All about the books Silver Linings and Mim and the Vicious Vendetta
Who is Katrina Nannestad?
Katrina Nannestad is an Australian author. She grew up in country New South Wales in a neighbourhood stuffed full of happy children. She celebrates family, friendship and belonging in her writing. She also loves creating stories that bring joy to other people’s lives.
What is Silver Linings about?
Nettie Sweeney has a dad, three big sisters, a farm full of cows and a cat called Mittens. But it’s not enough. She longs for a mother. One with a gentle touch and sparkles in her eyes. Instead, she has Aunty Edith with slappy hands, a sharp tongue and the disturbing belief that peas are proper food.
When Dad marries Alice, all Nettie’s dreams come true. The Sweeney home overflows with laughter, love and, in time, a baby brother. Billy. The light of Nettie’s life.
Then tragedy strikes. The Sweeney family crumbles. Nettie tries to make things right, but has she made everything so much worse?
From multi-award-winning Australian author Katrina Nannestad comes a heartbreakingly beautiful and uplifting historical novel. Life and death. Weddings and floods. Coronation joy and post-war grief. Nettie Sweeney and her community experience it all. Together. With humour, kindness and love.
What is Mim and the Vicious Vendetta about?
Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy.
Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they’re needed most … the place where the perfect book will find its way home.
Now Mim has arrived in wonderful Venice, city of canals, palaces, bridges, boats and … quarrels. Gondolier battles, cat-nappings and laundry theft are just the beginning. The Magnifico family and the Forte family are at war.
Mim knows they’re here to help the feuding families. To show them a better way to behave. To bring an end to the vicious vendetta.
If only Mim could find each of them the right book. If only they’d all stop reading the wrong books.
Interview
What was your inspiration for Silver Linings?
My maternal grandparents lived on a farm. Their six-month-old son, Billy, grew ill but, tragically, the hospital was so distant, he died before they could get proper medical help. By the time my grandmother, Alice, returned to the farm, well-meaning women had swooped into the house and removed all vestiges of Billy. They believed it was best to forget the baby and forge on. However, three booties were missed in the clean-out. Alice found them and treasured them her entire life, keeping them wrapped in tissue paper in her dressing table drawer until she died at 91 years of age.
The story of Billy’s booties, and all the love, loss and grieving associated with them, inspired Silver Linings.
What drew you to writing for middle grade?
Until a few years ago I wrote exclusively for primary-aged students. When I started writing my first novel about children’s experiences of war, it became apparent that the content was quite intense and a better fit for middle grade readers rather than my younger primary readers. I really enjoy writing a range of stories, both serious and light-hearted, and for different audiences.
What was your process for writing Silver Linings?
I took my mother on a road trip where we visited the people and places of her childhood. We talked a lot and I made piles of notes about family, funny happenings and 1950s life in general.
Then taking the true stories, I planned my own fictional tale, putting Billy’s loss at the centre of it all and scattering family anecdotes throughout. It was an interesting process to be writing about a fictional family and my own real family at the same time.
How did you choose which character to focus the story on?
Little Nettie Sweeney was always going to be the focus as I wanted her to be the keen but sometimes confused observer of all that went on. This allowed for humour, sorrow and a certain amount of gentleness in the way I dealt with the tragic and traumatic issues that sit at the centre of the novel.
What is your approach to world and character building?
I spend a lot of time daydreaming, playing little movies in my head, making notes, scrawling mind maps, drawing pictures. Creating my main characters is central to my process and I always complete detailed character profiles before writing. And of course, for a story like Silver Linings, set in a real place and inspired by real people, those true elements influence my imaginings and creating.
By the time I start writing the story, I know my characters really well, and I have a vivid image of the world in which they live.
Did you have a favourite moment to write in Silver Linings?
Yes, the visit to the cemetery was really a special scene to write. I sobbed as I wrote that list. Actually, I sobbed through the whole chapter.
At the other end of the emotional spectrum, I absolutely loved writing about Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Lismore – both the lead-up and the actual event. I had so much fun with the children’s excitement and their bizarre behaviour.
How would you describe Silver Linings in five words?
Laughter, love, loss, healing, wholeness.
What was your inspiration for the Travelling Bookshop series?
It started with the idea of a travelling lolly shop in a hot air balloon. The balloon would have to go wherever the wind took it, which would always be to the place where the lollies were needed. But lollies aren’t really needed, are they?
I was chatting with my publisher and said, ‘I don’t suppose it needs to be lollies. It could be something else … like books.’ The minute I said ‘books’, I knew that was the story: The Travelling Bookshop! Because books are needed. Books really do change lives.
From there, it was just a matter of daydreaming, brainstorming and problem solving. The balloon became a caravan drawn by Flossy, the horse. Flossy would decide where to take the bookshop. The family frolicked into being – Mim, Nat and Zeddy (Dad). And then, of course, I started choosing locations. I began writing The Travelling Bookshop during Covid lockdowns, so it was wonderful to travel around Europe with the Cohens.
How did you choose Mim to be the main character of the series with her family?
I’m not really sure, to be honest. A main character often grows bit by bit depending on the demands of the story and the whims of my imagination. I often have a girl as my narrator because it comes naturally to write from a female point of view. I wanted my main character to be kind, resourceful and intelligent, but also relatable as a normal child. And I wanted all three Cohens to be rather eccentric and fun-loving. They’d have to be to enjoy living in a mildly magical travelling bookshop!
I also have a number of key activities I do before starting any book, to develop/understand my main characters. By the time I’d finished Mim’s profile, she was very real to me.
What inspired Mim and the Vicious Vendetta?
I wanted to take the Cohens to Venice because it’s an astonishing city, and a big part of each story is the travel-adventure element.
Then, of course, there had to be a big problem at the centre of the story. Ages ago I brainstormed a number of these big problems for the Cohens to encounter and gave them each an alliterative name. It just happened to be time for The Vicious Vendetta – the story about two families that had been arguing forever and didn’t know how to stop. Venice made this storyline great fun – especially because I started with that tussle between the two gondoliers. I do love a scene that ends up with people falling in the water!
What was your favourite book growing up?
Clifford the Big Red Dog. I longed for my own giant dog to ride around town. Although, I would have liked my dog to be blue.
Do you have a favourite genre to read?
Humorous fiction. I adore those golden oldies, Gerald Durrell, Nancy Mitford, A.A. Milne, Jane Austen and P.G. Wodehouse, and just love finding contemporary stories told with quirkiness and humour – like those by Jonas Jonassen and Marina Lewycka.
Leave a Reply