Alli Sinclair and her love for travel

Avid traveller and overseas explorer, Alli Sinclair based her first three books in exotic destinations with a dance theme flowing through them. Her latest book, The Burning Fields is based in North Queensland and has an historical storyline to fall in love with.

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Transcript

Sarah Williams:            Welcome to Write With Love, I’m Sarah Williams, best selling author, speaker, and creative entrepreneur. Each week, I chat to passionate and inspiring authors about their journey in creative writing. Some are traditionally published, some do it themselves. Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone has something interesting to say. We all love, love, and love what we do. Today’s show is brought to you by our amazing fans and supporters on Patreon. If you’d like to help support the show, and get some awesome bonus episodes, go to Patreon.com/SarahWilliamsAuthor to learn more. Now, here’s today’s show.

Sarah Williams:            G’day, I’m Sarah Williams, romance author and [inaudible 00:00:53] publishers at Serenade Publishing. Today, I’m chatting to Alli Sinclair. Thanks for joining me today, Alli.

Alli Sinclair:                  Hi, thank you for having me.

Sarah Williams:            No drama. Can you introduce yourself, and tell us a little bit about yourself, and your writing journey so far?

Alli Sinclair:                  My name’s Alli Sinclair, I’m Australian born. I’ve lived overseas in Peru, Argentina, and Canada. Spent a lot of time traveling the globe, working as a tour guide, and mountain climbing guide as well. A bit settled now, back in Australia. I live in Southern Australia, and mother of two kids.

Sarah Williams:            When did your first book come out?

Alli Sinclair:                  First book was Luna Tango, and it came out in August 2014.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant. That was also the year you won your, or were nominated for a favorite new romance author by Australian Romance Readers Association.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, for that book.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, so it was quite the year, quite the introduction to being published, that’s for sure. It was amazing.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Did you pitch to a publisher for that one. Tell us about how that all happened.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, actually I had an agent, who she pitched my Luna Tango to Harlequin Australia. But, I also had an idea for a couple of other books. We decided to just go for it, and just pitch the three books, and they loved the idea for all three, so Harlequin decided to sign me on for that. Which, that was just such an amazing experience. Getting that phone call, I’m running around the house like crazy, screaming, and yeah, it was quite the moment.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Have those books just been published in Australia, or around the world?

Alli Sinclair:                  No, being published around the world. I have my books also published over in the States, Canada, and UK with Kensington Books. Then, I’ve also had some books translated into German, and recently Serbian.

Sarah Williams:            Wow, Serbian.

Alli Sinclair:                  I know, it’s great.

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome, wow. You’ve got all these different translations, so how did that process, did they just say, hey, we want to put it in German or Serbian?

Alli Sinclair:                  My publisher over in the States, Kensington, have a really strong foreign writer’s department. What they do is, they go through the books, and they figure out which ones might suit which market. Then, they have an agent over in that particular country. For example, in Germany there’s a German agent who has all the contacts for the German publishers. Publishers, I don’t know how many publishers read my book, but one definitely bought it, so that got translated and it went really well. They’ve now bought a second book, and that one is going to be published, I think April next year.

Alli Sinclair:                  Too, it was really pretty amazing, firsts, all the firsts that you get. You have all these dreams, and then you want them to happen, but you don’t expect them to happen. One of my dreams was to be published in German, and also to be published in hardcover, and boys and girls, show and tell. This is the German version, and they’ve actually published it in hardcover, and it even has its own [inaudible 00:04:28].

Sarah Williams:            That is so cute.

Alli Sinclair:                  That was a super, super duper special moment, I must say.

Sarah Williams:            It is. Tell us about your books. They all have a dancing theme running through them, don’t they?

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, well, the first three definitely do, yep. The first one is set in Argentina, and is around the Tango. The second one is set in Spain, and about flamenco, and then the third one is set in ballet. In ballet, in Paris, and it’s about the ballet, the Russian ballet.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic.

Alli Sinclair:                  But, I like to weave in a lot of history into my books. Sorry.

Sarah Williams:            No, no, keep going. I was gonna follow that line anyway [crosstalk 00:05:15].

Alli Sinclair:                  Yes, in my first three, I definitely had dance are in there, but you don’t have to be a dancer to appreciate them by any means. Then, my next book is a little bit different, in that it is an Australian historical, but it’s also mixed in with an Italian story in 1943.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant, so a little bit of historical happening there as well.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yes, I love my history. My history teacher will be very proud of me.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. Tell us about this next book that’s coming out, the Burning Fields. Of course, it’s set in North Queensland, which is where I’m from, or just moved from. Tell us how you were inspired to write that book, and what it’s about.

