Anna Johnston

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Laura: Hi Anna, welcome to Watch for Next Podcast.

Anna Johnston: Thank you so much for having me.

Laura: So happy to have you here. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh

Anna Johnston: I am a former baby, aspiring octogenarian, and an Australian fiction writer with a love for the heartfelt and hilarious. I'm based in Melbourne, Australia, and I am the author of The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife .

Laura: my gosh, I am so excited to chat with you. I love this aspiring octogenarian. I'm like, yeah, I would aspire to do that.

Anna Johnston: Yeah,

Laura: I'm like halfway through and I'm like, 40 more years will be a good time to do so.

Anna Johnston: I, I turned 41 this year and I was really excited because it meant that I was over halfway to my goal. So,

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. I have to tell you, the forties are much better than the thirties and the twenties and all the like, it gets, and so I can imagine when you turn 80, it's like, this is a wonderful time.

Anna Johnston: yeah. And what a gift to turn 80. Not everyone gets to do it. So.[00:01:00]

Laura: Yep. So, oh, so exciting. So let's talk about your writing journey. What, when did you get started? Like, I know you were starting from a little child, just starting to write, stories and imagining, but when did you like, talk to us about that journey? Yeah. Absolutely.

Anna Johnston: Well, so my love for writing really came from childhood where, when most kids were playing with Lego or Barbies, my best friend and I would write plays for hours and hours. We just loved writing plays and little films that we would film. And I'd always loved creative writing at school but I ended up, getting into medical school and sort of going down that path.

Anna Johnston: Writing wise though, it was during the pandemic here in Melbourne, we had one of the longest lockdowns in the world. And so like many people, I made a sourdough starter. And I also began writing. So I enrolled in a couple of online writing courses which were a really great way to connect with other writers and just to [00:02:00] be inspired to, to begin writing and that's where it started.

Anna Johnston: And here we are now.

Laura: here we are now, like four years later, you have a little baby, so, so talk to us about the, talk to us about your debut novel, The Borrowed Life of Fredderick Fyfe. What is the elevator pitch and like, what led you to start, like you told us you wrote it during the pandemic, but like, how do you kept yourself motivated?

Laura: Because I feel like it probably was an escape, was it plus an escape from, the reality that we're living in that time.

Anna Johnston: yeah, I guess so. A little bit. So yes, the elevator pitch is it's about a bizarre case of mistaken identity that gives a desperately lonely old man one last chance at being part of a family.

Laura: Yeah,

Anna Johnston: yeah,

Anna Johnston: so, Fred the main character's name is Fred, and he is the nicest man that you will ever meet. He's [00:03:00] incredibly kind. But when we meet Fred, he is desperately lonely, he's grief stricken, he's a widow, and he's. on the brink of homelessness. But his luck changes when in a, in this really zany case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of cranky resident Bernard Greer at the local nursing home.

Anna Johnston: And Fred tries to explain what's happened. Cause he's a very honest man, but because Bernard had the early signs of dementia He's completely dismissed. And so eventually, yeah, Fred is in the nursing home. He's suddenly got accommodation that he desperately needs and he's got warm meals, but most importantly, the chance to connect and to be part of a community and a family again.

Anna Johnston: And as he walks in Bernard's shoes, he learns more about his past and what it would take to return a broken life. To better in better condition than how he [00:04:00] found it.

Laura: Yeah, so what was the process of writing this novel? Like, putting it all together, like, from the idea to concept? Was it the characters who came first? Was it just the identity? Like, this whole plot point to do? Because I know you incorporated some twists and turns for your idea of grand fiction, but thinking about uplifting, like, uplift.

Anna Johnston: Yes. Yes.

Laura: yeah.

Anna Johnston: the story began with the creation of my protagonist who not only shares my late grandfather's name, but also he's incredibly kind and selfless nature. He was my best friend and I ended up leaving a potential career in medicine to go and work in his nursing home when he was diagnosed with dementia. Having worked in aged care that provided the setting. And my grandfather was also an incredibly honest man, so much so that he would even struggle to play a card game that required any kind of bluffing or cheating. [00:05:00] And so plot stems from conflict. And so I began to ponder what would happen if you put this terribly honest man in a situation where he was desperate enough That he had to deceive if he believed that he wasn't hurting anyone, which is the case as readers will find out.

