C S Burrough interviewed by Festivale Online Magazine.

Festivale Online Magazine Interview

C S Burrough: answers the Usual Questions

According to the author, 'I'm a Sydneysider who writes. I love cats, sunshine and beaches and read a lot. My name is Colin.' Colin's latest novel, Or Forever Be Damned, is being published in July 2014 (e-book) and September 2014 (paperback) by Silky Oak Press, and will be available on Amazon and other leading e-retailers.

 

Has your interaction with fans, for example, at conventions, affected your work?

I avoid conventions like the plague, would rather stick needles into my eyeballs. Love interacting with readers online though, I feed on it to aid writer's block.

 

Is there any particular incident (a letter, a meeting, a comment that stands out?

 

After someone recently reread my 1995 memoir, she commented that I should maybe combine my obsession with historical detail with my theatrical working experience to pen a novel. That was the inspiration for my theatrical historical, Or Forever Be Damned.

 

Do you have a favourite author or book (or writer or film or series) that has influenced you or that you return to?

 

Most of Jean Rhys' works, especially her earlier ones. From about age four her take on the world was as if seen through the bottom of an empty gin bottle.

 

Who is the person you would most like to be trapped in a lift with? or a spaceship?

 

Kath Day-Knight from Kath & Kim TV sitcom.

 

Who is the person you would most DISlike to be trapped in a lift with? Or a spaceship?

 

Kath Day-Knight's daughter, Kim Craig náe Day.

 

What would you pack for space? (Is there a food, beverage, book, teddy bear, etc that you couldn't do without?)

 

Nicotine lozenges, Nescafe Blend 43 and my Kindle Paperwhite 3G.

 

What is the most important thing you would like to get/achieve from your work?

 

To encourage the diminishing pastime of reading literature instead of social media pages.

 

What is the special satisfaction of your work?

 

Knowing someone has read my imagination, that I've communicated something in a way I can't achieve in real time dialogue.

 

 

Just the facts:

Born: UK, nineteen-fifty-something.

Resides: Sydney, Australia.

Bibliography/Awards:

Box and Cotton -- Australian Short Stories # 27 1989.

Just Up the Road -- Outrage anthology 1994.

Keeping the Family Name -- autiobiographical novel 1995.

Keeping Up Appearances -- column in Capital Q Weekly 1995 -- 1998.

Not Grunting, Squealing -- novella serialised in SX News 23 instalments 2001.

Parlour -- I Am a Camera anthology 2009.

Or Forever Be Damned -- historical novel 2014.

Or Forever Be Damned book trailer

Paperback cover art for my novel, Or Forever Be Damned, by Sydney's own Shayne Chester.

Many thanks Shayne, this perfectly expresses my vision of the story.


Click on image for synopsis.

Released internationally on Amazon August 2014 (Ebook) then September (paperback) by Silky Oak Press - for fuller story synopsis see this book's page on their site. Online launch event will be on Facebook, invites will be sent to those who have liked my official Facebook page, look forward to seeing you all. 

My novel: Or Forever be Damned

Silky Oak Press will soon publish my new novel, Or Forever Be Damned, on Amazon 5 August 2014 (Ebook) and September (paperback).



Mona — a poor but respectable Protestant teenaged factory girl, is tormented by sibling rivalry over her favoured artistic younger brother, Ambrose. Untrained and against parental orders, stagestruck Mona resolves to outshine Ambrose, furtively pursuing a theatrical career. Into her journey, Mona unearths her younger bête noire, Kat — a Catholic rough-diamond child-veteran entertainer who, conversely, yearns to escape theatre life.

 So begins their lifelong enmity.

Or Forever Be Damned is an historical saga spanning eight decades, following the lives and families of two very different women who escape the slums of northern England’s ‘Cottonopolis’, Salford in the 1930′s Slump — a simmering irrational enmity that lives on in modern day Australia.

My review of Julian Wild's Triple Threat.

Triple Threat

by Julian Wild

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not usually a crime reader, I was drawn to Triple Threat's theatrical setting and period, having been there, in West End theatre life, in 1983. In fact, on one particular show mentioned in Triple Threat!

I (or my imagination) 'recognized' numerous scenes, addresses and venues alluded to, interior and exterior. Quickly lured into the plot by these elements, I was further entranced as the authentic backstage banter and protocols confirmed this was written by a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who had, like myself, been there and walked uniquely special, at times torturously challenging, professional path. It spoke to me directly. The characters, similarly, all rang eerily true for me!

I appreciated protagonist Jon's 'journey' in the parallel literal and metaphorical senses. His inevitable young existentialist contemplations on a future in a magical yet uncertain industry, and his beautiful scenic geographical route taken after rapidly exiting his professional world in flurry of bafflement, resonated nostalgically for this native northern English expatriate.

It was like that trip 'back home' I've never actually taken since relocating to the southern hemisphere decades ago. The wondrous British countryside, its history, the regional dialects and welcoming faces (the bad eggs you encounter along the road notwithstanding) all contributed to a great ride for this reader.

After guessing throughout 'whodunit', it turned out I was close to spot on, which is reassuring should I venture further into this genre. It was neither too easy nor too impenetrable to fathom. Julian Wild's raw narrative stylistics are fresh and unpretentious, making for an ideal bedtime read. Throughout, I heard perhaps unintentional 1980s echoes of the great J.B. Priestly's pre-WWI 'Lost Empires' which I similarly liked for all the same reasons.

Triple Threat was a welcome and refreshing change and I look fondly forward to its sequels.


View all my reviews