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Firstly, tell us about Christina Carlisle the person: I live in Adelaide in South Australia. I'm British by birth but arrived in Australia in 1966 and I'm a "dinkie di" Aussie now. My husband Peter and I have one grown-up daughter Jodie, who works for an international recruitment company. Peter is a systems analyser – sounds good, doesn’t it? A multiple choice question: have you always been a writer and if not, what did you do before and what got you started on writing? No, I haven’t always been a writer. I have had a number of jobs including a civil engineering drafter, a flight attendant, a restaurateur and my last job was as the Director of Public Relations for the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, a position I held for 22 years. I resigned to be a full time romance and crime writer in July this year. My career as a writer began as a bet with two friends one New Year's Eve in 1992, after quite a lot of bubbles, that one of us could write a romance novel. Little did we know how hard it was going to be. I had a bad lapse in my writing for about five years when my friend, and now my agent, set up the Australian Chapter of the Romance Writers of America. It was a HUGE job and grew like topsy taking a lot of our time. But, although it stalled my novel writing, I learnt heaps through this association. The bragging part, tell us what you’ve written, what books or other work you have out: I had my first two books accepted in 2003 by a Canadian e-book publisher. They were both romances. Unfortunately, this publisher went bust so my agent and I studied the market very carefully and directed my work to other publishers. New Concepts Publishing accepted "Husband for Hire" in 2005 and this has been a great seller for me going to Number One on the Fictionwise Charts. I followed up with "Wade's Woman" (also a # One) and "Alaskan Fire" – all with New Concepts. In 2006, Books Unbound published "Operation Impostor" and New Concepts brought out "Outback Bride." All of these novels are e-books but "Husband for Hire" has gone into print as a trade paperback selling in major book stores while "Wade's Woman" and "Alaskan Fire" were placed into a two novel Anthology under the title "Wildfire" and is also available in most stores. In 2007, I have a novel coming out with Whiskey Creek Press called "Charlotte." I have written several non-fiction books which are for sale through my web site being Sponsorship Made Easy, Working with the Media; Bequests and I assisted two colleagues to write The Media Works. What genre (or type of books) do you write? Do you stick to just one genre? So far I have written only contemporary romance and enjoy this genre very much. Normally my books have a certain amount of suspense in them and three of them have a medical background. What gives you the inspiration to write, where do the ideas come from? I am constantly swamped with ideas, which friends and family members perhaps don’t realise they are providing. Resigning from my work as PR Director for the hospital has given me more thinking time and I have so many ideas that I have a special "plot" file that I have established so I don’t forget any of them. Was there a particular inspiration behind your latest book? My agent has just submitted another romance, which is with New Concepts at present waiting consideration. It's called "Princess for Sale" and it was inspired by the huge amount of publicity surrounding Princess Mary and Prince Frederick – not that I think Mary's for sale! Taking a pinch of the love story between Princess Grace and Prince Rainier and my book gradually evolved. I hope New Concepts like it. The book I am working on at the moment is called "Kill-Me-Quick" and is my first mystery/thriller. It was inspired by my visit to the Lake District last year when I stayed in a huge mansion with lawns running down to Lake Windermere and woods surrounding the property. My heroine is murdered at the beginning of the book – that’s all I can tell you for now! Do you ever run out of ideas, or suffer from ‘writers block’? No. I haven’t yet. As I mentioned earlier I can procrastinate but this is another way of giving me thinking time. That's my excuse anyway! I am a compulsive plotter and plan in detail chapter by chapter – although the plot can still change as I write and that is what keeps me intrigued. It seems that these days, writers need to promote themselves. What do you do for promotion? I have accomplished one book signing in Borders in Adelaide, which was very successful and I'll probably do another one in a couple of months. My main area of promotion is public speaking when I promote the books and actually sell them after my talk. I try to make things light and funny and certainly don’t put pressure on people to buy my books. I have business cards, letterheads and a bank account all set out in Christina Carlisle's colours and font style. I haven’t run any competitions on my web site as yet and must admit I think I could do a lot more in this area. After years of working with journalists, I am very comfortable in producing publicity blurbs but I don’t over do this and wait until there is hopefully something worth boasting about! Do you have a website? Yes. My web site address is www.christinacarlisle.com I think it is important to have a web site these days. It gives people the opportunity of knowing more about you and deciding whether they like you as well as your books. On my web site, I talk about my travels and how they connect with my books – there is a photo gallery and guest book. It is an easy site to negotiate, which I think is important.It is a very good information and selling tool and adds to the author's professionalism. My web site was designed by a uni student working for her multi media studies degree and it is kept up to date by my nephew who is an absolute whiz with any IT requirements. So what is your routine for writing? I try to stick to a daily nine-to-five routine for writing but I can easily be distracted or I will procrastinate. This is a problem for me. It's great when an editor or publisher gives me a deadline then I go like hell and get it done – because I have to. I write the first draft of a book chapter by chapter in long hand and then transfer each chapter to the computer editing as I go, making this a second draft. Of course you’d tell us you’re always learning; how, where and what do you do for this? I have a very essential monthly one-to-one workshop with my agent, who is also a superb editor and is very knowledgeable about the industry. I email her an agenda and my latest work a week prior to our get-together and then we spend several hours going through it and making decisions. We have known each other a long time and have an excellent understanding. I also attend writers' seminars, talks, workshops and I often give lectures, which means you have to know your stuff so it makes me study even harder so I don’t get caught out! Where can we get copies of your books? My books can be bought through the publishers which are New Concepts www.newconceptspublishing.com and Books Unbound www.booksunbound.com or some through my web site www.christinacarlisle.com.The books in hard print are available through Amazon.com; Barnes & Noble; Walden Books; Powell Books; Borders. And the long-term goals for Christina Carlisle? I have the opportunity to submit to a top literary agent in the States and I am preparing a submission for him as we speak. He not only handles great authors such as John Updike and Anne Perry but packages novels to be made into films. He has been responsible for the Witches of Eastwick; Amadeus and Snow Falling on Cedars, just for starters. So I hope he will be interested in me! I am also in contact with an Emmy Award winning producer who is interested in my books for possible television movies – so fingers crossed. I love writing romance but I am leaning more towards the mystery/thriller and may very well concentrate on this genre in the future. But, I guess as writers we are so lucky – the world is our oyster. Thank you so much for allowing me to give this interview. I think the Aussie Authors web site is superb and it is so great that we, as authors, are given this opportunity to reach out.
Interviewed by Sarah Cook, September 2006.
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