Anna Johnston: And so, and I've always been fascinated by cases of mistaken identity. And I also wanted to highlight the invisibility of older people as sometimes happens in a nursing home, so he does look a lot like this other man, but still he's, sort of quite dismissed. So that that's where the plot idea grew and yeah, sort of went from there.

Anna Johnston: I found it very important to learn a lot about structure, you really need those really strong structural points to be able to hold up. 100, 000 words. But then as far as, getting in between those points what they call a bit of a panzer. So, getting to know the plot as you [00:06:00] write and getting to know the characters, sort of sitting down with them.

Anna Johnston: A huge part of the writing process for me is as friends and family would tell you, I'm a major empath, that doesn't just stop with real human beings. It really extends to my characters. So I become very emotionally attached and I can often be found weeping at the computer. So I'm not sure whether that makes for good writing or I need to get professional help or, possibly Both.

Anna Johnston: But I feel that without that emotional connection, I would find it very hard to write. So, I'm also, I adore theater and screenplay and so I'm a very visual person and when I write, I see. The scenes play out like a movie in my head, complete with a cinematic soundtrack. So yeah, it's a very visual process.

Laura: Oh my gosh, so I'm assuming, did you have a playlist or like a soundtrack to get you through some scenes? I'm like, Hey, the song can be like, [00:07:00] Hey, I can be in that place,

Anna Johnston: I kind of mainly just had the one song and I would like my daughters would laugh at me because I'd put it on in the car and like, I would be weeping in the car. It was it was John Legend's All of Me, so, it's a very but yeah, there's a specific scene in mind. I won't go into any spoilers, but yeah, it's a very very moving song for a very moving scene.

Anna Johnston: So,

Laura: so you mentioned that you're an empath and sometimes not just with characters that you write in your car just you read, like, and I love the fact that you're writing for, for commercial fiction, for endings that are not, they're not happily, like, essentially like romance, happily, we're after, but for other relationships and other things, like, is that is a big part of it.

Laura: It's probably because you're like, I don't want to kill this person,

Anna Johnston: my favorite books are the ones with happy endings. I have to admit, and the same with movies, like if there's an amazing movie, but then suddenly everyone dies at the end, [00:08:00] I really find it really frustrating. Cause I'm like, Oh so there is a lot of sadness, obviously in the book.

Anna Johnston: There is sadness and heartbreak, but yeah, any book that I write, I can tell you it's going to, it's going to end happily.

Laura: is, it's totally fine. Someone who has anxiety, who needs to, who used to read At the end of the book, I was like, I want to make sure we end up fine. Like, no one dies. Like, my biggest pet peeve, personally, is when they kill off a character in the last word, last chapter. I'm like, I need to grieve. I need to feel, understand.

Laura: Like, you can't leave me hanging there.

Anna Johnston: Absolutely. I almost feel like, just rewriting those last few pages or like, if I've seen a movie, I choose to imagine a different ending.

Laura: Yes, I am, like, fan fiction ed. Like, I'm trying to write my own ending.

Anna Johnston: that's right. Choose your own adventure.

Laura: Yes. So, all right, so let's talk some Booker One Nations. I think you have like some older characters who [00:09:00] deserve love, and I think in some ways we need to. They have wisdom, they have knowledge, they have seen the world in many years. I'm older now, so I'm like, yes, I need to understand. Talk to your Booker One Nations, because you have some really good ones to share with us.

Laura: Yeah,

Anna Johnston: books I've chosen to recommend do all have older protagonists. And when I say older, I do mean sort of around the 80 plus genre. I think, there's a lot of discussion around, that there are a lot of lists that include older characters, but they include, incredible characters like a man called Uwe, but he's only 59 or Harold Fry, another amazing character, but he's 65.

Anna Johnston: So, I'm talking about, the people that could be Uwe's parents in that sort of generation. And I've also chosen to, yeah, to sort of focus on, there are a lot of books and a lot of movies where older [00:10:00] people are you. Kind of valued or interesting because that they can still do the things that younger people do, like you'll see, old men going into space or, women who are running businesses at 80.

