Last week "The Australian Writer's Marketplace" conducted an online forum with YA author Michael Gerard Bauer and they have now posted some highlights of that session on their website.
Kate: How conscious are you of the influence of your locality when writing?Bauer's 2006 novel Don't Call Me Ishmael won the 2007 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Ethel Turner Prize, and the 2008 Festival Awards for Literature (SA), Children's Literature Award.
MGB: Quite a bit. I taught at Marist Brothers in Brisbane and I based the school setting for "Don't Call me Ishmael" on that. I felt the Ashgrove location a great deal in The Running Man and made a conscious decision to use the real suburb and street names in the story because it was based on some childhood memories of growing up there.Robyn: Do you think having been a teacher has helped you as a writer, and if it has, what have you found most valuable about it?
MGB: Yes, definitely. I think it gave me a good understanding of the people I was writing about. I certainly couldn't have written ishmael as well without drawing on my teaching years. During teaching I also read lots of YA books and loved them. Now when I visit schools to talk I feel very comfortable in that environment.
