There are so many things I love about reading books by Australian authors, not least the amazing Australian-ness of their books, even when they’re not actually set in our country. They write with language and experiences that I connect with. I can often feel that a certain book was written by an Australian, even if it’s not set here. There’s something subtly different about the way Australian authors write, compared to, say, American authors. But, hands down, my favourite thing to find in one of these books is that it’s set in, or mentions, real life places I actually know. I don’t know about you, but it’s always such a rush for me.
Author David Metzenthen writes books set in Melbourne, a city I obviously know of, although I’ve not visited it yet. But it feels authentically Australian, in line with what I’ve experience in other Australian cities, which is both familiar, and a little trippy to experience in the pages of a book. Claire Zorn has written books set in several places I have visited, like Shoalhaven, or, (I think I’m remembering rightly) the Blue Mountains. I don’t know why it’s so exciting to have real places that I know of or have visited in books. But there’s something so exciting about reading a book and going ‘oh, I know that place’. Does anyone else ever feel like that?
As a writer, I haven’t yet written anything set in Australia myself. I don’t write in the contemporary genre, which usually calls for a real world-esque setting, and I don’t much like using real world locations for my other stories. (I’m a lazy researcher, and having to research real world location to make sure I get them correct just doesn’t appeal to me.) But, recently, I’ve been starting to wonder whether it would be worth actually trying to write something that’s set in Australia, in a place I know and that other Australians might recognise, either by the feel, or the name? . Wouldn’t it be nice to write a book set in my area, with all the history I’ve grown up with, and all the amazing places I have seen, and share these with both the people who know this place, and those who might never come here?
There are so many stories that could be told, and it would be so exciting to put the names of my hometowns in a book. Wouldn’t it be cool to share another part of Australia with Aussie readers, and give them some books set in their own country (I swear I must be looking in all the wrong places because it’s SO hard to find any of those), and in some of the places that they might know? It’s certainly a tempting thought. I get so excited seeing real life places I know in the fiction I read. It would be nice to one day give someone else that same feeling.
Do you get excited when you see places you know put into books? Have you ever considered writing a book set in your local area? What’s one place or country you wish more people set stories in?
