I was two. My mint-green Hermes typewriter is stashed down one side of the desk as well. I would never write a book on it – constant editing and rewriting are so much a part of my process that I’ve already revised this sentence 12 times – but I use it to write fan mail replies that I send in the post.

8. Grab the nearest book, open it to page 22 and look for the second word in the first sentence. Now, write a line that starts with that word. (Please include the name of the book!)
‘Oven-baked children was a joke among us wood-witches – that’s the first thing you need to know about this mess.’
The word 'oven' comes from a sentence in 'Mellor Family Favourites', a collection of easy midweek
recipes, created by my mum and sister and published by Officeworks Ring Binder Machine Press.

9. If you could ask one author one question, what would the question be and who would 
you ask?
I’d have to brush up on my 11th -century Japanese, but I’d want to ask Shikibu Murasaki, creator of the first novel, if she could guess how many lives would be touched by her innovative form of storytelling. And she also wrote her novel The Tale of Genji in kana, a phonetic form of script invented by women to get around the fact that only men were taught or allowed to write in kanji. How cool is that?

10. Which would you rather do: Never write another story or never read another book?
Never read another book. To never be able to create stories of any kind myself would be like losing a limb. Creating stories has always been part of me. Even when I almost gave up in my 20s on my dream of getting published, my choice to go into teaching was motivated partly by the possibility that I could still bring joy to kids through my stories by writing school shows tailored to my students. But books are just one form of fiction, so if those were no longer available to me, I’d still be able to experience storytelling through other methods – like plays, movies, games or oral tradition.

Amelia Mellor is an author, teacher and nature nerd. She is the creator of The Grandest Bookshop in the World, The Bookseller’s Apprentice and The Lost Book of Magic, a multi-award-winning historical fantasy trilogy based in Melbourne where she lives. She holds degrees from Monash University and The University of Melbourne. To find ideas for Oceanforged, Amelia spent three days at sea, swam with sharks, hiked in jungles, got lost in Italy, handled real pirate artefacts and scubadived on a shipwreck. When she’s not writing or researching, she’s usually tending her collection of tropical fish or attempting a wildly ambitious craft project. You can find her at authorameliamellor.com and holding up traffic in museums.