Rebel rebel

New inspirations: An interview with Will Kostakis

Will Kostakis is an award-winning writer of YA novels and a passionate and active advocate for reading and writing in schools. His latest novel is The Greatest Hit, and others include The Sidekicks, Loathing Lola, Rebel Gods and Monuments. His books have won the Gold Inky Award and IBBY Australia Ena Noel Award, while in 2020 he was awarded the 2020 Maurice Saxby Award by the School Library Association of New South Wales for service to children’s and young adult literature. He is also an ambassador for the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge. Kostakis was due to appear at the cancelled Byron Writers Festival 2021. Firstly, in the absence of Byron Writers Festival and other literary events in recent times, what projects have taken up your time lately? My big lockdown project has been staring into middle distance, pondering the futility of making plans. I’ve also found time for

writing. I started a new novel in February of last year, so that if we were plunged into another lockdown and tours were cancelled, I wouldn’t feel as sad about it. I was grateful in those first few weeks to have a half-finished project to dive into. I also enlisted a dozen or so authors and put together a virtual festival called Literary Lockdown, a mixture of live panel events and writing workshops to make up for the absence of authors in high schools for Book Week.

How has COVID/lockdown affected your writing life over the last year and a half? One word: terribly. I source so much inspiration from connecting with teens at live events and socialising in person, that early on in 2020, writing felt impossible. I had to find new sources of inspiration. I read more, walked more, traded politics podcasts for audiobooks, and slowly, inspiration came. I had two books due for submission during lockdown, Rebel Gods and The Greatest Hit, and I was running on fumes by the end. A big chunk of my process is stepping away from the computer, preoccupying myself and allowing my subconscious to do the work in the background. Without things to preoccupy myself, I had to find other ways to tease the words out. I became much more of a planner, breaking the story down into bite-sized pieces so the writing was about solving small problems and meeting achievable goals. Otherwise it became too daunting.

Can you name some of the books you read in your youth that had a particular influence on your recent work? Rebel Gods, like its predecessor Monuments, was heavily inspired by the fantasy novels I read in high school. Like any kid with aspirations of becoming a professional writer, I was a big Tolkien fan, but I think Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series had the bigger influence. Pratchett’s work often had something to say, but never at the expense of a good story or humorous set-up, and that’s something I often reflected on when writing my fantasy series.

What key pieces of advice would you give to people aspiring to write YA fiction in an Australian context today? Read. If you think you’ve read enough, read more. There is a rich history of Australian YA fiction, and it’s important to not only know your place in it, but to learn from the stories that have come before you. Read Melina Marchetta, Simmone Howell, Barry Jonsberg, Claire Zorn, Cath Crowley, Ellie Marney, Vikki Wakefield, Shivaun Plozza. Read. Read. Read.

How important is it to you that you are successful in the vast YA market that is the United States? Honestly, my one US release was a total flop. But I made more money from The Sidekicks flopping there than I did from the same book here, where it was a bestseller. So, seeking success in that market is important in a food-on-thetable way. It doesn’t help that the Australian market really is an outpost of the US and UK markets. It’s rare when there’s more than three local titles in the top fifty. That all said, I’m currently wrestling with what it means to write something that, forget being successful in the US market, is actually accepted for publication in that market to begin with. Do I want to write books like that? Am I capable of writing books like that? I don’t have answers yet.

You’ve written both fantasy and realistic fiction, and you have a background in journalism: which mode of writing do you regard as your ‘natural’ preference, the one you feel at home in? On the page, I think I’m most at home writing realistic fiction. My fantasy novels have been described as fantasy novels for people who prefer to read contemporary realism, and I don’t disagree there. I’m big on character and fleshing out quiet moments… But having that said, my past life as a celebrity gossip journalist surfaces occasionally in a pithy comment or two.

Finally, what writing projects are you working on at the moment? I have finished the first draft of my in-case-of-lockdown book, and I’m currently working through a second draft before sending it off to publishers. I’m tempted to write something for younger readers, and I have an idea percolating that it might be time to commit to the page.

For more information on Will Kostakis and his books, visit willkostakis.com.