Josephine Moon's first novel, The Tea Chest (2014), delighted readers with its strong heroine and enchanting story. It became an instant success. Her second novel, The Chocolate Promise (2015), was a love-story with a difference set in luscious Provence and rural Tasmania and was also a bestseller. The Beekeeper's Secret, a novel of family and the happiness, guilt and grief that can lie within them, has just been released. You can buy it here.
Moon selects the five books that inspired her to become a writer.
The Silver Brumby series, by Elyne Mitchell
Written from the point of view of the horses, this series had me mesmerised from the first words. As a diehard tragic horse lover, particularly of grey horses, this book took me deep into the world of wild horses in Australia and made me a reader, which is of course the first prerequisite for being a writer. (I have many fond memories of racing to my school library with my cotton library bag swinging by my side, my heart fluttering, wondering of the next book would be on the shelf.) The Australian landscapes let my imagination play in my backyard. In fact, I wrote my first book at the age of nine, entitled "Starlight the Brumby". Gee, I wonder what influenced that!
James Herriot's Vet Stories
My sister gave me this collection of Herriot's stories when I turned sixteen and today it is battered and spineless but still sits with pride on my animal-loving heart's bookcase. I had always wanted to be a vet, but at sixteen I came face-to-face with physics (at that time a prerequisite for entry to veterinary science) and knew that there was no way on this earth I was ever going to get along with that subject. I had to withdraw and it broke my heart. My lifelong dream was crushed. But then my sister gave me this book, and I devoured it, and read it over and over and what it taught me most was that I could love animals and I could have a career that involved them; it's just that it would be a career with words not scalpels! Aside from teaching me that as a writer I could write about whatever me heart desired, Herriot's depictions of village life in rural England captivated me and still very much influence my writing today.
The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron
Seriously, I have spoken about this book so much over the years I should really be on commission. This is the book that made me a writer. Or perhaps more specifically, the book that made me an artist. This is not a technical book about writing or any other craft. This is a 12-week course in creative recovery, which I completed with a group of fellow artistic types back around 2002. We met once a week on a Thursday night to discuss our progress with the readings, the activities, the morning pages and the artist dates that were set in each chapter of our recovery. Everything I know about being a writer (as opposed to 'how to write), comes from this book. It's my writing bible. It is yellowed and crumpled and sits nearby while I write, and it's to its pages I turn when I feel I've hit an emotional stumbling block in my journey. Hand on my heart, it changed my life.
Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
This book, on the other hand, taught me much of what I know about how to structure a book for a commercial (i.e. financial) success. This is actually a book about how to write a blockbusting screenplay but much of the information can translate to commercial fiction too. It taught me how to navigate the tricky 'saggy middle' of a book, how to stop waffling and how to keep the pace moving forward. It totally changed the way I looked at planning my books. And it must have worked because I used it for the first time to plot out The Tea Chest and it sold off the second draft.
Zigzag Street by Nick Earls
Touted as the book that started it all for Nick Earls, it was also the book that started the idea for me that my hometown of Brisbane--my own very backyard--was worthy of writing about. This book is funny, moving and so very 'Brisbane'. At a time when many artists were fleeing Australia to work overseas, Nick Earls firmly claimed the beauty of what we've got right here and made it his trademark. Over the years, while I was trying to establish myself as a career writer, his books (and his commercial success) convinced me that it was okay and actually important to write stories set right here. Part of The Tea Chest is set in Brisbane and I give thanks to Nick for inspiration and encouragement to do that.
