Tom Conyers

I grew up in the Adelaide Hills, Australia, on a farm of a hundred acres. There was a creek running through the property. In summer, it might be no more than a succession of pools. In winter, it could burst its banks, becoming a raging river. We had sheep whose wool we'd sell. We owned several horses. We also had dogs, cats, and three tamed Magpies that would fly down from their trees in the morning. Although much of the land was cleared, one whole hill was still covered in native forest. There were ruins and relics leftover from the settler days: a stone house, an old pump, the remains of a rock bridge, and traces of roads. The Aboriginal name for the place was Murrumboola, which means 'waterhole of snakes'. Indeed, there were a great many snakes. During summer, every time you went for a walk, you could almost be guaranteed to see one.

Strangely, I was not frightened of them. But every three months, I'd dream I was going for a walk and I'd see a snake and quickly step onto a rock. I'd then see another snake under the rock, and so jump to a different rock. Before I knew it, there were snakes everywhere, like the Egyptian tomb in Raiders of the Lost Ark. So although outwardly I didn't show much fear, all those snake encounters must have had a cumulative build-up in my mind, manifesting my fear in the form of these quarterly nightmares. I do love snakes, though, but they need to be left alone. For me, growing up on a farm meant at an early age I had to get good at creating my own entertainment, my own games, my own world. Writing novels is really just the logical development of those formative years.

I still dream about that farm and would one day dearly love to live in the country again.

I've always written. I still have stories I wrote when I was a kid. But I didn't think of myself as a writer till much later, in my twenties. Oddly, in school, I jotted down a lot of notes and poems and stories with the idea that I could one day hand them to an author to develop. I've always created lots of art as well, and most people at the time viewed my art as my calling, which is perhaps why it took me a while to accept that the writing side to me had equal validity. Even once I accepted I was a writer, for a long time I thought I'd only write one play, one novel, etc. But even as I wrote my first play and novel ('Morse Code for Cats'), I was working on others. For a long time now I haven't asked myself whether I'm a writer or not. I just find myself writing all the time, which I guess is as clear an answer as any.