To write a book, Launceston author Stephanie Parkyn found she needed to read a lot of them.
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Her yet-to-be-launched novel Into the World follows the life of Marie-Louise Girardin, a French woman who escaped the French Revolution and her family by disguising herself as a man and joining an exploration expedition to Van Diemen’s land.
Inspired by a true story, it took seven years to research, write and craft along with plenty of interaction with her editors from Allen and Unwin.
Parkyn does not have the most traditional background for writing novels, with a PHD in biological sciences and a career as a freshwater ecologist.
But she developed her passion when she first started to write short stories as a nine-year-old.
“I’ve wanted to write, ever since I was a little kid,” Parkyn said.
“Science is also creative, but it’s a very structured way of writing.”
While working as a scientist, she took the leap and started writing creatively on a different story.
It was her move from Christchurch, New Zealand, to Tasmania several years ago that freed her up to try different courses and start writing more.
“When you move to a new place, you’re really exploring everything about it, you’re reading lots about the area and that’s when I came across the story of these explorers who came to lower South Eastern Tasmania,” she said.
Parkyn found different pieces of the explorers’ lives were scattered throughout Tasmania, on plaques and in pages, detailing their quotes and love of ecology.
The French scientists and Australian Aboriginals appeared to have a mutually curious relationship because they were not seeking to colonise, she said.
“Then I discovered there was a woman, dressed a man who was on the ship,” she said.
Fortunately Parkyn could explore the journey and snippets of her life through journal entries and historical accounts.
The back story was largely invented, but Parkyn also weaved in facts and information she knew about the time.
“You’re changing the accounts of males’ expeditions to what her view point might have been and how she could reasonably see it as a steward,” Parkyn said.
“One of the things I quite liked about the book was how it was a journey of scientific enlightenment and discovery, but I had a character who I also wanted to take on a journey of realising she had her own power over herself and self-awareness.
“When she does interact with them, she is seeing them from outside, from a non-scientist point of view.
“The thing I want to share about science in this is the value of curiosity, wonder and discovery and finding something unknown. You don’t have to be trained in science to have that.”
She hoped readers would discover something new about themselves, others or about the world.
- Stephanie Parkyn will launch her novel 'Into the World' at Petrarch's Bookshop on December 1 at 6pm. She will be in conversation with Dr Shirley Patton.