Christine Gregory: 'Enter writing competitions, you really have nothing to lose'
BY Emily Powter-Robinson
26th Jun 2024
Christine Gregory studied on our three-month online Writing Your Novel course in 2020. The book she wrote during the course, her debut psychological thriller, The Community, is out now with Ultimo Press.
We spoke to Christine about studying with us during lockdown, international writing friends and entering writing competitions.
You studied on our three-month online Writing Your Novel course in 2020. How did studying with us impact your approach to writing?
That was a turning point in my writing. It forced me to get serious because I had a half-written manuscript when I started the course and set myself the task of having a first draft complete by the end. It helped me to be able to read my work critically, through the process of critiquing other people’s work, you naturally start to read your own with a more critical lens. The quality of writing on those selective courses is very high. That set the bar for me.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met on the course?
I’m very pleased to say yes, I am, and in fact, I had the joy of naming them in the acknowledgments section of my book. We set up a group on Slack at the end of the course and about eight of us are still very active on that. Although we are in different parts of the world, we’ve stayed connected. I’ve become good friends with one of the other Australians on the course. I was recently in London on holiday and met up with another classmate and it was lovely. It’s a really supportive group.
Your debut novel The Community is a fast-paced thriller about fatherhood, family ties and redemption, told through the eyes of a man struggling to make peace with his past. Can you tell us a bit more about the book and the inspiration behind it?
The Community is set in the fictitious town of Steels Creek. It opens with the discovery of a woman’s body floating in a waterhole. On the day the body is found, a local teenager, goes missing. Has she suffered the same fate or, is she involved with the victim’s death?
The book is told from alternating perspectives. Lars Nilsson, is a journalist who has written extensively on police corruption and organised crime and who lives in Steels Creek.
The other point of view character is local police Sergeant Neil Davis. He has his own personal and professional issues at stake and is curious about one of the detectives assigned to the case who has been the subject of rumours related to corruption. These two storylines collide when Lars realises that this is the same detective who tried to bring him down five years earlier.
The idea for The Community was brewing for a number of years. When I was a university student in Brisbane, I spent time visiting an intentional community on the Sunshine Coast hinterland called Starlight. It’s the second oldest commune in Australia and I always wanted to write a book set there. In late 2019, I was in a writing workshop and I wrote the opening. As soon as I wrote it, I knew I’d finally found the story to match my location.
You were formerly an international aid worker and now work as a director in a national-not for-profit, working on the prevention of violence against women and children. To what extent does your work inform your fiction writing?
To some degree, it informs my approach to the subject matter of violence against women. I’m careful of how I represent the issue. I’m conscious of the stereotypes and tropes and I don’t want to perpetuate them. I’m not particularly a fan of graphic violence in books. Sometimes it serves a purpose but if it’s not done well, it really is just a shock tactic. The threat of violence is ever present in The Community, but mostly it’s implied. Physical violence is only one form of violence, and my novel deals with some of those other, insidious aspects including coercive control and emotional abuse. I also did not want the women to be faceless characters whose only purpose to the story is in setting up a mystery. The women are not supporting actors. They have agency and we are meant to care about what happens to them.
An earlier version of The Community was runner up for the 2022 Banjo Prize. You have also previously been shortlisted in the Sisters in Crime, Scarlett Stiletto Awards. Do you have any advice to share with the aspiring authors reading this, particularly those who are thinking of entering a writing competition?
Competitions are a good way to get your writing noticed. It also gives you a hard deadline. I honestly did not expect to be shortlisted for the Banjo Prize. It was such a huge confidence builder. I was almost ready to bin the manuscript at that point and thank God I didn’t. While I didn’t end up with that publisher the feedback was marvellous. To any aspiring writers I’d say absolutely enter competitions, you really have nothing to lose.
You studied with us during lockdown, how did you stay motivated?
I was working a full-time job and had children doing homeschooling during lockdown so actually, the course was a great motivator to do something for myself that took me away from the day-to-day drudgery. Every day I snuck down to my study in the early morning and worked on the manuscript for an hour or two before everyone got up. I had nowhere to go physically, so I went to this tropical location in my mind. Honestly, it was a joy.
Finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
I’m working on a second book at the moment. It’s a standalone. I’m trying to get a draft finished to send to my agent before the end of the year but I might need a self-imposed lockdown to get it done!
The Community is out now!