The Booktopia Book Guru asks
Matthew Reilly
bestselling author of the Scarecrow novels -Scarecrow And The Army Of Thieves, Scarecrow, Area 7, and Ice Station – and many more
Ten Terrifying Questions
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1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?
I was born and raised in Willoughby, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. I went to St Thomas’ Primary School until Year 3, and then to St Aloysius’ College from Year 4 to Year 12 (yes, I had very Catholic parents!). I then went to the University of NSW where I got degrees in Law and Arts.
2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?
At 12, I wanted to be an action movie director, because I just ate up action movies; I loved sitting in a darkened cinema, gazing up at the screen, and being swept away by a rollercoaster ride of thrills and twists.
At 18, I wanted to be an action movie writer-director, because I realised that it was the writer who initiated the stories that I watched on screen. The director might paint the visual picture, but it was the writer who provided the story.
At 30, I just wanted to be a writer of novels and screenplays (as I am now 37, this still applies!). I simply love writing novels—novels are more pliable than movie screenplays, you do more in them, and I particularly like the idea that my words go directly to the reader; there is no director who stands between me and the reader. If someone reads my books quickly (which is what I want), it’s because I put the words down in a certain way, nothing else.
I still love movies, but my desire to be a director of them has passed—I’d rather be a producer, watching over a project I have written, rather than be the guy filming every scene. Directing movies, I have discovered, is like building a (more…)
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Filed under: Action, Adventure, Australian Author, Author Interview, Crime/Thriller, Writing Style, Writing tips | Tagged: Area 7, Ice Station, Matthew Reilly, Scarecrow, Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves, Ten Terrifying Questions | 3 Comments »
Andrew Cattanach
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John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru
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Haylee Nash
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Toni Whitmont
When you follow John Birmingham on Twitter you sometimes feel as if you are in the delivery room as he gives birth, screaming blue bloody murder, to his blockbuster novels. You’re not exactly the paediatrician nor the midwife offering practical assistance, you’re not even a member of the family standing anxiously by (you’re not even a third cousin twice removed) - actually, to be honest, no one quite knows what you’re doing there in the delivery room, standing there awkwardly wearing your twitter handle. But no matter, when that fat squealing tome emerges, all sharp edges and explosions from the frightening recesses of John Birmingham’s creative womb, all is forgotten, for Birmingham has done it again. He has delivered.
