Australian writer Morris Gleitzman was interviewed on the ABC TV program "Talking Heads" last night. Gleitzman is the author of such books as Once, Then, Toad Rage, and Bumface. If you missed it you can watch the program again via the ABC's iView (though you'll have to search for it on the main page as it seems impossible to link to a specific program), or read a transcript of the interview.
PETER THOMPSON: So did you find with those early books that you were sort of leap-frogging about your own recognition of what was possible?
MORRIS GLEITZMAN: Yeah, absolutely, because up until then I'd always - in the back of my mind when I was having story ideas, I was having to think, "Well, what sort of budget is this going to be? Is it - if it's fitting into a TV series, I'm gonna have to tell this story using existing characters. If it's gonna be an Australian movie, up to a certain - beyond a certain budget it's gonna need an American star, so can I put an American character in this story?" Suddenly, writing books, there was none of that, because on the page no one idea costs any more to write or read than any other idea. So, my first few books included a story, Two Weeks with the Queen - a boy whose younger brother is discovered to be very seriously ill and Colin, the main character, is sent off to London so he won't have to witness his younger brother's death and he decides to borrow the Queen's family doctor to try and cure his brother and he tries to climb over the back wall of Buckingham Palace -
PETER THOMPSON: Obviously unaffordable from a film point of view.
MORRIS GLEITZMAN: Well, difficult, difficult, yeah. I think the third or fourth book I wrote, Blabbermouth, is about a girl unable to physically speak. The whole book is a kind of thought monologue by the character, and it would be a difficult thing to do on the screen. They had to use voiceover and various other techniques when they did adapt it for the screen.