Alli Sinclair:                  Ideas come from the weirdest places. This one came to me fully formed while I was doing the dishes. Just, obviously I was not very involved in doing the dishes. My brain wasn’t anyway. Yeah, it just came to me fully formed. As soon as I did the dishes, I just sat down, and for two hours, just wrote this story that had been growing in me, that I didn’t even know. Then, so now you’ve got Burning Fields. Load of drafts, and drafts afterwards, you have Burning Fields. I wanted to, this time around, I wanted to set something in Australia.

Alli Sinclair:                  I think we had a lot of really fantastic stories that we can tell, and because I am drawn to our history, I wanted to tell a story, or two stories really, in this book, that may not be told, or not said so often. This story is set in 1948, and is about Rosie, who was working for the war effort, has now returned to her family farm, and she’s finding it just really hard. Because, she’s mid 20s, she’s getting on the shelf. There’s expectations on her to marry, but she’s had this taste of independence, and she really just wants to continue exploring all the different opportunities that she had prior, when all the men were at war.

Alli Sinclair:                  Then, she meets Thomas, who is an Italian, who has immigrated to Australia, and he’s got his own little story going on there, and lots of mystery behind his actually background, which gets revealed throughout the story. But, I think in Australia, we’ve got such an interesting immigration story, and also the story of our women post war, which is two things that really appealed to me. Then, the more I started looking into it, the more I knew this was definitely the story that I wanted to tell.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. I’m guessing with the burning fields, we’re talking about the sugarcane, and how they burn [crosstalk 00:08:24].

Alli Sinclair:                  Yes. I just, I don’t know why, I just find sugarcane really romantic as a backdrop. We’ll ignore all the creepy crawlies underneath, and in between the sugarcane. But, I just, I’m really visual when I write my stories, and I think with North Queensland, it just, it’s such a beautifully visual place, that it just makes sense to set the story there, and I just knew right from the get go, that was where the story needed to be.

Sarah Williams:            No, it’s, I remember reading Elianne by Judy Nunn a few years ago, and I actually met her, and I’m like, why did you write that book up in Babinda, or Tully, or in Innisfail. Because, I was living in Townsville at the time. She’s like, well, I had friends in Bundaberg, so it made more sense. It is, it’s very romantic, and it’s spectacular to see them burning the sugarcane, and getting rid of all the insects, and rats, and those sorts of yucky things. But, really beautiful pictures, and I do love your cover too. Your cover is spectacular.

Alli Sinclair:                  Thank you. I always like to take credit, but no. [inaudible 00:09:40] at Harlequin popped it together, and it’s just I love this color so much. In case anyone wanted to see it. It just depicts the story perfectly. I don’t, it couldn’t be anymore perfect in my eyes, anyway. I just love it.

Sarah Williams:            Harlequin, they picked you up for the first three, which would have been so, Luna Tango, what were the other the two?

Alli Sinclair:                  Under the Spanish Stars, Beneath the Persian Skies.

Sarah Williams:            There we go, beautiful names. They’re doing this one as well for you, so they’ve done four. That’s awesome.

Alli Sinclair:                  I’m contracted for another one that will come out next year, more than likely.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent, so we have more to wait for.

Alli Sinclair:                  More to write.

Sarah Williams:            We still write them first.

Alli Sinclair:                  Exactly.

Sarah Williams:            In all this spare time that you have, you also do, you’re based in Victoria, so you do some work for the Victorian’s Writer Center, and you’re in workshops mentoring?

Alli Sinclair:                  Yes, yes. That’s nother aspect I really love, and it seems to be growing. I take workshops for Victorian, writers of Victoria, sorry. I do manuscript assessment, and mentoring, and I love it. It’s, gosh, you find some gems, and it’s really great to be able to interact with other writers. Because, even though I’m there teaching a workshop, I also learn as well. We all have this amazing exchange of ideas. Because, writers all have different backgrounds, and experiences, and we all have something to bring to the table. Whether we’re starting out, or we’ve been doing it forever and a day. That’s one of the things I really love about writing is, there’s always something new to learn. I enjoy that.

Sarah Williams:            Absolutely, and this week you just announced that you’re going to take a writer’s at sea cruise, so tell us about that, and how we can get involved.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, it’s very exciting. My good friend T.M. Clark, Tim Murray, we are organizing a writer’s workshop at sea on the 30th of August, and it’s on the Carnival Spirit, and we’ll be sailing to Noumea. We’ll be doing workshops onboard, we’ll be doing mentoring. We’ll also be doing writing sprints, and many different aspects. Not just the craft, but also things like how do you make the most out of the time that you have, in terms of writing, and making the most of it that spare hour, or spare 20 minutes that you have. Because, everyone’s strapped for time.

Alli Sinclair:                  We’re going to be covering quite a few different topics. I think, also just the chance for writers to go, and somewhere where they can hang out with like minded people, and they can work on their craft, and all they have to worry about is, oh gosh, am I gonna have the pasta for dinner, or do I want the salad? That’s the biggest decision that you’ve got for a whole week. Plus, it’ll be, well, hopefully, I suppose I can’t control that, but we’ve chosen a good time of year, so fingers crossed. But, yeah, so sun, sea, writing, it’s a pretty good combination.