Anna Johnston: But the books that I like to explore are what happens when you can no longer, do those things, are you still worthy of being the hero of your own story? And I would say, absolutely. So that, yeah, the first one is a memoir that probably many people have heard of, which is the happiest man on earth by Eddie Jacku.

Anna Johnston: It's an incredible memoir of this man who survived the Holocaust and then decided that he would, focused his life on smiling every day and practicing gratitude. It's an incredibly moving book. And so I highly recommend that he's now passed away, but you know, he died believing that he was the happiest man on earth, despite what he had done.

Anna Johnston: Another one of my favorite [00:11:00] books is Maureen Frye's and the Angel of the North by Rachel Joyce. So Maureen is Harold's wife and we all know and love Harold Frye. And Maureen, when we meet her during Harold Frye, she's almost the antagonist. She's sort of the, she's cold she's stagnant, she's pessimistic.

Anna Johnston: This book is the third in the trilogy and it takes place when she's sort of, approaching her 80s or, mid seventies. And she goes on her own journey. And. Unlike Harold, who's, who's really endearing and, likes talking to people, she really struggles. And this book really just beautifully captures the inner dialogue of this woman as she, yeah, she goes on this journey.

Anna Johnston: She's experienced trauma in her life, but she really highlights the capacity for emotional growth and healing at any age. So, if I were to reach that age and have gone through trauma [00:12:00] like that, I would love to think that it was still possible to heal and to grow and to change.

Anna Johnston: Yeah, so another one is the 100 years of Lenny and Margot by Marianne Cronin. It's a beautiful, it's a very sad story, but it's also filled with hope. It's about a 17 year old with terminal cancer. called Lenny, and she meets this older woman, Margo, in the hospital art room, and they know that their combined ages are a hundred, so they decide to tell a hundred stories of their lives through paintings and stories.

Anna Johnston: And it's just a beautiful example of, the influence that an older person can have in a younger person's life. Yeah. Do you want me to keep going? How many do you want me

Laura: have a couple more. So I just thought

Anna Johnston: sure. So, another one that I love is by Australian author, Craig Silvey. It's called Honey Bee. And it's about a [00:13:00] teenager who is struggling with gender identity and a troubled home life.

Anna Johnston: And the teenager Sam meets a man in his eighties called Vic and they meet on a bridge from which they are both planning to jump. So, it's a very confronting opening, but they sort of bounded by their struggles and it's just this beautiful story. They hold space for one another and I really love that Vic yeah, who is in his eighties.

Anna Johnston: ignores the outdated views on gender from his generation. And he just displays this quiet, unconditional love and support. And he supports Sam and, it's just, it's a beautiful story. And, Yes the last one is All the Lonely People by, by Mike Gale. It has Hubert, who's this older gentleman, his daughter lives on the other side [00:14:00] of the world.

Anna Johnston: And because he doesn't want her to worry, he sort of has made up this very active social life that he tells her about. But suddenly the daughter. announces that she's coming to visit. And so he has to suddenly decide to step outside of his comfort zone. He's very isolated, in his home in London and yeah, he's a Jamaican immigrant.

Anna Johnston: There's all this, Background information there, but he, yeah, he steps out. He shows courage in, in embracing the world and making friendships in his 80s. So yeah they're all my my book recommendations. There's many more, but that, that will yeah,

Laura: this is like perfect companion to the borrow life or five, like to read afterwards. I think I'm really excited for all the lonely people, but my gale, like that one, I'm really excited for that one. So I'm going to pick that one up. But these are great recommendations and it's a great way to.

Laura: Look at, to see, like, [00:15:00] there's more to discover, like, give you an opportunity,

Anna Johnston: Absolutely.

Laura: So, Anna, tell us we can find you online.

Anna Johnston: Oh, where you, yes. So my website is Anna Johnston author.com. Johnston is J-O-H-N-S-T-O-N. Even my dad still spells it wrong, so I always say that I'm on Instagram at Anna Johnston, author and Facebook, Anna Johnston, author

Laura: awesome. Anna, for being in the show.

Anna Johnston: It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.