Sarah Williams:            Are you gonna, hopefully, do more of these next year?

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, we want to make it an annual event, because not everyone can afford to do it every year. But, it’s definitely something that we would love to run on a regular basis. Hopefully, people get a chance, when they can, to do it.

Sarah Williams:            Of course, you’re take the cruise, which goes to Noumea and New Caledonia, so that’s [crosstalk 00:13:40] I was there a couple of years ago, and I definitely said, I have to come back here.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, I’m a bit of a serial cruiser. There was a thing, like the one I was on last year, I was just like, we just need to make this happen. We just need to make this retreat happen. We’ve been talking about it for ages, and yeah, so we put all the planning in, everything’s in place now, so now it’s just a matter of getting on there and doing it.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic, so are there any prerequisites for people, do they need a first draft, or anything like that, or can they be a complete novice?

Alli Sinclair:                  No, we wanted to open it up to everyone, because there will be one-on-one time as well, that we’ll be able to spend with people. We do, we will be asking if, for people to give us 10 pages, and a synopsis. Then we can go from there, and spend some one-on-one time, and work with them through that, and brainstorm, and that kind of thing. But, the workshops themselves, we’re gonna open it up to everyone at different levels, because we all learn something. We can all learn something, so we wanted to make it so anyone could come along. Better if you’ve got a bit of an idea as to what you’re gonna write. But, you can be entirely inspired to come up with something totally different.

Sarah Williams:            It’s always like that, that’s brilliant. You’re also involved in Books in Homes. Tell us about that.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, Books in Homes is a really amazing organization. I’m a volunteer there, and what they do is, they work in conjunction with authors, and publishers, and receive donations of books. Mainly, aimed at primary school children in remote areas, or in areas where the families may not have the means to buy books. They’ve discovered, through experience, and also a whole lot of different things that they’ve researched, that if kids own a book, they tend to read it. There’s that sense of ownership, and their literacy actually increase quite dramatically.

Alli Sinclair:                  They work with schools over, say a 12 month period, and kids actually get a list of say, two or three books that they can choose from. Once a term, an author comes along and hands out the books, and actually, kids get the books that they want. Then, they take it home, and they read it with their parents. The teachers actually notice a massive difference, in terms of their being engaged in reading, and their literacy level is going up. It’s a fantastic organization, real amazing.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. I was talking to Josephine Moon a couple of weeks ago. She was talking about the people who take dogs in, and they read to the kids with dogs.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, I met someone the other day who does that. It’s amazing.

Sarah Williams:            It’s brilliant. We’ve got some failing literacy scores, I guess you can say, in Australia. It definitely does need to go up. Really, anything we can do to help these kids to read. [inaudible 00:16:53] as always, we might as well, they’re are future readers.

Alli Sinclair:                  Yeah, exactly right.

Sarah Williams:            They might not want to read our books right now. That’s brilliant. Awesome, so what are you working on at the moment?

Alli Sinclair:                  I am working on a book, surprise, surprise. This one is set in the same fictional town as Burning Fields, but in a different era. This one is, has, I didn’t really write too much, but there’s a bit of Hollywood glamour in this one. But, there’s a connection to rural Australia as well. I’m about 65,000 words in, so I’m getting there. But, it’s pretty research intensive as always with my books. I’ve found some really interesting little gems, which I’ve been able to weave into the story. I’m working on that one at the moment, and it doesn’t have a title, so I’ve kind of, that book that will not end. That’s the title.

Sarah Williams:            That’s fantastic. Well, where can we find online, Alli?

Alli Sinclair:                  You can usually tell when I’m under deadline, so I’m on Facebook way too often, under Alli Sinclair author. I also got my website, which is www.AliSinclair.com, and if you’re after some information about the writing retreat, I’ve also got that there under the writing retreat banner. I’m on Instagram as well, under gosh, Alli, I think it’s, _Sinclair. Twitter, occasionally [crosstalk 00:18:45].

Sarah Williams:            Good, because also I’m really looking forward to reading the Burning Fields, which is out 21 May.

Alli Sinclair:                  Thank you.

Sarah Williams:            If it’s not already out as this goes live, it will be very soon. Yay, well, thank you so much for that, Alli, it was great.

Alli Sinclair:                  Thank you so much for having me.

Sarah Williams:            Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Jump onto my website, SarahWilliamsAuthor.com, and join my mailing list to receive a free preview of my books, and lots of inspiration. If you like the show, and want it to continue, you can become a sponsor for just a couple of dollars a month. Go to Patreon.com/SarahWilliamsAuthor to find out more. Remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to you my YouTube channel, and leave a review of the podcast. I’ll be back next week with another loved up episode, bye.